Tag: Eccliesiastical abuse

Fallible Men, Empathy, and the Podcasters’ Resignation

On By lisatorcassodowningIn authority, ecclesiastical abuse, faith transition, faith crisis3 Comments

UNDER THREAT of excommunication, the high profile wife/husband team behind the Latter-day Struggles podcast, which caters to the mental health needs of LDS Church members, is resigning their membership in order to prevent their being “burned at the stake center.”  Valerie Hamaker (a licensed therapist) and her husband Nathan have received an official letter calling them to a proverbial “court of love.” We all know what that means. 

I’ve listened to the Latter-day Struggles podcast since its inception. Let’s be clear about who the Hamakers are. They are active members who are raising their children in the LDS Church and who have been wrestling with local leaders for 18 months, hoping to remain on the membership rolls. Therapist Valerie and Nathan, her sidekick, use the podcast to address “beliefs and issues within the LDS faith that are challenging to talk about but vital to discuss for those trying to navigate their relationship in or around the Church.” Unfortunately, however, the couple have lost in the game of leadership roulette. Listen to their episode 313 for the details, but the gist is that their local leaders are uninformed about spiritual development, misunderstand it, and would excommunicate the healer (and her husband) rather than learn from her, which leaves me wondering what they envision the mission of the Savior to have been.

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Build the McKinney Temple According to Fairview’s Ordinance, or No, I Won’t Help Deluge the City Planner with 15,000 Emails

On By lisatorcassodowningIn Temple7 Comments

THIS ISN’T GOING to win me any friends locally. I may live within the boundaries of a fantastic stake and have one of the kindest, gentlest men I’ve ever known as my stake president, but I’m also in north Texas, near Fairview, where the LDS Church hopes to build the McKinney Temple. I am endowed and sealed, and I sustain my stake president. In this case, that requires me to refuse to do something I find out of the line with the gospel of Jesus Christ and contrary to the mission of the LDS Church. For clarity, I no longer hold a temple recommend because my familiarity with its historic connections to problematic, early Mormon polygamy make it uncomfortable for me to be there. My disinterest in participating in temple rituals disinclined me to speak on the controversy surrounding the proposed temple, all of which hinges on the fact that it’s height would require an exemption from current city ordinances. Yesterday, however, at 3:58 pm, I received an email that I found compromising and manipulative, asking me to help flood the Fairview City Planner with emails–15,000 to be exact. This pulls me into the issue in a personal way and so I’ve decided to throw caution to the wind.

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LDS Men, No More Passes for Your Wrong-headed Obedience

On By lisatorcassodowningIn Abuse, authority, Children, ecclesiastical abuse, Mormon Feminism13 Comments

TODAY I DIRECT MY THOUGHTS primarily towards the men who hold the LDS priesthood because two recent events have garnered my attention, in part for the way each involves decisions made by LDS men. The first is the child sex abuse civil lawsuit against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which was just dismissed by an Arizona judge, and the second is the sudden ending of a San Francisco Bay Area tradition that had Relief Society (RS) presidents sitting beside bishoprics during Sacrament meetings. The decisions I’d like to focus on are not those made by the men considered to have high authority in the Church (or their attorneys), but the decisions of the local leaders to obey them, even in situations where they know obeying them is not only wrong but could bring harm to others. 

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