Women and Authority - with Valerie Hamaker

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Inside Out. I'm your co-host Ian Wilkes, and the other co-host, this handsome fella that we've got here, is the internationally renowned Mormon Tabernacle Choir singer And fresh back from Argentina, Mr. Jim Bennett. Hello, Jim.

Hello, Ian. How are you?

I'm good, sir. How are you?

Muy bien, gracias. Oh, hey. Yes, I'm now multilingual. That's what happened.

You've been in Argentina with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. How was that? And did you sing in Spanish?

We did. Well, I assume we were singing in Spanish. We read what was on the teleprompters. And I didn't understand any of it, or most of it I didn't understand, but, uh, seemed to be well received and it was a lovely experience.

Well, great. Um, that's wonderful. And we, can we see that recorded then on the church website?

Is that— I think so. Well, they did a live stream of it and the Spanish language version, or at least the one that was broadcast into Spanish speaking countries, had over a million views after a couple of days.

All right.

And the English, the English version, or the one that was broadcast into, uh, the United States had significantly fewer views. But, but I think it's, I think it's still up there. Yeah. I haven't watched it. I would love to see it because there's all these beautiful, you know, scenery behind me and there's this digital screen and, you know, I'm just standing there trying to not mispronounce Spanish words I don't understand. So I, I'd kind of like to take a look at it. So I hope it's up there.

Well, I'm interested in listening to that for sure. Well, Jim, today we have a very special guest with us, uh, someone who came onto our podcast actually back in April and somebody who can help us answer some really interesting questions, including whether or not women have any real authority in the Mormon Church. And there's a few other questions that we want to get into as well. So welcome back, Valerie Haneker. Hello, Valerie.

Hi, thank you for having me. It's always so fun to talk to the two of you.

Well, it's a real honor to have you back. For the benefit of our listeners, could you give a little bit of a reminder of your background, including a little bit about your Latter-day Struggles YouTube podcast, if you will? Sure. Yeah.

So I, yes, my name is Valerie Hammacher and I am the host of the Latter-day Struggles podcast. My husband Nathan is the co-host, and unfortunately he has a day job, so he doesn't get to come on these recordings when I get to be guests on different podcasts during the day. He's off, off doing his other, his other jobs. So that's, uh, that's what he and I do sort of for fun together. And it's also my job. I'm a licensed professional counselor that sort of, my private practice began doing counseling, uh, primarily with Latter-day Saints, and then it sort of evolved. Into, uh, this podcast platform just because of the enormous need that was quickly apparent as soon as I started this podcast. I talk about the intersection between psychology and spirituality and relationship, and as a lifelong member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I I care a lot about this tradition, enough actually to talk about the hard things. And that put us on the radar of the leadership of the church. And we were, well, I don't know how you, I guess it depends on the perspective, but Nathan and I sort of felt a little bit compelled or forced to resign our membership because we were called to an excommunication council, and we felt that this was unethical and something we weren't really wanting to participate in because of the integrity that went into and continues to go into all of the work that we do. And so we had to resign our membership in March of 2025. And yet at the same time, we're better than ever. Our platform is thriving and we are I think, doing a great deal of good in the world and really trying to help people in and around The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints become psychologically healthy and spiritually whole. So I feel very, very honored for the work that I get to do. And I really love chances to talk about it with people like you.

Well, we are honored to have you here with us today. And you did the, you came on the first time back in April and Jim, you recall we had a wonderful conversation. Absolutely. We've had an extraordinary response, and we commented on the extraordinary work that you and Nathan was doing to help people, Valerie, on that first conversation that we had. I remember when we did meet in April, I shared briefly my experience as a bishop and later as a stake presidency that I, you know, when I helped run an entire ward and a stake I did it somewhat differently to my peers and counterparts. I had no issue about authority. I'm just not that kind of person. I'm really not bothered about authority. I prefer to delegate authority. I'm the kind of guy that wants very little intervention in terms of people making decisions. I want to empower people to make decisions. I do that in my life, in my family, and in my work. And so I was very— struggled with the decision-making process when I was a bishop. Uh, I, we had this particular process that you had to follow. And remember, bishops get trained, they meet with the stake presidency every 3 months. Uh, the stake presidency gets trained by general authorities and throughout the entire, uh, training program, there is this priesthood male-led ecclesiastical decision-making process. It's kind of, uh, not discussed directly, but it is there. And it's the, it's this main thread. This big thread that runs through the entire tapestry of every auxiliary and every organization within the church. As a bishop, I don't recall, um, any or very many, uh, uh, official processes which allowed women, um, to make unilateral decisions of any consequence. You know, if we were talking about young women's plans or budgets or welfare, Relief Society plans, uh, all the women in the church when they met as a leadership or auxiliary, any decisions that they were going to make, it was almost always passed back to the bishop or the bishopric and ultimately the bishop for final review and decision. That was the process, the official process. I didn't follow that process. I think I mentioned on an earlier podcast, my, one of my best counselors actually were my Relief Society presidents. I get some of the best counsel from Young Women's, from a Relief Society president, and I valued their perspective enormously. You know, when you're dealing with a male priesthood-led kind of thinking, you, you can miss stuff and you don't get that broader perspective. And so I stepped outside of that decision-making process. And my counsel or advice, again, I'm using that ecclesiastical word counsel, which is entrenched in me still to some extent. But my recommendations were to the women in the church is, you know, make your own decisions. But there was that situation where certain decisions had to come back through the bishop or through the stake presidency. Uh, what's your take on that, um, in terms of, uh, equality, uh, the value that women bring to the decision-making process? What's your thoughts? What would you change? What have you seen in respect to that?

Well, first of all, what kind of come— came up for me as I was listening is how I share some of your background experience in that I was a Relief Society president in my ward, uh, called as very young woman in my very, very early 30s. And I have to say, I worked with a wonderful bishop and I felt very valued. I really, really do. He would say sometimes, you know, I have a couple of counselors, but you are my first counselor. And so I love the fact that although there's a lot of complexity that comes with this conversation, that in, individual relationships and moments, some of us can say that we, we feel, uh, as if we were regarded and respected and that our voice mattered. And I guess I want to just lead with that because I think that there are some, some significant and profound organizational problems connected to, uh, institutional patriarchies that I will talk about that, and I think that's— I'm headed there in just a second. But also, just to complicate this a little bit, I think that it's also possible that concurrently there can be relationships, uh, in wards and stakes or, you know, marriages or whatever, where you have a woman and a man, and there may be sort of like the formal rules around how things are done. And yet you have human beings that deep in their core want equality and long for it and sort of give up or sort of surrender like their need for power, or they behave differently on the ground. And so to me, that's just, I guess it's a witness of no matter what you put in place institutionally, human beings oftentimes are, because we're children of God and we're divine, we lean more towards that which is good, right, and true, which is equality. Okay, so I start with that, and then I'm going to move over to the, you know, the messier stuff. To answer your question, Ian, I think about religious institutions as on their best days, they are created to be a place where people go to grow and develop, to become made over in the image of God. And I mean God in a very general term, the, you know, the God of your understanding, right? And so if that's truly what human beings long for and why many of us go to places of community worship, then what I hope is happening there is that human beings, women and men, are given opportunities to cultivate all of their potential in this space. And therefore, if that is what they want and that is what the institution is giving them, then independent of gender, people ought to be given opportunities to grow and evolve, which means to both lead and to follow, to be the idea maker and creator, and also to be someone that learns how to take in ideas and be a collaborator. And so if, if we are truly about the work of the development of the soul of the individual, that's what these institutions ought to be looking at and striving for. And so I think that's where we're finding the disconnect here, is that on the one hand, it's like, yeah, we want this church to serve everyone and, you know, help everybody get back to heaven, right? And yet at the same time, there are institutional barriers that hurt both the women and the men when you have a a power hierarchy where the hierarchy is based on some arbitrary external something that really has actually nothing to do with the soul of the individual. It just has to do with an external construct, which in this case is gender. And in our church, it's also been race sometimes. And so that right there is sort of, I guess, my initial response. And I want to pause and just see if you have any follow-up before I, you know, go on and on.

No, I think that's, I think that's a really, uh, excellent response. Uh, I wanna bring Jim in here as well, but when I was a bishop, I remember, um, struggling with this entire decision-making process. Um, other bishops didn't seem to have problem with it, but I did. And I remember, uh, Jim, when I was, uh, a bishop, I think I'll share this with you. I met with the youth, you know, the young women, young men. And we talked about— and I was with my Relief Society president side by side as partners— we talked about the equality, uh, and about the, the, uh, the attributes that we, we all have, we all possess. And of course there are different, uh, physiological, physiological differences. We didn't get into detail of those, but we talked about the importance of how, um, uh, boys and girls and men and women should respect each other and be kind to each other and treat each other as equals. This is many, many years ago. I was just a young bishop. I think I would've done a much more comprehensive job if I was a bishop now, but this is a young bishop trying his best to try to deal with that equality issue way back before it even probably came as a bigger, more known issue today. Jim Bennett, from your perspective, and I want to connect back with any thoughts you've got to what Valérie is saying, You served on a bishopric. You worked with women, young women, sisters in the ward. What was your perspective on the decision-making process, and can you tie that back to what Valerie's saying?

Sure. Well, I've been in two bishoprics, both which I think had very different approaches to how they value women's counsel. And I felt kind of awkward because I was given assignments to do youth interviews with young women And, you know, those are the ones that people like Sam Young and everybody else were really uncomfortable with. And I was, I was really uncomfortable doing them, particularly since I didn't have any authority. You know, if, if, uh, somebody were to confess something to me in any one of those interviews, um, that, that happened once and it was really kind of embarrassing. And I just thought, I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this. But I mean, getting back to what Valerie is saying, I think, you know, I'm not sure who was it who said this. I think it was Dan McClellan, but I said, if you have to keep telling people that they are equal, then they are not equal. And we do that in the church so much. We, I mean, when we talk about, oh, well, we value your input. Oh, we value very much. You are my greatest counselor. I mean, that's better than the alternative, but it's still not equality. It's still not, you know, Janis Spangler in the Inconvenient Faith documentary that just came out this last week. Her line is, there was never a moment in my participation in the church where I could not be overruled by a man. And that, I think, is the central problem here, is that We're talking about, okay, well, what are better ways we could include women? What are better ways we can more value women? But none of these really approach the idea that women are equal participants. And, you know, and I think Valerie, you had said something along these lines, you know, but that the only way that women can be given power in the church is for men to give it up. I mean, men have to voluntarily say, we are going to share our power with women. And I don't see any other route to that kind of equality unless something like that happens. Am I misquoting you or misparaphrasing you, Valerie?

No, that's exactly right. And that's probably one of the reasons why I have felt such a like, passion is probably an appropriate word, to be talking about patriarchy from the perspective of how it impacts men. And the reason why is because I see the system as it is, is it's, it's men have the power, and it is a big ask to ask those in power to willfully give it up or give it away. And yet at the same time, the only way systemic reform can happen is if those in power start seeing the impact that the structure has, even on those with the most privilege. And so there, we can talk forever about the impact that patriarchy has on women, but at the end of the day, although I don't think that's not valuable, I think that is valuable, but in some ways we've, we have that discourse pretty well established in the LDS faith. And yet at the same time, not much has been said about the psychological, relational, and spiritual impact that patriarchal systems have on the development of men, that in some ways it seems as if there's no downside to the development of the man in a patriarchal hierarchical system. And yet there's a lot. Of impact on men. It impacts them profoundly in, in many, many ways. And until that, uh, is exposed, then it's really hard to get a buy-in from men. And the thing that I have noticed in the work that I do, especially when I do these growth and processing groups that I've been so heavily involved in since I started my platform, I've always got men in there, uh, more so women because women are more relational, they're more willing to sort of sit in a group setting and be vulnerable. So That's right there, a default position of what patriarchy teaches. But at the same time, there always are men in there. And in every case, what these men have done by showing up and going on a faith journey is they are surrendering privilege. They're surrendering power. They're surrendering, uh, something that probably their peers and their parents and their loved ones, uh, want to see in them, which is priesthood promotion, right? And in some ways, they're surrendering something even larger than what the church offers them, which is sort of a baked-in understanding that as a man, I have more power. And they're recognizing in some way, shape, or form that this doesn't serve me. And also, I think for some of them, they step into a deeper integrity that says, even if in some ways it does serve me, it's not worth it because it doesn't speak to who I truly am at my core. And that's why I care so much about talking about this, because I care about the growth of the soul of every individual, female and male. I care about how it's harming people and stagnating their development in our church system and how it actually just hurts people in general because we're so deeply, part of a patriarchal Western world. And, and it's, it, it, it's so pervasive as to be sometimes invisible.

Yeah.

Excellent. Uh, the Mormon Church is a male priesthood, uh, patriarchally organized, structured, uh, business religious organization, women don't really have any real authority in the church, in my opinion. Not really. I would describe it as, from my experience, token authority. To Jim Bennett's point, uh, and quoting you, Valerie, you know, uh, women have authority if they're given it to— get it to them by a, by a man. Um, I remember when I was, um, made the decision to invite my Relief Society president and the counselors to counsel me on a whole range of different issues, there were men in the ward who questioned my judgment. Why am I using a woman, uh, for counsel? Why am I going to a woman for a counsel? I, I took that individual to the side and had very direct and very firm words and explained very clearly that The Relief Society president and the counselors provide extraordinary insight and help in regards to all range of issues, and I will and continue to use them as, uh, equal counselors. Um, it didn't put me in good favor with some of the male individuals, and I think that is because in the church, in my opinion, from my experience in leadership, there are some men who are threatened by women. They feel insecure and they don't see the importance and value that women can bring to the decision-making process. They think it's, um, you know, it's not needed. And I think there are men in the church that feel like that and behave like that. Um, if you look at many of the key decisions, if not all of them or most of them, it's predominantly, uh, decisions made by, by men. And these decisions impact every member's lives at every level. When you and I were corresponding, Valerie, back and forward on the email, we talked about gender equality and how does the church reconcile rights of gender equality and treating women as equals and fair, et cetera. And we also talked about the decision to change the style and design of garments,, and Jim and I understand that there's been a reaction in the church from some women in respect to those changes. Jim, you and I also did a podcast, a few podcasts a while back on some of the surveys that the church has put together, the survey questionnaires that we've, I think we did 3 podcasts. And if I recall correctly, there was a question or two in there about whether or not women should have authority or priesthood authority or what is the role of women. I can't, Specifically remember those questions. Uh, but Valerie, what's your, uh, thoughts on that? Uh, those points that I made, uh, do you see that some men are threatened by women, that they feel insecure? Uh, do you feel that, um, what would change, should change in regards to women being involved in the decision-making process? And then Jim, if you could speak to, uh, the church survey that we talked about a while back in respect to the church asking questions or canvassing opinion about whether women should have more rights and powers and authority in the church.

Yeah, so a couple things that come up for me as I was listening to you is, first of all, referencing the conversation you had with the gentleman who was critical with you for treating a woman in the ward as an equal, uh, who was also in a leadership position. I mean, I think what What emerges for me is a couple of things. First of all, it's a little bit of like sadness because I think about how this man comes by his response honestly. Like, men are taught from boyhood that they are in some ways superior. And I'm sure they're not like, you know, nobody sits down and says those exact words, but that is what is communicated even from a very young age in an authoritarian patriarchy, right? This idea of stewardship over and leadership, and you are the, you are the one that needs to be counted on. What is implicit in all of those ways of teaching a boy and then a young man is that there is something essentially wiser, stronger, superior to, closer to God than that of a woman. And we can make this as benign as possible or try to sort of dress it up in, in something that is kinder or gentler. But at the end of the day, that's what, that's what a man is probably internalizing. And I think that's one of the reasons why some of the series that Nathan and I have done in the last several months resonated so deeply because, you know, Nathan is a, white, heterosexual, Southern, educated Mormon man. I mean, he's, he's got privilege all over the place. And he was willing to say out loud some of the ways his brain used to operate very, very reflexively. And I mean, while we were recording some of these podcasts, I had to be honest with you, I didn't say anything, but I was like, it jolted me a few times because this is a good guy. He's a really good guy and I feel very lucky to be married to him. And yet at the same time, that is what was embedded in him from his early life. And so that's something that I just think about because what it does is it takes a young boy who is infinitely good and lovable because that's what we all are. And it actually unteaches him what is natural to all of us, which is, um, that all human beings are divine because we are children of God. And people, uh, men unlearn that. And then what's layered on top of that is some learning that teaches them about the nature of man and the nature of woman that is not resonant with who we are as God's children. And then you kind of impose that into a system and say, this is not just our idea. This is actual God's idea. And then what it does is it endorses ways of thinking and believing and even acting in connection with women that keeps a man developmentally small and incidentally keeps a woman developmentally small too. Because the premise there is that you don't have what it takes to be sort of the, a collaborator in your own destiny or a collaborator in what's best for you, your family, your life. The institutions that you care about. Like, you don't, you can't. Like, but we'll take care of you. And so it's sort of sometimes like swathed in, you know, generosity and kindness. But at the end of the day, it, it limits the development of everybody. And to just touch into your garment question, then I'll pause and see where you want to go. This is, I think, just a— it's an exhibit, right? It's an exhibit of the larger problem, which is this idea that— I mean, I think if I've really thought a lot about this, by the way, like religious systems, if you think about the great traditions, religious systems, they tend to have sacred clothing or liturgical clothing. That's not a Mormon thing. That's, that's a spiritual system thing. It's, it's, it's deeply embedded in, in spirituality from the beginning of time. And There's nothing wrong with that, especially if human beings are able to take what's offered and metaphorically adapt it to something that feels like deep worship to them. I have no problem with that. What I start to be uncomfortable with is when something is imposed on someone and meaning is made of it and demands are made and punishments are constructed as if they were from God in ways that leave recipients of these things feeling frightened, less than, and powerless. And so the garment question is one where many very faithful women who don't even tend to have a lot of struggles with the church, even, I mean, there are some, you know, they're across the spectrum, but there are many women who are really wanting to just do all the right things and they're maybe a little bit earlier in their, in their faith development journey. And they just simply don't work. They don't work for the female body, which is very, very complex. And that leaves them feeling very, very conflicted because on the one hand, they know how they're feeling. On the other hand, they've been taught that what they're feeling either is wrong or isn't important, and they need to defer to the men whose, whose decisions they've been taught matter more, but who don't actually share their physiology. And so it leaves women, I think, sometimes feeling very powerless. And other women, I think, as they emerge in their development, they start to recognize that like something smells bad here, something is off. And I think that's why this conflict seems to be sort of a flashpoint in the LDS faith, whether or not one is well into a faith journey or not so much at all. I mean, I think this touches into power and authority and gender and the recognition that men are making decisions for something that's very intimate that doesn't have, um, and they don't have the proper information because they don't have the proper experience and they're speaking into something as if they know better when pragmatically they actually don't. So there are lots of layers there. I've just thrown out a few, you know, we can go in whatever direction you want though. What, let's say—

No, they're fantastic. And we can, we can build on that. Thank you, Jim Bennett. Your response, and can you comment on why you think the church was asking those questions about women in authority that we talked about a while back on the podcast?

Well, so it's interesting. So I think since the last time, Ian Bennett, we talked about those survey questions, I've had some interactions with people in the church bureaucracy, you know, and one of them, in one of them, I was asked, what do you think is the biggest issue driving people out of the church today? Like right now? And I thought, well, I, you know, I, I think I said LGBTQ issues or something like that. And the answer was garments. And he said the, the, the change in the temple garment to allow for sleeveless garments has enraged a number of people who feel like their sacrifice that they made in keeping their shoulders covered meant nothing. And ultimately, essentially did mean nothing because apparently it wasn't tied to anything that was an eternal principle. The church finally changes the garment, and then it becomes clear that this idea of keeping my shoulders covered so I'm not, as President Oaks would say, walking pornography, um, you know, that there was some sort of eternal principle tied into that, and there wasn't. And so the change, which you would think would be embraced— oh, this is wonderful, great, now there's more freedom for, for particularly women to, to wear clothing that is more in style. And this is again another indication of male privilege because I've never ever been tempted to wear any clothing that wouldn't cover the garment line. I look ridiculous in a tank top. I don't have any times to where I would want to wear one. And so I think men just sort of were blithely oblivious to the struggles that Valerie's describing here of these garments that are designed by men and essentially made for men. And women have to wear them too. Women are almost an afterthought in that process. And they are designed very much in ways, you know, and then the big battles, oh, do I wear my bra, uh, over the garment or under the garment? Or, you know, men don't have to think about any of that. And men didn't think about any of that, you know. And so now all of a sudden you have a new change and everybody goes, oh, so really this was just an arbitrary decision. This wasn't a direct revelation from God that garments are the way women can— garments will force women to keep their shoulders covered, you know. So it kind of lifts the lid off of the privilege that was involved in this. All along. So I, I thought that was really kind of interesting. So when you ask, why are they asking these questions, uh, it is very clear to me that the church has a great deal of data in terms of how their members are responding. What, you know, the, the church— the difficulty is you've got to get 15 men in the highest offices of the church to agree on any major changes. And so it looks like the church is sort of oblivious sometimes, but I think the church absolutely has the data. But then you have all of these men that can't agree as to how to interpret the data or how to implement that data in policy. So I think that's one of the huge challenges. And again, If women were in those councils, if women had a vote on this, I think you would see a tremendous amount of responsiveness to this. Because again, the only way men can know about this is if women tell them. Men are not learning the challenges of wearing garments through their own experience, for the most part. I'm sure there are exceptions, and I'm sure somebody's going to say, oh well, I had a problem with it. But the reality is There are so many women that have, that this is such a, a much bigger ask of a woman than it is of a man. The idea that a man, okay, you have to wear an undershirt and you have to wear knee-length. Well, I'd like to wear shorter shorts sometimes, but that's it. I mean, it's not, it's not that difficult. Whereas women, there are all kinds of health concerns. There are all kinds of other issues that come into play that again, men don't know instinctively. So I think the church is trying to find out the answers, but I don't think— I think they know what the questions are, but they can't agree on what the answers are. Is that a fair assessment, Valerie, from somebody speaking obviously from a certain degree of male privilege?

I think that the visual that came to my mind as I was listening to you, Jim, is climbing the ladder up the wrong wall. And the reason why I think that is I don't actually think, with all due respect, we are asking the right questions. What we're looking at here, if we take several steps back, is the problems inherent in fundamentalism. And fundamentalism, by definition, is a high-demand religion. That uses rules and control and conformity to manage anxiety. And so to me, it's less a question about getting more women into councils so that they can recommend tank tops 10, 15, 30, 50, 100 years ago. And it's more a question of, is it appropriate in the first place to be controlling how people dress in the first place. That's, that's the problem that we're running into right now, that people— I sense as we hear the, the rumble going on, right, that you're describing, Jim, that people are uncomfortable and dismayed, whether it is that, you know, and for multiple different reasons, right? In some ways, it's almost like the brethren by default have found themselves in a double bind. They're damned if they do and they're damned if they don't. Because at the, at the core of this issue, in, in my opinion, controlling one's dress is inappropriate in the first place. Controlling one's underwear ought not to have ever happened. And if you were to circle back to a couple of the episodes that I ran on this topic with, um, Maxine Hankson and Jody Hanson, Jody England Hanson, what I learned for the first time as I was interviewing them is all sorts of fascinating history around how the garment was never really intended to be underwear. It was intended to be part of the sacred liturgical clothing that happened in certain moments of worship and of ritual. And I can get behind that all day long. That makes sense to me because what that isn't imposing on is the life stages of either the man or the woman. And to me, that's inside of the purview of what a religious institution is, you know, I think appropriate, appropriately doing, which is to say when we're, we're, when we're doing this sort of ritual as a, as a matter of respect, this is sort of what it looks like, but there's sort of a beginning and an end point to that. And then We leave you to move into your life and to govern your life as you see fit as a child of God, acting in integrity because we trust you as a child of God to be governing your life in a way that sort of helps you take on the image of God in ways that resonate with you. And if that were what had originally been sort of espoused and adopted, we would not be where we are in 2025 with, you know, mass defections because of, you know, shoulders. That's the problem in my opinion.

Yeah, that's excellent. I, um, uh, again, speaking from a, uh, a male, uh, partly or privileged, uh, position, I remember my reaction when the garments were posted, I think into the Ensign. A while back, I was pretty pissed off with that, frankly. And I was quite angry that I wasn't consulted, that my personal garments, the things that I wear next to my skin, uh, were being broadcast and communicated to the entire world. I didn't like that at all. Uh, I found at that time, uh, you know, when I was active, that those are very personal items. The church is, like many religions, is a system of control. It controls every aspect of the members' lives. What we think, what we say, how we feel, how we dress, who we associate with. Don't do this, do this. It's very prescriptive. There are rules and regulations on almost everything. And that garment for me personally was something very intimate and very personal. As a guy, and I know the difference between the gam— between the female garments and the male garments. But for me, I didn't want the church talking about it. I was pretty angry about that and felt a lack of consultation. I also see now, being outside of the church— I didn't see it in the church. When I was in the church, I accepted, usually without question, the brethren's announcements and position on things, and accepted that the process was little or no consultation. Now, having resigned from the church, a decision that I took to take control of my life, uh, take control of my life and take that path, uh, which is very liberating for me, I now see a significant lack of consultation process generally, and a huge disconnect between the brethren and important, um, dynamics of the church, and especially women. I wonder how many women, or whether women were involved in even, uh, appropriately and more broadly in regards to the changes to the, to the garment. I suspect not, because if they had done the research, and Jim Bennett talks about the data, you know, you get, they can get data., how do you interpret the data? Is the data reliable? You know, we're talking about the only true living church upon the face of the earth and making a significant decision on changing the garments in respect to not just the style or the, the design. And I can't speak to this as much as you can, Valerie, by any means, but in terms of the, the, um, symbolic principles behind the garment around modesty that Jim's talked about previously on, on a, on a podcast. You know, where mothers and women have taught their kids in the home importance of modesty and prepared them to go to the temple. And when you go to the temple, you wear this garment for protection and it's designed that way, presumably through revelation. That's what I was taught, that the design, the style, its purpose, its intent was so personal, so intimate, so symbolic, right next to your skin with the symbols, uh, against your flesh. I mean, you can't get any more personal than that. That's how I saw it. And, and so I wasn't consulted as a guy and I, I, I wasn't happy about that. I can't imagine how women felt not being consulted in regards to those changes, considering, you know, this garment is so personal and so intimate in terms of the personal relationship, religious worship in the temple, the ordinances, the covenants. I've worked as an officiator. I've been a veil worker. I've worked in the inner workings of the temple and seen, you know, how temples operate. And I've seen all the intimate symbolism around that. And then again, as parents, you teach these principles in the home. And hopefully as parents, we do it to show you know, the, the important role in equality of men and women in the church. You know, when you go to the temple, you've got women on one side on the left, men on the other side. And, you know, we have, uh, different roles. And there are times in the temple experience I felt that we were all equal. You know, uh, there's that scripture, I think, is it, is it Messiah where the, uh, the, is it, uh, Messiah or Alma, uh, all are alike unto God.

And actually Nephite, but that's okay.

Nephite, thank you. Um, um, when I was a young missionary, I could remember that. No problem. Now older, my memory's not great. Thank you, Jim. So, you know, all are alike, all equal, and, and it's a uniform. I remember being taught that the, the, the, uh, the, uh, temple garments and the temple wear was a uniform and we were all dressed alike. We were all equal, you know, kings and queens to the Most High. And we participate in those covenants with ordinances equally, et cetera. But there, even then there were elements in there remind us that the man's in charge, you know, Adam and Eve, the video. And if you remember the earlier temple, and, and you talked about this, Jim, earlier, uh, where Eve has to covenant with, um, Adam, who then covenants with God. By the way, I went through the temple pre-1990, as did Jim, I think. I think Jim was pre-1990. And that whole experience was terrifying.

It was.

And so I'm sharing my perspective as a guy in the church. I'm not in the church now. And I tie it back to these very intimate, symbolic, personal, spiritual, on a very personal level experiences, reminders of the position of women and the position of men. And women here on a lower pedestal and men ultimately have the authority. And it goes right back to another podcast that was fascinating actually, about the role of Heavenly Mother. And we talked about that earlier, Valerie, on a podcast about who is she? What do we know about her? What's her role? Um, why do we know enough about her? Is she an equal? Is she one of many women in these eternal plural type relationships that we were taught? It goes right back to the basic theological fundamental principles and questions about which this religion, Mormon faith, and many others are actually based on. It's those core tenets of the church. And the role of women as communicated usually by men is described, prescribed, and discussed and communicated in a certain way and has been done since the beginning of time, right back to, you know, Adam and Eve, if we are to accept any significance of the Mormon temple ritual experience in regards to Adam and Eve and God, et cetera, et cetera. So it's, we see those fundamental thinking, which probably like your husband, I've had to do a lot of deconstructing. Now I have a daughter and a wife who's very leaders. They're for strong leaders and they're extraordinary in what they do. And I see their value and I've had to do some deconstructing myself, having come from that, you know, that kind of Church of England Protestant thinking, which is very male, very male. And Jim Bennett saw this as God. So I'm trying to tie some of the points that Jim was saying earlier. I can see why the church is nervous about this. And it hasn't got the courage, by the way, to actually develop a more inclusive decision-making process. It hides, in my opinion, behind questionnaires and surveys to canvas members at that level to try to get the data that Jim Bennett speaks about and try to, well, you know, we can't ask that, we can't talk about this at the pulpit or in church. Let's do a little survey and canvas and let's see what the members think. To me, that's just not how God operates. So I've said quite a bunch of stuff there, and if you can connect some of those dots, Valerie, that would be wonderful. And then we'll go back to Jim Bennett and get Jim's thoughts and comments.

So one of the things that I was thinking about as I was listening to you is how, I don't know, when I think about these conversations, it just gives rise to a little bit, just again, I return to sadness. It just is, it's unfortunate how something that is, I believe, very well-intended goes just so very sideways. And back to the idea of the perennial tradition and how human beings are sort of drawn towards sacred places and lots and lots of spiritual systems, Christian and otherwise, from the beginning of time, they use this concept of holy clothing, and that it has the potential to be used in ways that really do resonate with the soul of the human being to help them remember who they are and how to stay more deeply connected with their potential as a child of God. And in some ways, I'm just like, I think that's really beautiful, like at its core. And then I think about how, if done well, ritual is intended to help a human being find deep connection on their own terms. I think that's the beauty of ritual. It's supposed to be symbolic. It's supposed to be choose or walk into this space. And because you are a unique soul with a unique story and history and needs and wants and struggles and triumphs, we offer to you a story or some sort of a ritual and you can plug into that thing something that is deeply meaningful for you. And so if we as a tradition understood this a little bit better, we could have something like the temple garment and we could say, this is an opportunity for you to find something significant and holy, and then we trust you because you are a child of God to do what you will with it so that it remains holy to you. And I think that's what brings up sadness in me is that something that is intended to be helpful, and I do believe that, I mean, I can only just imagine on South Temple of them just scratching their heads like, what in the world? Like, we're trying so hard. We passed out all these surveys, you know, everyone's wearing a tank top. Let's be helpful. And then this happening and then probably going, well, what in the world? Like you sometimes say, like, I see, or I can just even imagine like the frustration and the discouragement when really what needs to, I think, happen is sort of this, you know, this is a big ask, but I'm just going to say like, is the interior growth of maybe we shouldn't have been controlling people to the extent that we led them to believe that there was something mystical and holy about the covering of the shoulders. Like maybe some of the mythology that we have injected into this has— is the problem itself, to where until we unwind the mythology and say, you know what, we're so sorry, this was inappropriate from the gate. We do think there's something beautiful about liturgical clothing, but we're going to like loosen the reins a little bit. Because we want this to work for you. I tell you what, if that's what ever happened, people that want to worship in this way but are trusted and dignified as grown-ups to know how to integrate something like this on their own terms, they would flock towards some version of something that feels good to them. Or they would also know that, you know what, if this worship doesn't work for me, My spiritual institution trusts me that something else will, and I will feel a desire to stay close to them because they trust my journey. And I feel so good that they are trusting me, that I'm not just a child of God, I'm an adult of God.

I love that. I am an adult of God. Uh, you know, as you were talking and as you were framing framing that, I thought, you know, I thought back to actually my reaction to when the church reversed the November 2015 policy that excluded the children of gay couples from getting blessings, from getting baptized, from getting the priesthood. And I remember when it was reversed, and I felt almost worse when it was reversed than when it was implemented. And I remember having a big, you know, I started talking about it publicly and there was a guy who says, look, you don't have to spike the football. And I went, spike the football? Do you think that's what I'm doing here? Do you think that's what this reaction is? Because everybody who was upset by the original policy when it's reversed now saying, see, clearly this policy was wrong. Clearly this policy was destructive. And we're being told, oh, just shut up. You got what you wanted. Okay. Don't spike the football. It's like you're completely ignoring the pain and the struggle and the doubt and the frustration and completely dismissing it and pretending it didn't matter and pretending it wasn't important. And Valerie, as you were talking, the one thing it's like that jumped out at me was if we could just say, you know, we're sorry, we were wrong, we don't think that there is something, some eternal principle wrapped up in you having your shoulders covered. This is the one thing the church will never, ever, ever do. President Oaks has made it very clear. He's explicitly said we do not give apologies. And, you know, and I can kind of understand the logic behind that because there are so many people who look to the church as this infallible source of all wisdom, and I can understand the reason that people would be hesitant to apologize because they think that would undermine that authority. But I think That's wrong. I don't think it would undermine authority. I think it would build trust. I think it would demonstrate that the church thinks that we are, as you say, Valerie, we are adults of God, that they trust us enough to even admit when they're wrong. It's very difficult to trust someone who refuses to admit that they're wrong on an individual level, and it makes it difficult to trust the church for a lot of people when the church is never willing to admit they were wrong. And so the whole idea— and you're hearing people, it's like, well, look, you got what you wanted. You can wear a sleeveless wedding dress now. You can blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, what's your problem? My problem is that you completely ignored my sacrifice. You completely ignored the pain and the struggle, and you haven't apologized for— you haven't taken accountability for You haven't admitted even that what you did was wrong. When they reversed the 2015 policy, it came as, oh, now we've received another revelation. You know, the 2015 policy was this one revelation. Now we've received this other revelation that's diametrically opposed to the first one, and they're both revelations. Isn't it great that we have a church led by revelation? Let's shut up and keep our heads down and keep moving forward. And I just, long-term, I don't think that's a strategy that works. I think we're only sort of beginning to recognize that that's not a strategy that works. I mean, I think, you know, as days go, and President Nelson is 100 and almost 101 years old, President Oaks is in his mid to, I think it was the Is he 96 or is he younger than that?

I mean, 95, I think, 96. Yeah.

I mean, these guys, these guys are— I can read actuarial tables as well as anybody else. These guys are not going to be around for a whole lot longer. And I am hopeful that this idea that apologizing is something the church will never do is not something that will be around hopefully won't be around for— I wish it would change today, but I don't know that it will. I'm sure it won't. Anyway, I'm rambling and babbling, but I just— Valerie, I just think your insights are so extraordinary and so valuable. And I think I'm going to take I Am an Adult of God and get it monogrammed and framed and put on my wall because I think that's just such a great way to encapsulate this, is that we need to treat all members of the church as if they're grown-ups, as if they can handle hard things and they can handle the reality that sometimes the church doesn't quite get it right.

The—

go ahead.

The irony is that if the human being woman or man has a successful early development experience in an early stage faith tradition, they are supposed to outgrow outsourcing all of their choices and ideas and thoughts and feelings and beliefs to an authority. And so it's so fascinating to me that this cohort of people in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are on a faith journey because they have satisfied the psychological and spiritual needs of early-stage faith. And instead of rejoicing that the Church did a wonderful job helping them graduate from fundamentalist early-stage faith, there's actually sort of a, well, certainly a misunderstanding, but also a fear associated with what's happening. And actually, everyone that's having this experience is doing something really lovely and is on schedule. And I guess the last thing I'll say as we close is that it's ironic to me that the struggles that we're talking about today around a struggle to apologize, a struggle to be more connecting, be more collaborative, be be more open to equality and evolution and change, those are all hallmarks of some of the struggles of patriarchy itself. Patriarchy defines its security around power differential, whereas systems of equality that integrate the feminine, both in men and the feminine attributes that women often bring so beautifully to the table, those are collaboration, connectedness, relationality, flexibility, openness to change. And so the solution, ironically, to all of the things that we're talking about would be an integration of the feminine, both within the men of the church, but also The invitation of women bringing their feminine energy to the table in a relationship that would actually more fully encapsulate what it means to be a child of God, which is a wholeness of, you know, in my opinion, the God of my understanding is something that is an embodiment of masculine and feminine love. And when we notice something missing, it's because that is missing.

I think it's excellent. I know we come to closing here. I'm very grateful to you both for your opinions and honored to have you with us, Valerie. Just to kind of close this, as I studied the life of Christ, you know, read the books and studied, studied the scriptures. I always saw him as a, somebody who had love and respect, equal respect for women, you know, Mary, Martha, Magdalene, and others from what we know. I saw him as a, um, someone that treated everyone as equal, no matter of, you know, the gender or the background or the status or status in life. That was my interpretation and it filled me with enormous respect and gratitude for this individual who each of us here have looked up to, continue to do in many ways. And then I contrast what I understand of the life of Christ with the modern leadership of the church. And it's strikingly very different. You know, lack of consultation is more control, less freedoms. Struggling around equality. And, you know, we have to wait for people to die off before it changes, which is quite an interesting way of changing. Keeping in mind these doctrines and policies reverberate beyond death. You know, we're talking about the, the, the policy reversal in 2015. And, you know, Nelson will pass away at some point. We'll still be talking about that. The, You know, we're still struggling with Joseph Smith's polygamy. We're still struggling with Brigham Young and other, uh, extraordinary, uh, decisions and behaviors that have been made by men mostly. I mean, look at polygamy, what a disaster that was. I mean, that is absolutely awful. That's just a, um, uh, a minefield of pain and suffering, which we haven't, uh, got time to discuss in detail here, but we, we should revisit that at some point. It's extraordinary what those women had to put up with back then. And so I struggle with the church in 2025 lacking that progressive vision, that leadership, and that insight. And they have to go through these surveys to find out what people think. And yes, they change, but they only change through death to people. And when they make a book decision, they get it wrong and they can't even admit it. They're afraid to say that they are, you know, fallible because they lose control. If they admit that they make mistakes officially, formally, privately, I think they admit that we, you know, they're not perfect, they make mistakes, but they won't say it in any publication or any, they will publicly admit that they make mistakes in general.

Where they get upset is when you try to point out a specific mistake. They won't admit to any specific thing.

Yeah, I'm talking about the specifics and they certainly don't talk about it at general conference that we human make mistakes because then you, why would you follow them? Why would you put so much onus on them and responsibility to guide and lead our lives? I think Christ's example, and I'll close here, was here's some general principles that are really valuable and important, love and kindness, forgiveness, and service, and listening and understanding and helping those who are in need, those absolutely extraordinary human values and experiences. Here they are. That's kind of the broad brush principles. I'm trying to be an example, as Christ said, his apostles were examples. Live like this and you'll be happy and other people will be happy and you serve others, et cetera. And the rest, just kind of do the best that you can in between. Don't be prescriptive. Don't, you know, less control. I think Christ was not controlling, not prescriptive where the church is. And that's where it's got stuck because it's trying to control all aspects and it can't do that. And it's not going to progress or grow if it's going to do that. So it's a stark contrast between Christ's life and example and the relationship with women. And we talked earlier about Heavenly Mother and her role and significance. Um, and you know, the behavior and decisions process that the church has today, and it's two very different, it's like the church has apostatized, not as people say from the original restoration of the church, that some people say from Joseph Smith or Brigham Young. Which it may have done, but I think the church has apostatized from the true Church of Christ when Christ was on the earth. And this conversation amongst others is an example of that, where it's gone so far away from who, from what Christ was and who Christ was. And it's kind of struggling, you know, in the dark ages because it can't even consult it can't even include women. It can't treat women as equals.

Not really.

Women don't really have any authority in the church. Let's be honest about it, right? So yeah, it's got a long way to go. And if we have to wait for people to die for it to change, well, we're going to be here for a while, aren't we? Another 10, 20 years before it kind of changes. Anyway, I've got some strong feelings on this as a guy. I'll give you some closing time for you, Valérie, if you could kind of consolidate this and give us so many final comments and guidance, we'd be grateful. Yeah.

What I think, um, when I think about, as I resonate with compassion on your process and how so many probably feel, just the frustration and the, uh, the discouragement of our present situation, what comes up for me actually is this. I thought about, and I'm not going to probably say this exactly right, but I live by a mantra by the scholar Margaret Mead who said, "Never underestimate the power that a small group of people have to change the world. Indeed, that is the only thing that ever has." And to that, I would say we are not lacking in leadership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I just don't know that we always know who those leaders are. There are wonderful human beings, women and men, who are endowed with power and authority by nature of their goodness and their courage to speak in love and truth. And these are people that we'll never know about for the most part, right? But they're doing brave reforming things in their homes, in their wards, in their communities. It may be in the church, it may be out of the church. I don't think that matters. That is where the reform and the change and the restoration is happening in many ways because humanity is growing in their degree of consciousness. We are evolving towards what it means to be made over in the image of God. We are part of human evolution, spiritual evolution. It's happening. And there will always be varying stages of development that we have to contend with. And so I guess the last thing I'll say to sum up my thoughts is to the degree that we individually are trying to grow in love, evolve, differentiate ourselves, uh, we can notice the strengths and struggles of the institution of the church and otherwise. And then step into our own power and embody what it means to be truly a child of God, trying to fulfill the measures of our creations, uh, independent of whatever the pace is of anyone on the outside. And the hope would be, I think, that the way growth and change happens is we begin at home and then it reverberates because there is an energetic force around goodness. Around love, around beauty. And does it turn into a policy change next year? Probably not. But at the end of the day, these kinds of changes happen slowly and they oftentimes happen at the bottom. And so the less I think we sort of lean on the formal church to like change for me to be okay, I decide that I'm already okay first and I embody that thing. And then that becomes the church. That becomes how communities worship together as they are growing and evolving. And down the road, you know, people change and grow, and hopefully the church will catch up. And if they don't, we still are. So that's, I guess, how I would end my final comments for today.

Well, that wonderful final comments.

Thank you. Jim Bennett, any final thoughts from you?

Just thank you very much, Valerie. You've given me an awful lot to think about. I think you've given our listeners an awful lot to think about, and I just think, uh, you're a, I was going to say a national treasure, but certainly a church-wide treasure. Uh, just, uh, really grateful for everything that you do and very grateful that you've shared this time with us today.

I'm honored to be with both of you. Thank you.

Jim Bennett, thank you as always. And Valerie, a special thank you to you. We're honored. We learn from you. We're grateful for you. And we extend our love and gratitude to you and your family. God bless you. Thank you. Thank you to you both. And to our listeners, thank you for being with us. I hope you enjoyed this podcast and learned from it and enjoyed it as much as we did. And until this time next week, approximately, we will be preparing more podcasts. And again, thank you, Jim Bennett. Thank you, Valerie Bennett.

Thank you.

Thank you both so much.