Progressive Bishop w/ an Unbelieving Wife - Martine & Stuart Smith Pt 3 | Ep. 1742

When the Bishop Doesn't Believe: The Stuart and Martine Smith Story

What happens when a man with serious doubts about Mormonism accepts a calling as bishop anyway? That question sits at the center of the Stuart and Martine Smith story, as told in Episode 1742 of the Mormon Stories Podcast. Their account raises something that goes well beyond personal faith crisis: it exposes structural problems inside local LDS leadership that rarely get discussed from the pulpit.

The Smiths are not angry apostates nursing fresh wounds. They are people who spent decades inside the institution, absorbed its costs, and still tried to make it work. That context matters enormously when evaluating what they say.

A History Built on Grief and Institutional Loyalty

The Smiths lost two children. That fact alone would fracture most people's relationship with any religious institution. They stayed. Through the 1980s and 1990s in Louisiana, they remained committed, active members, even as their local stake leadership created what Martine described as a climate of heavy-handed priesthood authority.

The situation got considerably worse when it emerged that their stake president had been embezzling church funds, a practice that had reportedly begun while he was still serving as a counselor under a previous stake president who was ill. He was eventually excommunicated. The money he was soliciting through personal fundraising letters, using his former title to lend credibility, is the kind of story that would embarrass any organization.