John C. Hamer

[7] Hamer was a contributor to By Common Consent, the Restoration Studies Coordinator at Sunstone Education Foundation, and the Executive Director of the John Whitmer Historical Association.

[9] His family history is connected to many variations of the (Latter Day Saint) Restoration (including Brighamites, Josephites, Rigdonites, Whitmerites, and Strangites).

Uninterested in Mormonism, at age 26 he read No Man Knows My History, and commented that — ironically — Fawn Brodie rehabilitated Joseph Smith for him.

Theologically early Mormons believed that they were the Restoration of the New Testament church in every sense, including recovering all the actual historical practices and institutional authority.

And the 1860 reorganization, although possessed of vast continuity of membership, belief, and practice with the 1830 organization, was (in fact) a new foundation in an institutional historical sense.

[15] Hamer helped found the Community of Christ ministry Latter-day Seekers[16] as well as the on-line, inclusive pastoral gathering, Beyond the Walls.

[17][6] Hamer gives regular lectures at Centre Place (the Toronto congregation of Community of Christ) on the topics of history, theology, and philosophy.