‘The Year I Was Canceled’—Jen Hatmaker Reflects on How Her Relationships Have Changed Since 2016

In keeping with a recent social media trend, Jen Hatmaker reflected in a Facebook post on what 2016 was like for her, saying that it was “the apex of my career in evangelicalism” and “also the year I was canceled.” That year, she said, “feels like both yesterday and a hundred years ago.”

“It occurred to me how growth often shuffles the guest list,” Hatmaker said. “Relational evolution is an actual thing that happens—and natural endings can still be kind of sad.”

Jen Hatmaker Ponders ‘Relational Evolution’

Jen Hatmaker is a best-selling author and former church leader who last fall released her memoir, “Awake.” She and her ex-husband Brandon cofounded Austin New Church in 2008 and had their own show on HGTV in 2014. In the ensuing years, Hatmaker generated controversy among evangelicals for embracing pro-choice, affirming stances. She and Brandon Hatmaker went through a highly public divorce in 2020.

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In a Jan. 28 post on her Substack, Jen Hatmaker said that in 2016, she was “speaking on the biggest stages in the genre. I was traveling the world with justice organizations raising millions of dollars. My social accounts were growing 1,000 women a day.”

“I had dozens of friends in the collaborative work of ministry across the United States. Like, friends I traveled with and built huge movements with; they were on the short list of emergency contacts,” she said. “I was a member of a cherished supper club that functioned more like family.”

“We were surrounded by friends committed to the messy business of our little church,” Hatmaker added. “‘We’ being my husband and I, because I was married then, of course—we celebrated 23 years that December.”

Hatmaker said that 2016 was a turning point for her. It was the year she publicly revealed she was affirming and would attend a gay wedding. She had also been “vocally anti-Trump” that year.

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Many of the people Hatmaker knew in 2016, including her ex-husband, are not part of her life any more. She had “friendships that were conditional on my sanctioned contribution to white evangelicalism.” There were “whole friend groups that carried on without me,” said Hatmaker.