John Dehlin Joins Mormonism Live!: LDS Church vs. Mormon Stories — Who’s Telling the Truth?

Tonight on Mormonism LIVE, Bill Reel and Radio Free Mormon are joined by special guest John Dehlin for an exhaustive examination of the LDS Church’s lawsuit against Mormon Stories. Instead of arguing about the case in the abstract, we take 30 specific claims made by the Church and its attorneys and put them side-by-side with the court record, the Church’s own filings, Mormon Stories’ responses, the mediation history, and recent public statements by Church attorney David Jordan. John Dehlin also joins us to explain what actually happened behind the scenes—including why Mormon Stories changed its branding before the lawsuit was filed, what the Church asked for during mediation, and why he believes the Church’s current public description of the case leaves out crucial context. Among the questions we investigate: Did Mormon Stories intentionally copy the Church’s blue “light-rays” branding? Does the Church’s evidence really show trademark confusion? Did John Dehlin intentionally choose the name Mormon Stories to create confusion—or does the twenty-year history of the podcast tell a very different story? Does the evidence support the LDS Church insisting that the lawsuit was “never about the word Mormon”? Did the Church abandon brands such as Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Mormon Channel, and Mormon Messages and how does that affect their preserving those trademarks with the USPTO and how might such affect this case? Did Church attorneys accurately represent a Mormon Stories guest who supposedly believed the podcast was Church-affiliated? Were Mormon Stories’ existing disclaimers really inadequate—and were the Church’s proposed disclaimer requirements as simple as they are now being portrayed? Why did David Jordan publicly use BAD MORMON as an example of a name nobody would confuse with the Church when the Church previously opposed Heather Gay’s Bad Mormon trademark on the explicit ground that it would cause confusion? And did the Church really avoid asking for damages? We also discuss the ACLU and Electronic Frontier Foundation’s involvement, Mormon Stories’ fair-use defense, the Church’s copyright claims, the doctrine of laches, and where the case appears strongest and weakest for both sides. Most importantly, this episode asks a simple question: When the public statements are compared with the actual documents, who is telling the truth? The LDS Church vs. Mormon Stories: Who’s Telling the Truth? Special Guest: John Dehlin Follow the LDS Church Lawsuit https://www.mormonstories.org/lds-church-lawsuit/ Support Mormonism Live: https://donorbox.org/mormonism-live Transcript For Tonight’s Show – https://mormondiscussionpodcast.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/09/Final-Mormon-Stories-30-Claims-transcript-final-version.pdf