The Brand, Not the Church

When I was leaving the church, Mormon Stories was one of the first places I found people who sounded like me. Not angry. Not axe-grinding. Just honest — asking the questions that felt dangerous to ask out loud, talking to people who had asked them first. John Dehlin built something real: a space for people the institution had no more use for.

Now the institution is suing him.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints filed a federal trademark lawsuit over the weekend against John Dehlin, host of the Mormon Stories podcast. The complaint alleges trademark infringement — that Dehlin's branding is similar enough to official church materials to confuse the public into thinking the podcast is church-affiliated.

John Dehlin was excommunicated in 2015. His podcast exists to support people leaving the faith he was expelled from. The church has 17 million members, an untaxed financial portfolio estimated in the hundreds of billions, and direct access to federal lawmakers. Dehlin has a microphone and a donor base.

This is who the church chose to sue.

What the Lawsuit Actually Claims

To understand why the case is weaker than it looks, it helps to separate what the church is actually arguing from what the headlines imply.

The suit has two components. First, that Dehlin used design elements — logos, color schemes — similar enough to official church branding to create confusion about affiliation. Second, that the word "Mormon" itself belongs to them.

The second argument is the shakier one, and the church probably knows it.

"Mormon" has described the broader Latter Day Saint movement since Joseph Smith's lifetime. It appears in the name of scripture the church considers sacred. It's been used for generations by over a hundred splinter groups — the FLDS, the Apostolic United Brethren, the Kingston Group, and dozens more — many of whom actively embrace the label. The academic field is called "Mormon studies." The Journal of Mormon History hasn't changed its name. The Associated Press still permits the word when needed for clarity.

More damningly: in 2018, the church itself launched a campaign to stop using the word, with President Nelson calling it a victory for Satan. Their stated reason was that "Mormon" had become too associated with fundamentalist splinter groups who practice polygamy. In other words, the word was too generic, too broadly shared, too untethered from their brand to represent them accurately.

That's almost exactly the argument Dehlin would use in his defense.

You can't reasonably spend years telling the world a word no longer belongs to you, then sue someone for using it.

The Branding Argument Has More Legs — But Not Many

The visual similarity claim is more standard trademark territory, and it's the church's strongest position. If Dehlin's logo genuinely mimicked official church design elements closely enough to mislead a reasonable person, that's actionable.

Except Dehlin didn't ignore the complaint. After receiving a cease-and-desist in November, he changed the logo's color and altered its style. He also added disclaimer language — the church's own preferred wording — to every platform where the podcast appears. The disclaimer explicitly states the podcast is not affiliated with the church.

That matters enormously. Trademark confusion cases hinge on whether a reasonable person would be misled. If every episode description now tells you this podcast has no church affiliation, the confusion argument collapses into something much harder to prove.

What remains? The church would need to show that despite the changes, despite the disclaimer, people are still being materially misled. The lawsuit apparently includes screenshots of confused commenters — but those comments predated the remediation. The ongoing harm is difficult to demonstrate when the defendant already addressed it.

Reports suggest mediation broke down over a demand Dehlin found unreasonable. We don't know exactly what was asked. But the question writes itself: if the branding changes and the disclaimer weren't enough, what would be? The answer, almost certainly, is the name itself. Mormon Stories would have to become something else entirely.

That's not a trademark remedy. That's a shutdown.

What This Is Really About

Here's the thing about a church that claims to be God's restored gospel on earth: a podcast shouldn't threaten it.

If the truth claims are real — if Joseph Smith saw God, if the priesthood authority is genuine, if the ordinances are binding in heaven — then no amount of critical conversation can undo that. The truth doesn't need litigation. It doesn't need to police who gets to say the word "Mormon." It certainly doesn't need to legally exhaust a nonprofit podcaster in federal court.

What this lawsuit reveals, more than anything, is that the church is operating as a brand protecting market share. The language of the complaint is corporate IP language: confusion, affiliation, consumer perception. Not the language of religious mission. The church isn't filing this suit because souls are being misled about the nature of salvation. It's filing because an ex-member with a popular platform won't go away quietly.

The institutional reflex is familiar to anyone who spent time inside. The response to doubt has never been engagement — it's been management. The Gospel Topics Essays were buried so deep that most members encountered them through critics first. The CES Letter went years without a serious institutional rebuttal. Leaders have consistently preferred controlled narrative to honest reckoning.

This lawsuit is that same reflex wearing legal clothing.

What Happens If They Win

Let's say the court sides with the church. Dehlin is ordered to rename the podcast. Mormon Stories becomes something else — some name that can't be contested, stripped of the word that made it findable to the people who needed it most.

That outcome wouldn't prove the church's truth claims. It wouldn't answer a single question raised on the podcast. It would just mean that a large institution with extensive legal resources successfully used those resources to make a critic harder to find. Which is, of course, the point.

A win in court would be a loss in every other sense. The story would be: church spends years and millions in legal fees to force a name change on an ex-member's nonprofit. That's not a story about the restoration of the gospel. It's a story about institutional power being used to muffle inconvenient voices. Anyone paying attention would understand exactly what it means.

The rename wouldn't kill the conversation. It would just make the church look more afraid of it.

And it will probably backfire in the way these things always do. Every story filed about this case is another story about a massive institution using its resources to silence a podcaster who asks uncomfortable questions. Every dollar Dehlin has to spend on legal defense is a fundraising opportunity. Every headline drives curious people to search for Mormon Stories — possibly for the first time.

The threat they're trying to suppress is the conversation itself. Which means the conversation is working.

If the church were confident in what it claims to be, John Dehlin's podcast would be a minor irritant, not a federal case. The fact that it's a federal case tells you more about the church's confidence than any press release ever could.