Wednesday, May 06, 2026

SLATE FEATURE: The Mormon Church Is Suing One of Its Most Vocal Critics. The Reason Why Seems Silly. It’s Not.

Intro from the author: "The suit accuses podcaster John Dehlin of intentionally deceiving members of the church for his own benefit.

The costs of defending himself against the lawsuit are sure to place enormous pressure on Dehlin and the Open Stories Foundation, the nonprofit he started to support the podcast.
The filing marks a shift in how the church has dealt with its critics, attempting to both discredit him and substantially alter how he defines and promotes his platform.

In the days since the lawsuit became public, the ex-Mormon community has rallied around Dehlin, donating to a legal fund, championing his cause as a matter of free speech, and accusing the church of attempting to silence a critic.

The suit could also have unintended impacts on the church—a Streisand effect that creates more awareness of and conversation about a man it has excommunicated and whose claims it has advised its members to ignore.

Already, the drama is helping popularize the podcast:
The response to the lawsuit Dehlin posted to his YouTube channel garnered 135,000 views in a week, several times the typical number of views for his most recent videos.

On April 17, the church filed a lawsuit against the makers of Mormon Stories, a popular ex-Mormon podcast, alleging that they had used church trademarks and copyright materials with the intention of confusing individuals and causing them to “access Defendants’ content mistakenly believing it comes from or is affiliated with or endorsed by the Church.” Some of the contested imagery is highly specific, including the Christus rendering and copyright photographs; some of it is much broader, like “blue” and “all colors and orientations of the Light-Rays Design mark.” The lawsuit also contests the podcast’s use of the word Mormon itself, which the LDS church has trademarked in reference to specific groups and products, like the Book of Mormon, the Mormon Channel, and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.