Patheos was purchased by the Mormon Church

[drumdude]

He's just very, very busy.

And he wants you to know how free he is to post his thoughts about Trump, the ones from 4 years ago before Intellectual Reserve or Bonneville Communications or whatever Mormon shell corporation purchased Patheos.

[Everybody Wang Chung]

Dr. Peterson seems to be in a bit of a panic. I gather that he feels the ground has shifted beneath his feet. Or, rather, the critics now have new, crucial information. For example, he alluded to a “quota” that he’s required to hit. What other “rules” were put into place on him by the new, LDS patheos, I wonder? And how is DCP going to fare now that critics know that he’s getting paid by the Church to blog? (Well, he recycled a post today: so that’s what the widow’s mite paid for today. It’s hard to feel very good about that…)

Maybe this is one of the reasons DCP has complained about Patheos lately and has even seriously considered leaving.

I imagine DCP is still sore about the Church taking over FARMS and then eventually kicking him out.

DCP finally moves to Patheos and can flex his independence. Shortly thereafter, the Church buys Patheos and immediately puts several stifling conditions on DCP’s blogging at SeN.

No matter how hard he tries, DCP cannot get away from the controlling grip of the Church.

[Philo Sofee]

Dr. Peterson seems to be in a bit of a panic. I gather that he feels the ground has shifted beneath his feet. Or, rather, the critics now have new, crucial information. For example, he alluded to a “quota” that he’s required to hit. What other “rules” were put into place on him by the new, LDS patheos, I wonder? And how is DCP going to fare now that critics know that he’s getting paid by the Church to blog? (Well, he recycled a post today: so that’s what the widow’s mite paid for today. It’s hard to feel very good about that…)

Maybe this is one of the reasons DCP has complained about Patheos lately and has even seriously considered leaving.

I imagine DCP is still sore about the Church taking over FARMS and then eventually kicking him out.

DCP finally moves to Patheos and can flex his independence. Shortly thereafter, the Church buys Patheos and immediately puts several stifling conditions on DCP’s blogging at SeN.

No matter how hard he tries, DCP cannot get away from the controlling grip of the Church.

Well... he can now that he is no longer paid by them... but I suspect freedom to have intellectual honesty isn't nearly as valuable than making the brethren smile upon him and lavish praise for his faithful mental slaveness he agrees to to avoid being a future tk smoothie and having himself added upon with his own world.

[drumdude]

I'll just note that Dan has not posted any blogs of substance since this thread started. All recycled old content.

[Philo Sofee]

I'll just note that Dan has not posted any blogs of substance since this thread started. All recycled old content.

It has been that way for a quite long time. I am still of the opinion that he has been muzzled. Somehow he is strapped from doing his thing and he is trying to make the best of it...

[drumdude]

Dan claims complete ignorance on the matter. Which makes it even more interesting if true. That would mean while many other patheos bloggers were told to change how they blogged, Dan was not. Seems very unlikely that was an accidental oversight on patheos’ part, especially if the claims of LDS ownership turn out to be true.

I’ll quote DCP here because I’m sure it will come to light that this statement has some subtle untruths and omissions in it:

“ Whether the Church owns a company that owns a company that owns a company that owns Patheos, or whatever, I don’t know. I don’t know it to be true; I can’t prove it false. I think that somebody once made such a claim somewhere before, but I’d forgotten about it until now. I am vaguely aware that Patheos was once independent but now belongs to some other operation, but I know nothing further about that. The question of who ultimate owns the company that owns Patheos makes and has made no practical difference to me whatsoever. There has been no direction from anybody, before or since, regarding the content of my blog entries. Nobody at Patheos or the Church has ever told me to write on politics or not to write on politics, what position to take on any religious or other topic, or anything else of that sort.”

[Rivendale]

I think that somebody once made such a claim somewhere before, but I’d forgotten about it until now. I am vaguely aware that Patheos was once independent but now belongs to some other operation, but I know nothing further about that.

Where have I heard that before? Elementary my dear Watson.

[drumdude]

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I trust DCP is telling the truth as he always does. To the best of his memory of course...

[Doctor Scratch]

Well Dan whinged several times about not being able to speak his mind about Trump. I had assumed the person forcing him to stay quiet was a significant donor to Interpreter. But now it seems Patheos bloggers were also being told to stay quiet about politics. So then, did it come from the evangelical owners of Patheos? Or the LDS church?

I’m not sure Mehta had an accurate understanding of the actual ownership history in his interview, so it’s hard to say. Keep in mind these are for profit companies, so at some level, it’s about money. It looks to me like somebody or somebodies wanted to create a portfolio of companies that presented a uniformly positive view of religion/spirituality. That’s what Radiant Digital is today. To do that required a couple of things — stay away from politics because of its divisive nature, especially today, and refrain from criticizing religion in general/avoid interfaith squabbling. And that’s what the Patheos bloggers say they were pressured to do.

Keep in mind that I still haven’t shown evidence that the church or any of its for Profit entities has an ownership interest somewhere in Patheos’s ownership chain. I haven’t found who owns Radiant or even how it is organized. And that’s very common in building portfolios of companies that are financial investments for private equity companies — tracing the ultimate owners can be extremely difficult.

Personally, based on what I’ve found so far, I would attribute the changes at Patheos to profit making brand building as opposed to the machinations of evangelicals or Mormons, but both could easily be in play.

An update to your investigations, Res:

Some time ago, somebody over at the Peterson Obsession Board discovered that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints now owns Patheos, the platform on which this blog operates. This was said to explain a lot about me. I don’t remember what it was supposed to explain, exactly. Probably the vast amounts of money that I make from blogging, my servile obedience to the Brethren, and so forth. It also illustrated my dishonesty, since I hadn’t publicly revealed that I’m a paid mercenary who does the bidding of the leaders of the Church, here as everywhere else. I responded that, if it was true that the Church had bought a company that owned a company that owned a company that owned Patheos (or something of that sort), this was news to me, and that, so far as I could tell, whatever ownership change might have occurred hadn’t affected me in any way that I could identify. Now, though, a friend (who was writing on a totally different topic and, so far as I’m aware, is completely unaware of the alleged clandestine corporate shell game identified over at the Obsession Board, has mentioned to me in passing that, back in September 2016, Patheos was purchased by Beliefnet, which, he says, is a firm belonging to Evangelical Protestants. So not to Latter-day Saints. Now, I have no idea which of these scenarios, if either of them, is actually true. And, to be perfectly candid, I don’t much care. Not, anyway, so long as they don’t try to micromanage what I say and, of course and much more importantly, so long as the gold bullion continues to be delivered in dump trucks to my front door every morning and every evening.

Based on what you've said, it would seem that the ownership of Patheos is a bit more convoluted than what Dr. Peterson is saying here. Besides, if Patheos really *was* owned by "Evangelical Protestants," and there was an underlying ideological goal (i.e., something beyond just making money as part of what Midgley once called "that old cash nexus"), then it says a lot that they'd continue to allow their old, mortal enemies--the Mormons--to go on posting blog items in this fashion. It would imply that they saw "SeN" as something that makes the LDS Church look *bad*.

[Moksha]

I responded that, if it was true that the Church had bought a company that owned a company that owned a company that owned Patheos (or something of that sort), this was news to me, and that, so far as I could tell, whatever ownership change might have occurred hadn’t affected me in any way that I could identify.

Hiding companies within shell after shell is just something that World's Truest Churchs do, not because they are emulating mafia practices.