John Dehlin joins Mormonism LIVE to give the other side

[MormonDiscussionInc]

Full disclosure: I co-host Mormonism LIVE with Radio Free Mormon, so this is obviously adjacent to self-promotion. I’m posting it because this lawsuit has become a significant Mormon news story, and there’s now an unusual opportunity to hear the competing narratives almost back-to-back.

Last week, David Jordan—the LDS Church’s lead attorney in the Mormon Stories case—sat down with the Keystone podcast and gave a lengthy explanation of the Church’s position: why the Church filed the lawsuit, what it says the case is and isn’t about, what happened during mediation, why it believes Mormon Stories created consumer confusion, and what the Church says it ultimately wants.

Tonight 6pm Mountain Time, John Dehlin joins RFM and me in studio to respond.

https://youtu.be/tqZ7Twrd7eE

But rather than simply turning the microphone over to John for four hours, we built the episode around 30 specific claims made by the Church and its attorneys. We put those claims on screen and compare them with the complaint, subsequent court filings, the history of Mormon Stories’ branding, mediation proposals, trademark records, and—in several important places—David Jordan’s own comments on Keystone.

That produces some particularly interesting juxtapositions.

Jordan says the lawsuit has “never” been about preventing Mormon Stories from using the word Mormon. We look at what the original complaint says about the Mormon Stories name, what the Church proposed during mediation, and Jordan’s acknowledgment that the Church suggested numerous alternative names.

Jordan used Bad Mormon as an example of a title that obviously wouldn’t make someone think it was affiliated with the Church. We compare that with the Church’s prior formal opposition to the Bad Mormon trademark, where it argued that the name was likely to cause confusion or falsely suggest a connection with the Church.

Jordan discusses the evidence that people were actually confused by Mormon Stories. We go back to those examples and ask a more precise question: were people confused about who produced the podcast, or simply confused initially about whether it was faithful or critical Mormon content?

We also examine the blue/light-rays branding, the Christus imagery, copyright and fair use, disclaimers, the Church’s continued trademark claims involving names it publicly stopped using, the twenty-year history of Mormon Stories, damages, and what actually happened during the negotiations before the lawsuit was filed.

And John answers questions throughout—including some where the evidence may not be entirely favorable to Mormon Stories.

So if you watched the Keystone interview with David Jordan, this is essentially an opportunity to hear the other principal side of the dispute, while also having the documentary record sitting between the two narratives.

The question we kept coming back to was pretty simple:

What happens when you place what each side is saying next to what the documents actually show?

[Shulem]

...four hours...

Bill,

Many of these podcasts are too long and take too much time off life's clock. For me, they should rarely be more than an hour long, 30-45 minutes is ideal. I'll make an exception for the Ritner episodes on the Book of Abraham. Otherwise, these podcasts are too long and are killing too much time -- it's like Mormonism all over again, church, church, church in reverse. It's blah, blah, and more blah. But if people like it then I guess there is a call for it. But it's way too much talking. I would think people will burn out after a while on all this Mormonism podcasting.

Just my opinion, mind you.

[Kishkumen]

Thank you for coming by to share this news with us, MDInc! This is a big deal. I am especially keen to hear RFM's viewpoint as a lawyer.

[I Have Questions]

...four hours...

Bill,

Many of these podcasts are too long and take too much time off life's clock. For me, they should rarely be more than an hour long, 30-45 minutes is ideal. I'll make an exception for the Ritner episodes on the Book of Abraham. Otherwise, these podcasts are too long and are killing too much time -- it's like Mormonism all over again, church, church, church in reverse. It's blah, blah, and more blah. But if people like it then I guess there is a call for it. But it's way too much talking. I would think people will burn out after a while on all this Mormonism podcasting.

Just my opinion, mind you.

I agree. Break it down into more episodes in bite size chunks. Maybe deal with one bullet point per episode or two. But a podcast with a running time longer than a feature film, no thanks. Yes I know the listener can effectively do that for themselves, but nobody is going to go that amount of effort.

The content deserves to be listened to, but your formatting means I won’t be tuning in.

I’m guessing that the TL;dl is that the Church and David Jenson have lied on many occasions. That’s not breaking news. That’s the norm. Its ammo for Dehlin’s defence people. But its not, in my opinion, for a lengthy “war and peace” podcast. But what do I know, I’m just a nobody on the internet who’s listener figure you likely won’t notice is missing.

[canpakes]

I agree. Break it down into more episodes in bite size chunks. Maybe deal with one bullet point per episode or two.

We can call the series, ‘Becoming Dehlin’.

[drumdude]

I agree. Break it down into more episodes in bite size chunks. Maybe deal with one bullet point per episode or two.

We can call the series, ‘Becoming Dehlin’.

No one cared who I was before I put on the podcast…

[I Have Questions]

I agree. Break it down into more episodes in bite size chunks. Maybe deal with one bullet point per episode or two.

We can call the series, ‘Becoming Dehlin’.

[Bond]

I agree. Break it down into more episodes in bite size chunks. Maybe deal with one bullet point per episode or two.

We can call the series, ‘Becoming Dehlin’.

Developing Dehlin.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

One of the things that ushered me out of the church, well, one of the primary things that ushered me out of the church was discovering the dishonesty, the consistent dishonesty of church leadership and their enablers. It was shocking to me to discover the lengths they'd go to make their narrative seem more palatable to its members and to the world at large. Of course, that's a tall order.

Even now they're treating their supposed church as a corporate entity that needs to aggressively protect its trademark, which of course betrays their true nature - that they're in fact a corporation using the status of a church to generate revenue. Whatever the case may be, we can be guaranteed of one thing above all else: they will lie through their veneers to secure whatever aim they endeavor to bring about. They've been doing since day one, and it's so ingrained into Mormon ethics that they themselves probably believe they're acting like Mr. Rogers when they're acting like the Wolf of Wall Street.

Naturally John Dehlin is in his element with this latest misstep by the Mormons, and I'm sure I'm not alone wishing him the best to defeat this backdoor attempt at diminishing his work. But, this gives me that uneasy sense that the United States has lost the narrative, and that these hyper wealthy institutions can wield a power that might be truly unchecked at this point. When a corporation like LDS Inc wants to apply pressure somewhere, there's not much that can stop them from doing so, and for the most part doing so successfully. Ironically, the ex-Mormon atheist has more in common with David than the Goliath that purports to believe in their own scriptures. Even now, it still feels like a shame to see what was once something unique and kind of beautiful turn into a soulless entity.

[Physics Guy]

Even now, it still feels like a shame to see what was once something unique and kind of beautiful turn into a soulless entity.

This reminded me of a favorite book’s final line, which was a Latin quotation, and in checking my understanding of the Latin before posting about it, I found stuff about it on Wikipedia that I didn’t know.

The line was from a long poem by a 12th century monk, protesting the corrupt society of his time. Along with the preceding line, which my favorite book did not quote, the verses probably read:

Nunc ubi Regulus aut ubi Romulus aut ubi Remus?
Stat Roma pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus.

Where now are Regulus, Romulus, Remus?
The old Rome remains in name only; we hold on to bare names.

So the original was explicitly about a particular state or society, Rome.

According to Wikipedia, Bernard’s text survives in somewhat differently copied versions, and in one, the word “Roma” (Rome) is replaced with “Rosa” (rose). That version’s second line, separated from the previous line referring to three figures from Roman legend, gave Umberto Eco his title for The Name of the Rose. Since the book was set in a late medieval monastery, and narrated by a monk, ending it with a real medieval monk’s Latin verse was effective.

That last line in Latin is the only place in the book that directly mentions the titular “name of the rose”. The theme of something once lovely having been lost, leaving only words without meaning, runs throughout the whole book, however. It might initially refer to wisdom from Classical times that had been lost by the Middle Ages even though monks copied books in their libraries, but over the book the theme seems to expand to include the humane religious revival of Francis of Assisi that had become just another vehicle of political power. When great ideas are abandoned, their names tend to be kept, and even used to oppose the original ideas themselves.

The “Rose” reading makes the line more universal and symbolic, embracing any examples of names and ideas persisting as empty ghosts after their original meaning is gone. The more likely original version referring to Rome may be more specifically relevant nowadays, though, when a lot of civic or national ideals seem to be ghostly like that.

The very fact that people have been noticing and lamenting this pattern since at least the twelfth century offers some hope, however. Good new ideas have grown up many times long after Rome. If those roses have faded again in their turn, turning into mere names, perhaps we can also plant new roses once more.