Patheos was purchased by the Mormon Church

[Res Ipsa]

Post for new tidbits:

Tammy Ferber, who was an original member of the 2019 BN Media LLC, is listed as Radiant’s Treasurer. https://www.radiantdigital.com/meet-the-team

The President of Radiant was the former President of BN Media and BN Media Associates. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremy-mcgee

OK. Now we’re getting somewhere. Per the CEO of BN Media: In the beginning was Affinity 4, which was a for profit business that raised money for churches. It looks like BN Media was created at the time of the Beliefnet purchase to be a holding company for both. https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-halliday-07803879

The company that owns Patheos is Radiant Digital, which has offices in Virginia Beach (Like BN Media) and Salt Lake City. I looked at a job listing with Radiant Digital that gave an address @radiant.org, which is the Radiant Foundation. https://www.radiant.org/

The Radiant Foundation has two initiatives: The Spirituality Project and the Faith and Media initiative. One half of the team for the Faith and Media Initiative “team” is the Senior VP, Global Reach for Deseret Management Corporation. https://www.faithandmedia.com/team

The website for the Spirituality Project is owned by BN Media, LLC, listed with a Salt Lake Address. https://www.thespiritualityproject.org/terms-conditions

Oddly, the Faith and Media Initiative website has a terms and conditions link, but it doesn’t lead anywhere.

[drumdude]

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?

[Philo Sofee]

Poor, poor Daniel, soooooo much good information and teaching to give, share, and talk about, and no freedom to do so. I wonder if he gets it yet how much of a prophet Orwell was in 1984, and how he has been literally assimilated into the corporate thinking with the imaginings of being a free man able to speak his mind on issues that matter. All he ever does is tout the system teachings, exactly what Orwell predicted would happen.

[Res Ipsa]

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.

[Moksha]

I haven’t found who owns Radiant or even how it is organized.

Some things are secret because they are sacred. If God wished his business dealings to be seen, they would be boldly outlined with a Sharpy marker on photos of the Apocalrock.

[Doctor Scratch]

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.

Very, very interesting--and revealing. So, as others have already pointed out, Dr. Peterson was pressured to stop posting about politics. He framed it at the time as a "significant" donor to the Interpreter Foundation. Is that accurate, though? Tough to say. It could be someone (or some entity) that's entirely separate from this Patheos "web." Then again, it could be the folks pulling the strings behind Patheos: they could have been applying pressure *both* from their position as owners of the platform, *and* as donors to the Interpreter Foundation. I gather that there are likely reasons why the Mopologists would want to keep a tight lid on all of this.

In terms of "controlling the message": Dr. Peterson also tends to be highly reactionary when it comes to any suggestion that he's criticizing other faiths (except for atheism, which really isn't a "faith" anyways, except according to the Mopologists). Is this also a result of the change in Patheos's management? It could be that DCP just doesn't like to be accused of harboring critical feelings towards other faith traditions, though in the past he's been quite aggressive in some of his criticism (such as calling Calvinist doctrine "disgusting" or whatever it was; he also led numerous assaults against EVs when he was editor of FROB).

Regardless, you would think that he'd be more transparent about the fact that he has been writing for (and, indeed, profiting from) a blogging platform that is Church-owned/affiliated. Money has gone into his bank account and he's used the platform extensively to plug various Mopologetic projects, ranging from "Mormon Interpreter," to his "Witnesses" movie. "O, what a tangled web we weave!" seems appropriate here.

[drumdude]

We all know that Daniel has made precisely $0.00000 dollars from the Mormon church either directly or indirectly. We know it because he says it’s true!

[Everybody Wang Chung]

Daniel C. Peterson pictured here describing the similarities between a horse and a tapir.


Daniel C. Peterson pictured here calmly watching a child get into a stranger’s van.



Daniel C. Peterson pictured here watching a crippled old man trying to cross the freeway.

[DrStakhanovite]

I'm genuinely impressed that someone actually wanted to acquire Patheos as an asset in the first place.

[Doctor Scratch]

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…)