Source: The Mormon Church is Suing its Biggest Critic Channel: Zelph on the Shelf Published: May 1, 2026 | Archived: May 24, 2026

Video: The Mormon Church is Suing its Biggest Critic
Channel: Zelph on the Shelf
Published: May 1, 2026
Duration: 1:28:50
Views: 10,980
Category: People & Blogs
Video ID: 5pyTD5DkEtM

Description

As always, we’ll be reading super chats and Venmo super chats @Samantha-Shelley-1 :)

SUPPORT THE CHANNEL ⬇️💜 Patreon (feat. bonus content!): www.patreon.com/zelphontheshelf
PayPal: https://www.paypal.biz/supportzelph Venmo: @Samantha-Shelley-1

Faith transitions coaching with Sam: https://samanthashelleycoaching.com/

Transcript — YouTube panel (human-authored)

0:00 Right. Don’t leak our new Immaculate Sausage track before we [laughter] Yeah, sorry. My bad. That was terrible of me. We are live. Nemo, take it away. Well, thank you everyone for turning up to this reunion of Immaculate Sausage. We’re all grateful to be dusting off the cobwebs after is it two or three years since our last re Oh, maybe only a year actually. Yeah. And even though it’s been it’s been two or three years since John left the band.

0:30 I was going to say even though we have had major artistic differences with John in that time, when someone comes for one member of Immaculate Sausage, they come for all of us. So that’s why we’re all here today. Triple threat. Mhm. Triple threat. Like like you know how sausages come in chains. This is a three sausage chain, baby. [laughter] Exactly. You can leave the bandape but the band will not leave your critics alone.

1:00 It will not. And and like you said, triangle is the strongest shape. And so the sausages into a triangle. Beautiful stuff. No one’s doing triangle sausages. Wendy’s does the square burger, but triangle sausage is the future. I feel it. Yeah, I think so. And and a triangle prism, you know what I mean? So like it’s triangular but long. Perfect. [laughter] Yeah. So, it’s triangular in cross-section. That’s what we need.

1:27 They’re all kind of matching clicking on this video for just random interests are like, “What the hell is happening?” Oh, yeah. We should be um professional because we uh need to build our channel back up and hopefully there’s new viewers here today. Hello, welcome. We’re here to talk about the Mormon Church suing its biggest critic. Yeah. After what, 21 years of uh Mormon stories existing, John’s finally getting sued by them. Kind of crazy timing. It is very crazy timing.

2:02 I’m just checking that I shared this on my Instagram, and I feel like I have. Yeah, maybe I should have put your name in the titles to get more views, but I can do it after. That’s all right. just stick John’s name in because even though he’s no longer the frontman of Immaculate Sausage, he, you know, still is the biggest draw. We have suggestions of Toberone Sausage from the chat. That is exactly what I’m describing. Yes, aligned. Perfect. [laughter] Wonderful.

2:29 Yeah, we have we have to sausage on its way. We have I mean, we have a vague outline for today. I have some Okay. things for us to go over. Nemo, I know you’ve already you’ve done a video on this already, right? I have. Yeah. What a few um just off the bat, what is your opinion on why now that the church is doing John? It’s it’s Oaks. I think it’s 100% Oaks. I think it’s um his it’s his binary need to have things be either this or that, right? It’s that lawyerly thing of like, right, we have to we have to assert whether John is in the inroup or in the out groupoup. We’ve excommunicated him already, but people might still think he’s one of us and we can’t have that. So, we need clarity.

3:17 And that’s something we at Immaculate Sausage actually can relate to. But we don’t believe in suing as a band. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Roasting. Yes, we will roast the hell out of people. But, yeah, but only we’re allowed to do that. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. All our music is copyright free. We won’t even we won’t sue for any. You can take it. Pretend it’s you. Please have it. [laughter] Have it. People will call it AI slop, but that’s fine. We will know the truth.

3:46 [laughter] To give just a brief overview for if you don’t know anything about this. Basically, I think I Nemo, when did we first catch wind of this? Like six months ago. John was like last year. Okay, perfect. So glad you’re here. The church was threatening to sort of sue him. Was coming at him um ostensibly for like trademark stuff and wanting him to change what their logo and the color of Mormon Stories branding and all these different like branding things basically.

4:19 Um, and I remember John being very willing to sort of uh, you know, play ball with them to try and do what they wanted cuz you know who’s trying to get into a lawsuit with a multi-billion dollar organization. Um, but it seems like despite all the the mediation and the many demands that John agreed to and like enacted, which I remember at the time being like, h, that that sucks that John’s like having to pander to them because it doesn’t even feel fair to have to take the Chris off the logo or change the [ __ ] rays of light because I guess Mormonism, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints owns rays of light as a visual element, just so you guys know. [snorts] Um, yeah, [clears throat] it’s like John really tried tried hard to negotiate with them and and make this fine, meet their demands, even ask what else he could do to avoid a lawsuit, but it doesn’t matter. They ended up filing one anyway, right?

5:15 Yeah. Well, I I think part of the problem here is that not the problem, but part of what contributed [snorts] to all this, I think, is that John was so transparent and open about the mediation process. M um is that he posted that he was in mediation. He posted that no conclusion had been reached from mediation. And at that point, what else is the church going to do other than sue him? Because they can’t be seen to go into mediation, not get what they want, and then be like, well, okay, fine. I guess we’ll walk away, right? Then that’s for them.

5:47 That’s not a position they want to hold. Even though that seems like the benevolent and the right thing to do and probably the Christian thing to do. Like, hey, we asked, we tried to have a conversation. Cool. But no, they went in under threat of lawsuit. Do this or else. And then it reminds me of the way they acted with the town of Fairview. They were like, “Hey, look, we will sue you if you don’t give us what we want.” And then they compromised a little bit and ultimately got what they wanted. So they didn’t sue the town. The church didn’t get what they wanted, which we can get into what exactly they wanted and how unreasonable it seemed to be on the face of it. But yeah, um yeah, there was no way they were going to walk out of that with John saying, “Hey, look, we’ve not reached a settlement.” and then they’re going, “Okay, well, we’ll just walk away.”

6:26 But they did get a lot of what they wanted. Like, as I said, John changed. I mean, I remember Mormon stories going from blue to orange. I was like, “This is heinous.” Like, I hate that Mormon stories is orange. It’s as opposite a color as you could pick. I know [laughter] it’s on the color wheel. The blonde girlies get it. Yeah. Um, I have Crazy how the church can claim ownership of the color blue.

6:52 Yes. I mean like well to be fair as a Brit Sam you know that Cabbury have indeed claimed the color purple. A very specific it’s such a specific purple. It’s a very specific panone code of purple right and so if the church came to him and went right we have a trademark on this panone color of blue right that they can like define and this is the exact blue that we have trademark on and you’re using it. You you know your your CMYK code is exactly what we’re using. So, get it gone. Um, I would understand, but it’s not that.

7:25 It’s just like, hey, it’s it’s too blue. It’s too much like our other logos, which there’s several logos in their sort of spread of different icons and whatnot that are not blue. Mhm. This is apparently I sent a video to I sent a video to Sam this morning with an apologist uh explaining why it’s so unreasonable for John to use blue. and she puts up a lineup of all the churches blue with his and his is like totally as a painter I’m like that is a totally different blue as a painter thank you Tana I’m wearing my paint pants we’ve got paint pants and Nemo the Mormon in this breakdown this is this is apparently what they wanted John to change [laughter] his logo too um specifically they wanted the with Dr. John.

8:17 They wanted the with Dr. John to be the same size. Basically, they just want him to have [ __ ] branding that’s like impossible to read, not legible from a thumbnail size. And also, they want him to call it ex Mormon stories, which is absurd because, as anyone who’s watched Mormon stories knows, he doesn’t just tell ex Mormon stories. First of all, he tells more than even just Mormon stories, but like he he talks about Mormonism from across the spectrum, you know, like the FLDS church, different offshoot branches of Mormonism. Like Mormonism is not one religion and he gets believing Mormons on the show.

8:52 Yeah. Joseph lads on there. He’s had people who are going through faith crisis. Then there was an episode where a believing Mormon kind of sat there and heard things that she had not heard before. Right. Yeah. No, there’s been so many. He I mean, didn’t he have Jared Halverson on? Yeah. And all of this comes back to the fact that the these people shouldn’t be identifying as Mormons anyway.

9:14 If you prophet of the Lord said, “Yeah, the prophet of the mouthpiece of God, a man speaking for God said, “We’re not calling ourselves Mormon anymore.” And the church is coming out and saying, “Oh, well actually we’re upset because you’re calling yourself Mormon.” It’s like you’re playing with our ball, but we don’t want that ball, but we still want to hold on to it. It’s a crime if someone and journalists aren’t even allowed to name us by that ball. I’ve lost [snorts] the draw immediately. Yeah.

9:45 But we want it. We don’t If if we can’t have it, no one can. Mhm. It is very much that it’s this cut off your nose to spider face as as Michael Scott would say. Yeah. I’ve got more I’ve got more media for us to react to. Yes, let’s do it. Professional. We are ostensibly a reaction channel at this point. Yes. Okay. Is it Is it cover of the latest Immaculate Sausage? [laughter] No, that’s we’re keeping that under under our That’s the one where Tanner and I No, actually should say that. That’s fine. Wait, what the audience?

10:28 Okay, let’s start with [laughter] this. So, uh, Moment Stories put out this. Does anyone want to read? Uh, I think you have a lovely voice, Nemo. I think we I need your exposure. My I need exposure to your voice the most. Exposure to my voice the most. Okay. I can’t read it at that size. There we go. There we go. Got it. Okay. While asking the mediator to wave in front of us but not show us tease a 2 to3 million lawsuit fully drafted and ready to be filed. So basically holding a financial gun to our heads. The LDS church demanded that we change our logo to this. The image that we just saw. Not joking. They even specified that the font size had to be the same for all the words in the logo and what fonts we couldn’t use.

11:17 Probably something like Palutino. I feel like that’s one the church uses a lot. They’re like, “You got to do wingings or we’re suing you. It’s [laughter] wingings or nothing.” Okay, John. So, this was a big part of what killed our first mediation attempt. And then the church went on to mislead its own members in a public press release. Not just its members, the public at large, anyone reading it. Uh they went on to mislead its own members in a public press release that the reason mediation failed was because we wouldn’t adopt a disclaimer which we did adopt.

11:46 You know it’s bad when John’s going all caps on Maine. Yes. [laughter] He’s like which we did adopt. Which we did adopt. Perhaps this is an example of what happens when you let lawyers run Christ’s church. And perhaps this is why sexual predators like Wade Christopherson are rebaptized after abusing children. Their membership records are sanitized. They end up in multiple bishop bricks. and eventually abuse more children. We need more school teachers and women in the Q15, not more lawyers.

12:14 Although women deserve better than to have to be in the Q15. [laughter] Yeah. Dream a little bigger, ladies. Yeah. Seriously. Yeah. Yeah. So, um the Mormon church telling lies to the public. How could it be? We’ve never done that before. Apparently, they also they wanted Mormon Stories to put an audio disclaimer at the beginning of every episode forever. I would love to be paid for that gig. The amount of times they wanted it.

12:48 [laughter] Oh my god. Yeah. Not only did they want it at the start of every episode forever, they also wanted John to repeat the audio disclaimer every 15 to 20 minutes in the episode, which I [laughter] just I’m like, it’s like American TV adverts. And it [laughter] would have that same voice. It’s like Advil may cause kidney failure and heart [laughter] failure. I know. You know what I mean? Like this. Like talk to your doctor before taking this medication or it will kill you.

13:14 They’re like demanding that he confess he’s a son of predition every 12 minutes just so everybody’s clear. Yeah. And he needs to confess that he knew the church. He knows the church is true the whole time, but he’s just doing it because [laughter] of wickedness. It’s so insane because putting an audio disclaimer every 15 minutes in a Mormon stories episode, that’s like 65 disclaimers per episode. It’s literal.

13:37 John, bless him, will not be able to keep those disclaimers brief either. So, that’s going to be an extra couple of hours per episode and they’re already long. I mean, I guess he could just like cut to disclaimer and it could just be this super annoying thing that’s always happening. I feel like that’s not going to garner any goodwill for the church, though. People are just going to be like, “What the [ __ ] is this?” Like, why is he doing this? Oh, well, the church made me.

13:59 I love that the church’s estimation of its members is so low that it’s like they can’t even tell that a so-called slur is not representative of us. They can’t tell that this guy who’s been the most publicly excommunicated member of the church for the last 15 years is not representing us. And they needed to they need to be reminded every 15 minutes or they’ll lose their faith. Like, I don’t think God’s the problem. Well, because they they talk about the Mword, right, in some circles, and some Mormons like to treat the word Mormon like it’s the N word. And it would be like the NAACP releasing a podcast that’s harding it and everyone going, “Oh, well, I’m not sure whether it’s from them or not.” And you’re like, “Well, clearly. Clearly, it’s not.” All right. Clearly.

14:43 And even if you’re told once, you need to be reminded just in case. [laughter] Um, wasn’t it Oaks who was it in Oaks’s first talk when he became the prophet, the president of this church corporation, didn’t he say podcasts were dangerous? Like right off the bat straight out like one of his main BYU devotional, he name checks the ex Mormon podcasting scene. Yeah, which is great. That’s cool. I’m sure that’s unrelated. Oh, absolutely.

15:11 This is definitely just a simple trademark issue. Absolutely. And I did notice actually that Oaks did that and then this comes up. I remember when Oaks put out some training in the summer of 2024 saying that he wanted to see more excommunications who should be excommunicated but a couple of months later our boy. Yeah, it really does seem worth mentioning that the only reason John isn’t Mormon, which they’re not even calling themselves anymore, so this is all so infuriating, but it’s like he was excommunicated for just discussing the truth and asking questions. Like, yeah, if John had had it his way, he’d probably still be a member.

15:50 Mhm. And it’s it’s made very clear very often in the podcast episodes and whatnot, John’s position towards the church. He talks about his excommunication often, I think. Yeah. Yeah. To Tanner’s point about the church’s estimation of its members, all this smacks of is that the church doesn’t is an organization that does not want its members to encounter any information that’s critical of it because they’re saying, “Oh, well, it will cause confusion and we don’t want our members well, they they say essentially in the lawsuit that it undermines the church’s mission if people are confused.” You’re like, “Well, interesting.” Because actually, if the church’s mission were more about open information and transparency and those sorts of things, then it would actually it would support their mission to have John’s podcast uh functioning.

16:37 No, you know, the church represents is are the literal representation of Jesus Christ. They the quorum of the 12, they’re having ham sandwiches with Jesus every Thursday in the temple. And this is as a Jew. Okay, I take that back. He’s really good point [laughter] on the shelf. Uh but that’s the kind of sharp sober thinking we need. I’m trying to remember the verse the verse in the Bible where Jesus says, “And behold, when someone uses thy a similar blue to thee that thou shalt sue them.” Like I feel like that’s directly opposition to the spirit of Christianity who you know Jesus was like if you get sued in a court of law give them give him if they sue you for your coat give him your oh there it is. I don’t have to wing it. If a man sue the law and take away thy coat let him have thy cloak also.

17:34 Let him have thy cloak. the [ __ ] that you’ve got a coat and a cloak that you’re just like got some sick threads on a famous like the most amazing coat. [laughter] And yet, how did James Huntsman’s suit to get his tithing money back go? They didn’t say, “Oh, yeah, have it back.” And a coat as well. And my cloak also. They went, “Nah, please judge. He’s trying to undermine our Second Amendment rights or whichever amendment the Constitution is.” Um, I don’t know.

18:03 We’re not allowed to lie and take people’s money. That’s not fair. That’s not fair. First amendment violation. He is trying to question us and we are unquestionable. We’re a religion. So, okay. Well, Jesus said, “If people sue you, just give your stuff away.” He was Jesus was very like he wasn’t big on personal property. Sure wasn’t. Generally told the rich young man to sell all he has and give it to the poor.

18:27 And then Jeffrey R. Holland has the g to stand there and tell that story and be like, “Oh, the rich young man shaking in his expens in his expensive sandals got cold feet because it was too big an ask.” I’m like, “You’re stood there in a very expensive suit with a very expensive watch in a multi-billion dollar conference center that was built on widow’s mites getting flown around the world on private jets mocking the rich young man for not giving all he has to the poor while you’re sat on a hundred billion dollars, Jeffers.” Yeah. Didn’t one of your own prophets say that you’d be done with tithing by now? Cuz the church would have enough.

18:58 It really seems like we’re at that point when they’ve got multi-billion dollars. Seems like we could maybe be done with that. Just another couple hundred billion and then we can sue all the truth tellers into oblivion and then we can actually Jesus Christ of saints has offici. It’s like now is the great day of my power [laughter] says the Mormon church. Absolutely. Do you guys want to watch this video of presumably a paid apologist? I don’t want to, but I will.

19:28 But you must turn up for work for your job. It’s your duty. Never has my job felt more like work than right now. PS, um, if anyone wants to super chat us, I forgot to say this 20 minutes ago, but you can do it via YouTube or you can also Venmo super chat us. Also, don’t let the fact that Mormon Stories needs your support right now distract from the fact that we also really need your support.

19:50 Yeah, I’ve had some people sassy me in my comments saying like, “Oh, you’re just there telling people to support your channel. What about directing them to John’s fundraiser?” I’m like, I’m like, “Well, John’s a homeowner and we’re [laughter] not, so we got to look after ourselves, too.” Homeowner, car owner. He’s got Yes. [laughter] Double camera owner. Yes. Some of us don’t have multiple camera angles. Yeah, we’re still fighting.

20:14 Some of us can’t don’t even have a mic stand. [laughter] Yeah, some of us are holding our microphones like peasants. Some of us maybe got scammed in ordering a new ring light from Korea. [laughter] Wow. I’ll report back. But let’s watch this. Yeah, let’s watch. Our favorite Jasmine Rapaliite. Wait, where have I seen the name Rap? Rapali was in Trust Me the False Prophet. Wasn’t that the middle name of Sam Baitman?

20:40 I swear it was. I remember because I I like sniggered when I heard rape. They were like Sam Rapai Baitman. I think I’m right. [cough] Okay. Okay. Starting it now. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has officially filed a lawsuit against John Delin of the ex Mormon podcast Mormon Stories. John Delin recently walked away from legal mediation with the church, claiming that their demands were too unreasonable. But today, the church revealed exactly what that unreasonable demand was, and it surprised me. The church is suing the Open Stories Foundation specifically for trademark and copyright infringement.

21:18 They claim that Mormon Stories has created brand confusion by mimicking official church branding. Totally different. We’re talking Church of Jesus Christ. Like 17 different blues. [laughter] She called it Church of Jesus Christ blue. I want someone to find me what the panone code for it is. literally so stupid. And then we just say, “Well, John’s isn’t the same blue, so I guess get lost.” Sorry, guys. Mormons own onethird of the color wheel.

21:46 Yeah. [laughter] Yeah. Seriously, they own a primary color. Primary colors are one, two, three, red, yellow, and pay me to sing the next words, peasant. [laughter] It’s like us making a video about the Barbie movie and making the thumbnail pink and then the Barbie movie, whoever, who is it? Mattel, whoever being like, “This is creating brand confusion. Someone might think that this is an official video.” Uh, it’s actually not called Blue anymore. It’s called True Blue. Dyed in the wool blue.

22:14 Yeah. You know what? I I I really want to bring back Rick Rowling. I’m not It’s not [clears throat] been around for a while. And I think what we need to bring back is just actual clickbait of videos that are meant to look like church videos and they’re all just Rick Ashley singing Never Going to Give You Up. This is the campaign that Immaculate Sausage needs to go on. Or can I just maybe put forth Tana’s Brad Wilcox rap as the new Rick Roll for that scenario? [laughter] I think yes.

22:44 I’m dying to know. Every time I watch this Jasmine woman, I’m like, does she believe what she’s saying? Because the way that she talks is with such confidence that it’s almost like she she talks with this tone that like what I’m saying is so reasonable. like she almost draws me in with with the way she pres Yeah, she’s the perfect embodiment of that quote that um it is it’s difficult for someone I think it says a man, but it’s a difficult for someone to understand something when their paycheck depends on them not understanding it.

23:16 Mhm. Yeah. Blue Church of Jesus Christ light rays. Church of Jesus Christ status Christ are owned by the church of Jesus Christ. Can we [laughter] talk about the Christ? Those aren’t lines. Light rays in the church logo. What the hell? Goodness. Yeah. Yeah. No. Correct. Correct. I can’t believe the light rays one. Just like the most like bog standard graphic design detail for a religious podcast for a religion that has many different branches of it. That all started with Joseph Smith receiving a vision with where light came through the trees.

23:55 Indeed. It’s like, are they going to sue the FLDS church for using that in their branding? I I don’t know. And I wonder what other graphic design features they’re going to monopolize soon. It’s like lens flares are actually That’s Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints lens flare. They’re they’re going to they’re going to absolutely copyright certain types of music that instigate elevation emotion.

24:18 They have being on your knees. We actually own that. Yeah. Heart cell. That’s our thing, which it kind of actually is. Um, the the church that plagiarized Masonic rituals and large chunks of the Bible is now claiming to be the sole proprietors of blue and light rays. And a statue that existed before the church did. I do believe someone that’s not even their statue. It’s not their statue. It’s [laughter] in the church of St. Mary in Denmark.

24:49 It’s in Copenhagen. It’s toton’s Christmas statue is in Denmark and the church has gone. Oh well that’s ours now and it but you’re allowed to steal from like Denmark and Greenland and stuff. That’s like and he’s in a bathtub game. He’s in a bathtub. Jesus is in a bathtub in that logo. Look at it again. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And they stole they stole that from Central and South America where they put statues in a bathtub outside their homes.

25:18 Thank you, [sighs] Nemo. photos that were unauthorized. I personally know tons of people who were misled into thinking that Mormon stories was an official church podcast just to stumble into anti- Mormon material. But here’s the crazy part. Accord Okay, but then presumably they’re like, “Oh, hang on a minute. I guess my media literacy is a bit bad. I’ve just realized I’m not listening to an official church thing.” And then it’s like, what’s the [ __ ] problem? Like the church is kind of like telling on themsel. They’re telling on themselves by even saying that because it’s like the legal system doesn’t exist to like protect religious people from accidentally learning a truth about their own religion. Like what? Mhm.

25:57 Um and it’s I mean we’ve already kind of addressed the point, but like [clears throat] when I first started listening to Mormon stories, I exclusively listened to believing members uh BYU professors, apologists. There’s tons of that in there. So being like, oh, people telling the truth either about the field that they are experts in or their own personal experiences are inherently anti- Mormon.

26:24 Mhm. Wild is literally a podcast about Mormonism, which isn’t even one religion. Okay, going back to her. How do I get back? Oh, hang on. We’re also saying that uh so a comment came [clears throat] up saying that it’s panone 7693C is the church’s blue. I put that on the screen. Yeah. So if John is not using that specific color blue, what are we talking about? What is the church getting at here?

26:52 They’re like, “Oh yeah, well it’s blue.” So is the sky. Sue the sky for being blue. This comment that’s on the screen right now is my exact outfit combo. What does it mean? Who am I suing? Lexi Tenny. [laughter] Also, like the church is going to be like, you know, they’re going to argue that it’s it’s their religious imperative and uh that color specific color blue or excuse me, it’s not even that specific. That blue in general is blue uh essential to the practice of their religion and then in one year they’re going to change their entire branding anyway. Yeah. Yeah.

27:29 Yeah. According to this newly released legal complaint, the church didn’t ask them to shut down or influence the content of the podcast. Instead, the they just wanted a disclaimer every 15 minutes. That’s super [ __ ] annoying. Yeah, that doesn’t influence your content. Yeah, we just want your branding to be like, you know, the the things that every single professional marketing graphic designer would dissuade anyone from doing because it’s just a horrific choice for branding.

27:54 Mhm. The unreasonable demand that made Dylan walk away was that the church, I assume in addition to changing some of the branding elements, asked for them to put a brief simple disclaimer at the beginning of their episodes stating that they were not affiliated with the church. And look, as a creator, I get that disclaimers and rebranding can feel clunky. But rebrands can also be really exciting opportunities. And I believe you [laughter] are keeping it as an exciting opportunity for John and she is not a creator. I don’t think the church is looking to give John an exciting opportunity to rewrite.

28:28 [laughter] She is not a creator. She’s someone that serves up whatever the church gives her to serve up is what does. She is not a creator at all. We approached John Dyn with a bounce house and cotton candy machine. An exciting opportunity to rebrand [laughter] and Mr. Fun hater himself turned us down. [gasps] How ridiculous is this? Used disclaimers on my own channel since day one so that people don’t confuse my opinions with official church positions.

29:01 Okay, that’s we would hate we would hate to believe that someone on the payroll of the church is We would hate to be confuse you with the official church. Jesus officially that she’s paid by the church. Do we know for sure? Yeah, I don’t know. She is 100%. I I would bet I would bet my paycheck on it because we already know that so many LDS influencers are paid and no one is going through all this hassle on their like of course.

29:27 Well, even when I did Millennial Mormons, the church was like reaching out offering us free SEO help, which you know is worth a lot. So, it’s like that was then. I’m sure they’re doing more now. Yeah, absolutely. I simply just don’t see this as an unreasonable request when this podcast has crafted their We’ve watched your stuff about how child brides weren’t unreasonable either. So, it’s really not ringing.

29:49 Your bar is in hell for what is reasonable and unreasonable. [laughter] Also, look at that [ __ ] thumbnail. She’s using the coloring blue. Her background is She’s using John’s logo, [laughter] [gasps] his likeness and image. Dylan’s face. [laughter] No, but legitimately she she mentioned the fact that the church was going after thumbnails as unauthorized use of church images. Did she reach out and ask John if she could use that picture of him?

30:19 Did she reach out and ask John if she could use that logo? No. Jesus owns fonts of all kind. Oh yeah, my bad. Jesus. That’s the baptismal font. I would [laughter] would certainly recommend a rebrand so that Mormon stories can demonstrate to their audience whether their content is independently strong or if its survival is dependent on mimicking another person’s brand. You she thinks that Mormon stories is successful because everyone is just stumbling upon and then watching six-hour episodes [laughter] think church affiliated while they, you know, talk about Joseph Smith as a fraud or whatever. She’s [snorts] This is the church that for for centuries has claimed that the cross is a a bad symbol of Christianity that’s now using it to try to appear like normal Christian churches on Google Maps and other people will be tricked into walking in being like, “Yeah, all of John’s donors are just have simply been

31:19 tricked into believing that this is an official church publication.“ All of these missionary adverts that don’t upfront say that it’s the Mormon Church or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They’re just like, “Come worship with us on Sunday while we’re conveniently not wearing our missionary badge.” Literally, we’re doing English classes. Come hang out and see what happens. Yeah.

31:38 People always get mad when you borrow from their own rule book. They can’t bear it. Was there any more of this? She’s like, “My I recommend War Stories as a rebrand.” All right. Well, I will come to you when I actually want your recommendations. Yeah, I recommend you do a rebrand. Be quiet. You do [laughter] a rebrand. I think they look nice on you. I would love for her I would love for her to make it very clear whether she is paid by the church or not.

32:02 If she wants to talk about people being clear about their affiliation, I want to know I want her to be really clear, open, and transparent about it. She should have whether her content is independently strong or whether it relies on the implication [laughter] that she is directly connected to the church and in some way that that she made tried to make the point that Mormon stories might only have like popular content because of brand conf like what the hell if anyone knows about Mormon stories who’s a believing member. It’s like either they live under a rock and they don’t know about it or they think it’s like this big evil scary thing generally speaking. I mean, now the tides are kind of turning, which is there anything else to this?

32:40 To learn more, read this article in the church newsroom. Great. I bet that’s good. It’s so important for the creator of the universe to speak through a PR department website. It’s the only way we can get clarity on such matters when there’s so many mimics about [laughter] so many people pretending to be the Lord’s one true church. What’s our next bit of media, Sam? What’s our next Are we just going to sit and bask in the icky feeling that comes from listening to Jasmine rapidly for a minute?

33:17 I know. There’s something extra unsettling about her. It’s true. It’s the length she goes to just like like again, excuse child brides, but just a straight face. And I can like she just she just fine. Making you seem like you’re insane for thinking the child bride thing wasn’t okay. Yeah. You just must lack reason pounding copium just right more coke pills. We’re on I heard that John changed three years of thumbnails. Yeah.

33:49 To try and comply. Can confirm saw the Slack messages asking [clears throat] people to change thumbnails. Yeah. Like she made it sound like John just showed up and then just refused to meet. He did so much stuff that he already shouldn’t have had to have done. And of course, it’s not really about the branding at the end of the day. It’s literally just using a ton of power to try to weaken and bog down somebody for doing something. Mhm.

34:17 Yeah. I think she lied when she said that they didn’t adopt the disclaimer because they did, right? Well, so the church in its statement says that they asked for a disclaimer and John refused to do it, which is vague enough to lead people to believe that John didn’t put any disclaimers in. He didn’t put in the very specific type of disclaimer they’re asking for, which is the audio disclaimer. But what he did do was add a disclaimer to the website uh at footers and all these points to just make it very clear if it wasn’t already to the people who have been vilifying the word Mormon for the past eight years. If it wasn’t clear to those people by now that a podcast called Mormon Stories isn’t officially affiliated with the church, that just wasn’t clear to those people. Then John put a disclaimer there just to be sure, right? Cuz even even the shills like uh the uh previously called Midnight Mormons who aren’t affiliated with the church, even they changed their [clears throat] name. Like it’s so obvious. If John had

35:17 wanted to sneak his way into, you know, the the RSS feeds of believing Mormons, then he would have changed the name of his podcast when Nelson came out and called it a major victory for Satan. He would have been jumping straight on going, “All right, cool. We’re latter- day stories now.” And so, my evil scheme continues. Instead, he did what people like me and others have done and kept hold of the word Mormon and gone, “No, we’re not listening to the whims of Russell M. Nelson. We’re going to keep calling ourselves Mormon. that’s what we’re going to identify with. And then all of a sudden now he’s dead. And we’re seeing in action what Alan D. Haney said when he said the key is to follow the living prophet. The words of dead prophets don’t age or don’t appreciate in value with age. So we’re seeing that now Russ Nelson is a dead prophet. What he had to say about the name of the church doesn’t matter anymore. Jasmine’s no longer going um actually it’s the

36:09 church Jesus Christ saints. No, she’ll go to Mormon again. she has been doing. Truth is a fine wine that sour with time. [laughter] It just gets worse and worse and worse. Yeah. I mean, my thing as soon as I heard about this lawsuit was like, cuz you know, as much as I think the church makes terrible PR decisions, they also have like a very intelligent legal team and, you know, marketing PR team. And I was just like, this I just don’t see a way that this doesn’t make them look bad and just bring more attention to Mormon stories. Oh, the Striand effect on this.

36:49 Yeah, people have been saying that in the comments a lot. Um, and the media coverage so far, this was something John shared. Seems [clears throat] to confirm that. He shared a link to the Chicago Sun Times and said, “Grateful to the Chicago Sun Times for making the possible connection between Mormon Stories podcasts continued coverage of the LDS church’s Wade Christopherson child abuse coverups and their decision to sue me and Mormon Stories after 21 years without a peep.” Yeah, it is really [ __ ] suspicious. Why would they have done this lawsuit around the time that they excommunicated him or something, you know? Well, I mean, I will what I will say is the mediation started in November and I don’t know whether the story about Wade Christopherson broke until after.

37:36 I may the mediation was going on before like around the same time, right? Like November was maybe when it kicked off, but more stuff happened like John met with them and stuff in that time. Yeah. Either way, many speculate that the lawsuit is a result of Delin H. Oaks, an attorney, being called as prophet. That seems obvious. Yeah. What we have to remember is that D. Todd Chrisphson is also an attorney. Of course, I don’t know how these decisions are made, but the church can’t be pleased with our continued coverage of the Wade Kristophen cover up. Your thoughts?

38:07 What are your thoughts, Nemo? You seem more ab breast of that than us. Oh, I don’t know about the way Christopherson and stuff particularly other than, you know, he’s allegedly a nons and um the church and allegedly drophen knew about it and when the church has apostle diet Christopherson, right? I believe I’ve seen a statement from the church recently where it’s like we it has to be made clear that he only knew within the last five or six years or worse to that effect. If you’re as a church having to come out and saying, “Oh, well, our guy only knew about this part of the abuse of children, you’re in a losing position.” Regardless of, you know, if you’re trying to do damage control of how much he knew and how much he didn’t know, it’s like if he knew any of it and he’s claiming to be a man who speaks for God and he’s in this sanctified position, you’re you’re on for a loser there. And so, yeah,

39:00 anything they can do to distract from it, they will. I don’t know whether we can say that this lawsuit or even entering into mediation with the intent of then putting forward requests that are so unreasonable that you end up in a lawsuit. But you can say, “Well, look, we tried mediation.” You get people like Jasmine going out, “Hey, look, we tried mediation.” And John’s being unreasonable. And you’re like, “Well, actually, look at what they were asking.

39:20 It was never going to work.“ um anything they can do like that to distract from the fact that the brother of one of the most senior men in the church he’s in the top three men in the church is a massive nons allegedly um then they will try and distract from it particularly if that brother knew particularly if Dtood Christopherson knew things yeah it’s hard to say it’s like a distraction from one particular thing though obviously that one is bad when your whole scheme meme is bad. Like, it could be it’s just distracting from their badness in general. I mean, that’s why they don’t want Mormon stories having any leverage whatsoever or getting out there at all or being able to reach anybody on the off chance who can’t distinguish anything online because they’ve never been they’ve been conditioned their whole life to not have a single critical thought ever and just to intake everything that they’ve been

40:16 handed. Yeah. Because I mean like before Deto Todd Christopherson’s brother was abusing there was like Thomas [clears throat] S. Monson’s son who is a predator and of course the predators go all the way back through the entire leadership of the church which was of course founded by child predators. I mean there’s the bad shake altogether. Yeah. There’s the instance of one of Russell M. Nelson’s children I believe being involved. There’s some allegations there of a cover up around the death of a child I think and things like that. So um I I think it is interesting when as a church you are in the position of going right what do we want the public to be focused on right now what are our options okay I guess we’re going to sue a small podcast relatively small podcast compared to the size of our church we’re going to bully them openly we’re going to make this look we’re not going to even be able to control how this looks

41:09 but we’re going to do that rather than have the world talking about what our second in command knew or our third in command knew knew about what his brother was up to and the fact that under our watch he was rebaptized into the church and something that could only happen with the approval of the church’s highest leader. He was then brought back into the fold and allowed access to children again.

41:34 I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate that policy. the way that the church has essentially argue like fought a legal battle to ensure that child predators never see real justice. They say if you’re a member of the church and you confess to us then guess what child predation isn’t a crime for you. You’ve confessed so to us so you’re good now you just don’t have to take bread and water every week and that’s your punishment versus like my ways are higher than your way.

42:07 I think that’s where it’s coming from, right? They’re like, “Okay, well, you know, this is the high road.” The secular justice is a gremlin under a bridge, right? We’re the taking the high road and we are offering forgiveness and and love and charity to child molesters. That’s what we’re doing. Because so they can, okay, they can offer forgiveness and love and compassion to men who do one of the most heinous crimes imaginable. What they can’t do is offer forgiveness and love and compassion to a man who happens to use a shade of blue they don’t like. [laughter] That’s what the church can’t forgive.

42:43 The church cannot forgive a man who might have branding that’s too similar to theirs. Who might cause a little confusion about whether he’s officially one of theirs or not. You know who they don’t care about people knowing whether official theirs or not? Someone who has abused children and then been rebaptized. They’ll happily have people know that, okay, he’s one of us again. He’s one of us. That’s fine. But did he use light rays in any of his thumbnails? That’s our thing.

43:10 No, just a few comments I saved [clears throat] that were on our Instagram. They don’t have a printing press to burn down, so this is the next best thing. I guess [laughter] if you’re new to Mormonism, Joseph Smith, when a local newspaper exposed his polygamy in an accurate way, ordered for the entire printing press that produced it to be burned down, which led to his imprisonment, right?

43:36 And death and death. And uh another comment, this lawsuit looks less like neutral trademark housekeeping and more like brand control aimed at a powerful critic. The church may be using IP law as a cleaner, safer tool than arguing the substance of woman’s stories criticism. Rather than debate Dylan’s claims head-on, it can pressure him on trademarks, visuals, and copyrighted photos, where a large institution usually has more leverage and money.

44:04 Another critical reading is that the church may want to make an example of the biggest ex Mormon media platform. Mormon stories is prominent, and a lawsuit against a high-profile critic can send a message to others. You may criticize us, but if you get too close to our branding ecosystem, we can make that expensive and risky. It seems insane to me that they would especially when John was so willing to comply in so many ways that they would waste I mean if you remember you could think of it as like millions and millions of dollars of tithing money that could be used on building the kingdom even if you don’t care about helping the poor which the church doesn’t like building the kingdom at least like yeah that was my short new chandelier for that yeah is this the best use of the church’s money no I just don’t think it is objectively even if you know you want to Yeah. If you don’t want to help the poor, there’s still better things to be done.

44:56 Yeah. Cuz even though John like obviously Open Stories Foundation versus the LDS church, like the financial difference is absolutely enormous. So like it’s going to suck for John no matter what. But it’s like Mormon Stories also has a lot of rich and uh you know uh generous donors that I imagine will step up to the plate and support them in fighting this lawsuit. John has a good legal team is it’s not his first rodeo with lawsuits. Like it’s not going to be like a a slam dunk situation. It’s it feels like it will be it doesn’t to me it doesn’t maybe I’m just too naive. But I’m like, surely the church can’t actually win this.

45:37 They want discovery. Yeah, that’s what is just like, do they want John rifling through their papers? That’s interesting to think about. Is that part of it with It would be It would be part of an eventual lawsuit. There would have to be discovery. They would have to lawyers would have to be exchanging information and and finding out what’s going on behind the scenes with stuff like this. Like cuz I know this is like a common tactic of cults and like you know big scary organizations that want to oppress and manipulate. Like to what degree do they care about winning? Like is it just about the you know like when the beef industry sued Oprah for saying that she just couldn’t look at a burger again because she found out I think it was like either the suffering of animals or what goes into them. Don’t remember but like the the meat the meat industry sued Oprah and it was like this crazy thing for years that caused her a ton of stress. Like does it really does it

46:38 matter to them if they win? Well, I don’t think it does because the church is so wealthy [clears throat] that they don’t lose. Like the amount of money they would spend on this lawsuit is drop in the ocean. 10 even 100 million doesn’t matter to them. They can spend all that money. And I did find it interesting that they’ve not gone to curtain makoni with this. They’ve gone Yeah. If you look at the filing uh attorneys, they’re too busy with child abuse lawsuits.

47:05 They’re too busy manning the church helpline. Um, so who are they going with or like what they uh if you put Do I have the lawsuit to hand? I would have to find the lawsuit, but it’s a firm in Texas because John’s because Open Stories is uh like based in Texas. Oh, is it? Uh, yeah, in Austin, I think is where it’s like based. And then Utah because John is trading and operating in Utah primarily. That’s like, you know, that’s where it’s actually going to happen. That’s where it’s all going to kick off.

47:38 I’m not a lawyer, just to be clear to the audience. Oh, you’re not. No, you kind of have, you just sort of seem You’re wearing green. [laughter] Sorry. Do lawyers own green now? The church ownes. I don’t I’m all messed up with colors. I don’t know how color works to signify anything now. I love how who owns which color. Our three green shirts are like the exact same like shade range that Jasmine showed on like the John’s copying the blue.

48:05 So what we got now? I think you’re wearing my exact Tanner Gillin green. [laughter] Come on. This is Nemo green, guys. And you’re wearing my hometown on your jumper. What does it say? London. London. You ever heard of it? England. Yeah. [laughter] Nice. And that has the river theme running through it, right? Exactly. You know the one favorite river. Yeah. It’s it’s honestly it’s ridiculous the fact that the church can spend all this money and [clears throat] not feel as though they lose at all. And even from a PR perspective, the sad thing about the church is for the people they really care about who are the old conservative tithe payers, any bad press just comes off as oppression. that they can capitalize on and say look how the world doesn’t understand us and it just galvanizes the inroup.

48:59 Yeah. But I just feel like that tactic like is really running dry given I mean the way things are going for the church and the kind the number of members that are now more open to listening to something like Mormon stories like they’re not as when when me and Tana were going through our faith crisis like the thought of listening to like an ex Mormon on a Mormon stories episode was just like absolutely not. You just wouldn’t do it.

49:25 But now I do think people’s minds are a bit more willing to go there. And the church is fighting back on that as well. You know, they’ve been going after women for the casual and cavalier way with which they treat their temple garments, right? They’re getting Kevin Pearson is upset about how women aren’t wearing their garments enough and stuff like that. Wait, tell me more about that. Is that from a recent talk?

49:48 [sighs and gasps] maybe two years ago just before all the Jayette Dennis stuff kicked off where she said I don’t know of any religious institution that empowers women more than the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and everyone I remember that hold up that was around the time of garment gate and stuff like that um yeah I think it was Kevin Pearson came out and said he was upset with the casual way in which women are wearing the garments I think that was Utah North area presidency devotional or something like it was some like niche uh devotional that yeah I believe it was him who said they were basically upset with the cavalere way or the casual way in which women were wearing their garments. Um and then lo shoulders styles. Yes, they can all show their porn shoulders off.

50:31 Yeah. That is so discouraging to me. An empowerer of women. [laughter] The most empowerer of women. Mhm. Yeah. No other religious organization that she knows of. And I feel like that’s the only thing that made it a true statement because it’s likely she doesn’t know any other religious organizations. Yeah. She’s just unaware of that church. [laughter] Yeah. Yeah. True. Can’t argue with that.

50:58 Yeah. Yeah. We got a comment saying wicker is pretty empowering for women. Boom. W like witchcraft. Witchcraft. Yeah. Not very familiar with like wicker itself. No. like nature based like just some witchy goodness. Witchy witchy goodness. Witchy witchy goodness. We have Alyssa Grunfell in the chat. Oh my goodness. A celebrity herself. Yeah, let’s end the live now. That’s it. We’ve peaked. You should get in on this live stream. Send her a link. I’ll text you a link if you want it.

51:40 [laughter] I love how she said I sausage now that John’s tied up. Yes, it’s true. John has disappeared and so therefore we need a new lead singer and I felt like Alyssa, we are looking for a new lead singer. I do not have the front man energy required. I’ll literally leave the band if Alyssa wants to join. [laughter] [gasps] I’m texting whether or not she wants it. Sacrifice myself upon the altar of of views. Um, yeah. [snorts] I don’t know where we were. I mean, I can talk I can riff Phil talk about cats to beans.

52:19 Like, what [laughter] else you want to talk about? Okay. She’s working hard. Yeah, of course. Sneak peek on what what are we editing coming down the pipeline? But Sam, Tanner, don’t you feel honored that when uh the queen of ex Mormonism herself is wanting a break from work, she chooses you guys? It’s an unthinkable decision really. [laughter] Is literally no one else live streaming.

52:46 The entirety of our audience. [laughter] Well, yeah, I think and uh when it’s only a matter of time till they go after her, right? Has she ever used blue before in any of her thumbnails? Any leg? Elissa, tell us. Have you ever have you? Her thumbnails are so good. I’m like, the church could never come for her thumbnails. Oh, she’s working on a video about attending a blue man group is coming for the LDS church. [laughter] Yes.

53:15 I think I think we need to do a a Smurfcoded episode of Mormon Stories where everyone turns up on the panel just painted head to toe in blue. Let’s I’m down that just and a very specific shade of blue as well and just be like, “Okay, sorry. Is this creating brand confusion?” We should do a video next week and the title should be this is an official Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints video [laughter] and we’re all dressed as the blue as blue men. You can’t sue satire.

53:43 You can’t. Or um face masks you put on at parties where it’s someone else’s face. We all just have Dan Lake Jokes’s face on. Yeah, that would hurt me a lot, but I would do it. Yeah. Yeah, I’m ready. You’ve got the impression ready to go. The color blue has long been used by all disciples of Christ since the beginning of time 6,000 years ago. Yes. There we go. And because we’ve all got the masks on, when I go, “Uh, hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Morris Stories podcast.” No one will know that it isn’t actually John.

54:18 [laughter] You fooled me and I was looking right at you. There we go. My John. I’m texting the link to John now. I’m being a menace. [laughter] Like, how else can we get everybody in? Scotty Orange says, “They can’t sue all of us.” That is where you are indeed wrong, my friend. They absolutely can. There [laughter] is nothing they can do to stop them. Inexhaustible financial funds. They’re just waiting. This is their rainy day that they’ve been waiting for. They’re like, “Feed the poor. There’s way too many poor people.

54:51 It’s, you know, it’s it’s the rainy day that they were always waiting for was when Mormon stories got a little bit too popular. John goes on one too many HBO documentaries or, you know, and then bam. I I would love to be a fly on the wall in that meeting where they were like, damn, this podcast is really spilling all the beans about all the horrific [ __ ] that we’ve been doing for centuries. really just putting it out there so clearly how manipulative and dishonest and inaccurate we are. What can we do about this? Should we just come clean? Should we tell the truth?

55:29 Should we adjust our doctrine to better match reality or do we sue them for using blue? Sue them for using blue. Hey, write that down. [laughter] Blue and it was interesting. I was talking to a friend the other week about um who used to work at Fair Moment back in the day and it was very interesting hearing how much me and Tana lived in their heads rentree as just like the scrappiest possible stupid like horrible audio YouTube channel like the way that critics do get in the church’s head is very funny but when you’re in a for three years I was living rentree in Scott Gordon’s head for a while and the people he was head of fair Mormon at At the time that they were doing the This is the show videos, they absolutely wanted my coverage of those taken off and YouTube just went no. [laughter] Do you think they’re going to the sacred whale next?

56:30 Oh, parody, right? Could Could John’s entire defense just be like lol prank? Lol. [laughter] Lol. This whole thing was a bit elaborate Nathan Fielder. I mean, that’s kind of where we’re safe. should we ever get sued is that we have been doing parody since day one. We’ve done Yeah. We have never not been a joke. Yeah. [laughter] Yeah. Whereas I’m far too serious and I’m a little worried, but it’s all right.

56:59 Um uh Rachel MB, I love the Spartacus reference. I’m John. I’m John. [laughter] Yeah. I just feel like it’s such a like 101 PR rule that everyone is going to side with the underdog. Like you might get your most devoted members on your team, but like it’s just really a horrific time for them because to do this because everyone is interested in Mormonism right now because of Secret Lives and now that Netflix documentary about the false prophet.

57:28 I’m just like what a horrific time to be and now it biggest critic. The drama of a trial which like this is the thing as a Brit that I’ve had to kind of realize. It’s not like in the UK where court proceedings are pretty dull. Like America’s had some pretty big televised trials in the past that are like a big deal. So if this becomes that they because they want a jury trial. The church wants to put this in a courtroom which when you do that in America, you then try yourself in the court of public opinion no matter what the jury actually says. So why are they doing that to themselves?

58:03 Yeah, that’s so is this to try and get John to settle in some way? And what does that settlement look like? Does it come with terms that then damage his brand? Is this is that what they really want? Because surely they don’t want this to actually go to a trial, right? They just want, you know, they want the ball out the back of the scrum to the scrum half and straight through the post. They want it easy.

58:26 [laughter] They want to look like the victims while uh weakening critics. It’s just really classic. Yeah, that’s all they want. I feel like even if they made Jon do the craziest stuff like make his logo that horrific thing and change the I almost feel like there’s nothing they could really do to stop the stone that is John Delin from rolling forward at this point like Woman Stories podcast people are not going to jump ship because it has a clunky name now. If anything they’re going to be like oh that’s so weird that this podcast has such a clunky name and it would just be this talking point that John can hit forever and ever and ever. Yeah. And if he had to rebrand, he would rebrand not to ex Mormon stories with Dr. John Delin all in one font. He would just change it to something completely different.

59:12 He would just change it to the Mormon church sued me and made me make this my logo. Like heinous. The Mormon church sued me and all I got was this crappy t-shirt. Oh my god. Yeah, he should be doing merch for this lawsuit. Where is the the Borman Church sued me merch? John Tana, this is how we could become financially stable and we could donate a portion to John’s trial. There we go. [laughter] I survived I survived being sued by the Mormon church. Not yet. He’s got three years of this.

59:44 It’s It’s a blue t-shirt. It just says um TBM TBM blue. True blue Mormon blue. We can workshop that. But a a very specific blue t-shirt with a slogan. That’s my That’s my suggestion. Love it. Love it. I am excited at the thought of people putting in their resignations because of this because as we know a lot of people leave the church and do not take their names off the record cuz they’re like who cares? And also they kind of feel like some kinship with the religion culturally or whatever but this isn’t a good look.

1:00:19 And and this is again to what’s going on more broadly. This seems to be part of it is that people, you know, when people leave and they don’t declare themselves as having left, they’re just like, “Cool, right, I’m out, but I don’t need to delineate myself into the other camp by saying, “Right, I’m no longer a Mormon. I’ve resigned.” What the church is doing here is they’re wanting again because of Don A. Jokes and his legalistic mind to have it very clearly known that Mormon stories is not us. It is not from us. It is nothing to do with us. And we’re gonna we’re gonna the church is going to make sure that people know people that aren’t with them are against them and are out either in the courts of the church through courts of love or through the legal system through legal cause. They’re going to excommunicate people and they’re going to litigate the crap out of people [clears throat] and they’ll do it until they have entire control over who’s in and who’s out. There’s no gray area for people anymore.

1:01:15 That seems to be what’s going on here. Does anyone feel like we should um pull a tarot for John in this lawsuit? [laughter] I think so. Nemo. Yeah, Nemo, I know that you I famously I love tarot. Like Sonic the Hedgehog loves the little rings. That’s [laughter] That’s how much I love Tarot. Running through the town. Running through the tarot like give me some tarot. You bump You bump into Nemo and tarot cards fly everywhere.

1:01:45 Exactly. [laughter] Exactly. bump into me a whole deck of tarot cards just gone. I love the victory for Satan stories. That is so victory for Satan stories. Oh, yeah. That’s what we need. We need a a blue shirt in a serif font that just says this shirt is victory for Satan. [laughter] That’s what we need. You’re like, “No, no, you don’t get it. We’re we’re Christian.” So many rays of light. [laughter] Yeah. Yeah. The shirt’s just got this kind of weird patchwork look because of all these different lines and stripes to it. It looks unironed.

1:02:18 Maybe [laughter] that was their thing. Yeah. [snorts] Does anyone actually want to do a tarot? I got my deck. Yeah. Yeah, do it. I mean, might as well. You got the deck. I was just having fun hanging out with two of my best friends and I didn’t want it to end yet. That’s good. I’m I’m here for it. That’s good. Quite good. That quite good. Yeah. We got all the official business out of the way. [snorts] Mhm. And now we can get to the unofficial business of pulling terror for John Delin who will not watch this.

1:02:46 [laughter] Rave lighting for the rebrand for John for his team. [laughter] Oh my god. Yeah, he should sell like a rave light. A blue rave light. I guess this [laughter] just based a rude sandstorm. What if we pulled the judge card? That would be crazy. I would almost believe in tarot someone. What do I have to do? Just like I don’t know. Thank you, Tana. Thing thing is happening. The cave. It’s empty in the valley of your heart.

1:03:27 Sorry, no copyright strikes on this channel. That’s an original song by Immaculate Sausage. [laughter] Next thing you know, we’re getting sued by Mford and Sons for 3 years. Island Records. [snorts] Aren’t you a son of Mumford, Nemo? Uh, famously so. Yeah. Having been excommunicated. You guys, oh, yes, of course. Yeah, it’s the linen shirt, isn’t it? Wait, are they British? Yeah, they are. They’re British sense.

1:03:57 They’re wealthy British men. Oh, this angers me. They’re hedge fund babies who are made who made music capitalizing off some nostalgia for Americana. I thought they were from Poland or something this whole time. No, that’s the vibe they’re trying to give off. I know with with the waste coats and the little tambourines. They’re like we were raised in a barn, one of several barns on our parents’ estate. Yes.

1:04:23 Like Winston Marshall, the banjo player, his dad’s genuinely a hedge fund manager. Oh, is that why he’s such an alt-right nutso? Great, great, great. Someone in Mford and Sons. Yeah, that was a whole thing. like a neonatu. Oh, we’ve got a coming out for mother and sons. [laughter] Do not Oh man, this just got this just got We just blew this case right [laughter] open. I feel like there was another band. Oh, Polo and Pan apparently has like a guy in it who’s like really rightwing. And that was that was a lot to learn for me.

1:04:59 Well, because I think the whole thing with Winston Marshall was that he um he put out a quote that was from some alt-right author and Twitter went mental and next thing you know he’s not in the band anymore and um just leans into it and yeah that’s that’s no more uh jangly jangly banjo music from [clears throat] the sons. Never trust a banjo player famously. That’s why I ditched that so quick. Yeah.

1:05:31 As part of my rebrand. Yeah. Sorry, I was trying to figure out how to point out Tana. Do you play the banjo? Uh, I I have played the banjo. Yeah, I too. When I met you, you always playing banjo. I’d be at any school concert and I’d be like, “Oh, Tana’s performing right now on the stage with that banjo.” [laughter] That was era of Mumford and Sons and I [clears throat] was deeply inspired. So, the cave little waste coat and everything.

1:05:58 Oh, those who are fortunate enough to find and enter the cave are forever changed. That’s already feeling like that’s like people go discovering Mormon stories for the first time. It is a place of potent power acting both as portal to another realm and a space for sacred ritual and initiation. The cave is a place to return for meaningful retreat where one can see the true self in the darkness.

1:06:22 In esoteric teachings, the cave is known to reside in the center of the heart. Within its walls, the whispers of compassion and self-standing can be heard. Yet, because of its mystery and power, many of us fear the cave and never try to find it. We bury ourselves in the bright lights of the city, while the cavernous and dimly lit chamber calls out to us in the night. Where is your cave? You already know. Return to it and tend to the fire. Huh.

1:06:48 So, when’s down jokes going to spend some time in a cave? He looks like he just gollummed out of a cave. That’s for sure. [clears throat] Just how we started talking about [laughter] it. This is Yeah, that’s how we got here. Alyssa was my little singing song. [clears throat] Um, but yeah, Alyssa saying she didn’t know about the Neo stuff, so we are to to mock them in a sense accordingly.

1:07:10 And and that was just one member of the band, right? It’s not the whole group. It’s not all of his sons, just for clarity. No, no, no. It’s just one of one son. One bad apple. Uh-huh. Slowly and steadily, crystals of enormous magnitude grow within the dark confines of caves. Let the cave teach you patience. Mormon stories is kind of caveike as a location. I mean, not a lot of windows or natural light in there. That is true.

1:07:38 And surprisingly dimly lit for a podcast studio, you really good lighting, but and just in terms of looking hot, my least favorite lighting in the world. Yeah. Do you not feel like you look hot at Mormon stories? Absolutely not. When someone looks good on Mormon stories, I’m like, damn, they must be exceptionally good-looking in real life because it’s just it’s hard. What do we make of the cave? Any thoughts? I’m thinking of Plato. A banger.

1:08:10 I would love to play with Plato in a cave. Also, the allegory of Plato’s cave. Yes. Perfect. And I have been thinking about Plato’s cave quite a bit recently. So tell me more. That is nice. Because of the similac of it all. Because of the similacum of it all. Uh people often use it as a metaphor for escaping ideology that uh you know the shadows cast on the wall are these uh distorted truths uh presented as reality and you have to escape and ascend into the natural light to see. But I’ve just been thinking more and more how I think the this is getting a little too philosophical and heavy, but we can move on. But I think I think the and I’m I’m sure somebody has already done a a treatise on this. So this is probably a regurgitation but I think the Plato’s cave allegory is a metaphor for language in general that language are the represent the one-dimensional two-dimensional representations of

1:09:23 reality this like veneer of real things that we slap onto stuff in order to create shared meaning but aren’t what [clears throat] the thing is it things are themselves you know so like I say, “Oh, a tree. I know what a tree is.” And actually, I have no idea what the [ __ ] a tree is. You know what I mean? I I know that there is this thing that I call a tree, but I couldn’t tell you how to how it works, how, you know, other than some basic details. It comes from a seed. Well, what’s a seed? How does a how could you reproduce a seed? What makes a seed happen? You know, what it actually is essential to what a tree is is so above my pay grade that I couldn’t comment on it at all. And that’s how all of reality is. And so in order to really in truly interface with reality, we have to go beyond the limits of language. And so that includes the limitations of of [clears throat] all ideologies and all communication structures.

1:10:25 So I’ve just been thinking about cannot go beyond branding. Can the color blue? Yes. You know, the Saraphim, the Saraphim that are guarding the way to the celestial kingdom that you got to do your little like hand gestures to pass through. It says, uh, they’re actually the Saraphim are looking for serifs, and if you’ve got the right ser. Yeah, but if you don’t, you’re out. Tanner, I really loved everything you just said, obviously. Thank you.

1:10:59 It was great. I’m sorry I was glib about it afterwards. [laughter] I apologize. You got to have one person being glib at all times. Mormon stories has been the cave for many. It really has. It really has. It’s like you go into this darkness and you’re like, “Oh, fuck.” And there’s like this potent power that you can feel that’s there, but you’re scared and you kind of want to retreat. And then ultimately that’s I mean it is crazy to think about not even just Mormons, but how many people have had their entire lives and like ability to experience reality changed by Mormon stories. It really blows my mind. Life-changing.

1:11:38 I would I would say I owe my life to Mormon stories. And again, that was through listening to apologists and believers. I I was not going in listening to anti- Mormon content. Also, so funny that anti- Mormon is a term that they’re still using because it’s like a slur, but they’re still using the slur to for people to talk bad about us. Like, that is so funny. It’s like me being like, uh, oh, I won’t say any slurs, even ones I’m allowed to, but um Yeah, I wouldn’t. Yeah, just just [laughter] ridiculous. Yeah. I mean, I noticed or so many of the comments, [laughter] so many of the comments that the church put in their lawsuit were using distinctly like Mormon ingroup language.

1:12:22 They’re like, “Oh, I didn’t realize it was anti.” I’m like, “Okay, so that’s so Mormon to say those words.” Like to an outsider, no one knows what that means. This is very clearly members. Yeah. casting judgment on the tone of the podcast, on the content of the podcast, [clears throat] on the viewpoint of the podcast, rather than on its actual affiliation to the church. I think in a in a short I just did, I pointed out that um [clears throat] out of the 15 comments the church put out there, three of them spoke about the affiliation of the uh of the podcast.

1:12:56 The rest were all just like, “Oh, I didn’t realize it would be stuff I disagreed with.” Like, cool. In another intellectually healthy organization way [laughter] yeah in another intellectually healthy organization an official outlet may contain some information that is challenging but we know for a fact that the Mormon church does not behave that way. And so it’s very clear that if Mormon stories contains any challenging information at all truly challenging information it’s clearly not church affiliated and members know that. Yep.

1:13:28 Yep. [snorts] Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. [sighs] I’m so It’s amazing how Oh, go ahead. You’re so what? No, please. Just laughing at how, you know, there’s so many things in the church that like are just said with a straight face as explanations for how God operates in the world. And everyone just goes along with it because everyone’s so conditioned to be so passive to authority. But with just the slightest push back, it becomes so obvious and apparent. And I think that’s the power of Mormon stories is like I said, it was the apologists and the believers and so-called experts, BYU professors, etc., who convinced me because when they explained themselves with just a slightly critical person listening, not just someone who was like, “Oh, yes, amen, brother.” You know, it became so abundantly clear that they were full of [ __ ] And that’s the power that is the power of Mormon stories. And that’s why they’re so scared of it is because it’s like just the slightest push back will will topple that house of cards.

1:14:36 Yeah, Alyssa. I feel like they want to borrow from what anti-Semitic means. Yes. Their favorite thing is to align themselves with Jewish people in the same way they try to borrow meaning from other religions constantly. the way the Mormon church because Mormons are the true house of Israel after all. Mormons are Jews. Yeah. Didn’t you know people of the internet? It’s crazy. I love meeting Jewish people and letting them know.

1:15:07 Just so you know, there’s actually a real house of Israel and it’s located in Salt Lake City, Utah. So, sorry about your heritage. Maybe maybe join the Mormon Church. Excuse me. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Oh, no. You’re gonna be able to call it the Mormon Church within a couple of years, I reckon. Yeah, it sounds like we’re back. We’ll be back in that sense.

1:15:30 Back, [laughter] baby. That’s a slur. And our branding. Yeah. And say it unless we’re saying it. I am going to relish in whatever mental gymnastics Jasmine tries to pull to justify why she was going, “Um, actually, it’s the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and then all of a sudden starts throwing [clears throat] around the N-word like it’s nothing.” I cannot wait to see how she justifies that or whether she does at all or whether she just carries on through and just pretends like it never happened because that seems to be a lot of how the church moves on and makes progress.

1:16:05 It seems to be a lot of how members of the church behave like with the tattoos thing, right? They just do not care. They just move on and pretend like it’s always been okay to have tattoos. And it has. It’s always been okay to show your shoulders. It’s always been okay to do X Y Z. WhatsApp. That’s just been a policy that can change. I haven’t been to Jasmine’s [clears throat] page in a while. So, I just went to her Instagram and one of the top things on the like image thumbnail it says breaking new woman discovered in Bible. And I was like, [laughter] she spoke funny. Like it’s like not satire. She’s genuinely just like, “Oh my god, a woman.” [laughter] Stunning find missing woman in the Bible rediscovered by a BYU researcher.

1:16:47 A woman like, “And guess what? She was a wolf.” [laughter] Who? I can’t believe the thumbnail is breaking new woman discovered in Bible. That is so funny. just [snorts] hiding in the pages from a man debunking my Mormon story smear campaign. She has another video about this. Do we care to watch it at this point? Because if in doubt, double down. Am I right? [gasps and sighs] Sure. Won’t let me download it though.

1:17:15 I’m not sure how because Can you just show it to the Yeah, this podcast is not known for the height. Well, I guess I could just play the sound. Yeah, go for it. of the Mormon Stories podcast. Dondelin of the Mormon Stories podcast has implied that I am part of some church-led coordinated media and disinformation smear campaign because he allegedly heard about the church’s lawsuit against him through my video instead of from official channels. The implication being that I couldn’t possibly have known about this lawsuit before him unless I was in on some church engineered social media campaign.

1:17:53 But there are a couple problems with that narrative. From what I can tell, he posted about the lawsuit to his own [clears throat] Instagram story hours before I made any content. According to a post on Reddit, John Delyn shared about the lawsuit sometime before 7:00 p.m. Mountain time. And I did a live stream on YouTube around 900 p.m. I didn’t learn about the lawsuit from anyone at church headquarters. I first heard about it the same way everyone else did because a publicly available church newsroom statement was making the rounds on social media on Friday evening. But here’s the thing that I find the most fascinating. The post he shared to his Instagram story was from the Scripture Plus Instagram account.

1:18:35 This is a Scripture Central brand that I used to be affiliated with. Resigned from Scripture Central a year ago and I am not affiliated with that account in any way. no ill will. They still do great work. But since I used to run that account, I could understand why someone might accidentally mistake content from Scripture Plus as coming from me. And yet that simple mistake is actually a perfect real world example of brand confusion, which ironically is at the very heart of this lawsuit against Norman Stories.

1:19:07 He does use blue intentionally different visual branding. And Scripture Plus also overhauled their branding after my departure. people still occasionally confuse us. So, it’s almost like the branding isn’t the cause of the confusing [laughter] scripture plus post and then started claiming that he heard about the lawsuit through me. If a seasoned content creator can make this kind of a mistake, it’s easy to see how everyday listeners could be confused by a podcast that visually mimics the church of Jesus Christ only to discover that the content is highly critical of it.

1:19:40 No, I’m not part of it. Mimics the church of Jesus Christ of what, Jasmine? Of what? Stop trying to drop of Latter Day Saints because you think it sounds weird and culty. Stop just trying to call yourself the Church of Jesus Christ. We know that’s where the branding tried to go and that they weren’t getting anywhere with it. Yeah, have some respect. Use the full name, please. Use the full name.

1:19:59 I was really struggling to like engage with that cuz I was like, “Okay, so like John made a mistake and like thought that she heard about it through the church, but she did it.” Okay. I just like the tone was so like um see we got him. I didn’t really get the point of that because then she even said like oh I’m not affiliated anymore and we have they changed their so they changed their branding but you said people still get confused with the change branding.

1:20:24 So yeah, she can be confused. Anyone could be confused. Blue is a very confusing color and if we have lots of people using it, it’s all going to get mucky. Um, she also said that they use Mormon Stories uses the Christristus. Does it use the Christristus as part of its branding? It used to. Yes. What did Mormon Stories use it as part of the branding? Sorry. Yeah. Did they use the Christa statue as part of the Mormon Stories branding?

1:20:56 It was on their header on YouTube, I think. Oh. Um, and it’s been in thumbnails, I think. Well, we use it in thumbnails and it’s because we’re talking about Mormon issues. I don’t think that that’s a means of visually identifying the subject matter of the video, which is which is Mormonism, which again, that’s a statue that did not even originate in Mormonism, which is a really a perfect encapsulation of it all. It’s like this thing that’s not fully totally only singularly represents us.

1:21:34 Yeah. And and I noticed in the church’s lawsuit, they talked about not wanting it to be connected in any way. They don’t want John Delin’s podcast to be connected in any way to the church. It is by necessity connected to the church. It’s not an official connection. It’s not an endorsed connection. It’s not a connection the church wants, but it is connected because he’s talking about Mormonism. He’s talking about the restorationist movement that started with Joseph Smith, not just the Brumites, but all the others, right?

1:22:05 So there’s no way that there’s no way the church can actually litigate someone into not being able to be connected to them because they can’t litigate someone into not talking about them. That would surely be a violation of whatever part of the amend the constitution it is. Well, I think what they need to do is sue Eiffel 65. Okay, tell me more. What’s that? I’m blue. [laughter] Very good. Very good.

1:22:39 Well, we might have said everything we can say about this lawsuit, but I am really feeling grateful to not be getting sued by a multi-billion dollar organization right now. I’ll say that. by a multi my hundred billion dollar corporation of Christ. Yeah. Because when I think about how much my tithing money could have acrewed in a Vanguard by now, instead they’ve been acrewing it in whatever their equivalent of a Vanguard is. Oh, they’ve been making 8% a year on it. Defense contract hedge fun hedge funds.

1:23:10 Yeah. Yeah. Charles Mendley makes a really good point. LinkedIn has a blue logo. I’m confused. Me too. Well, that’s because they’re affiliated with the church of Jesus Christ. So, yeah. Yeah. You know, Kevin Hamilton said, “If you disagree with the position of the church, try this approach. Substitute the name of the church with Jesus Christ or one of his many names.” So, everyone Jesus Christ just sued Mormon Stories podcast.

1:23:36 Honestly, that makes more sense about the light rays. He’s like, “I am the light of the world. I’m the one who does.” Literally my thing, my main thing. comment here saying it’s actually an honor to be sued by Jesus. Jesus is suing Ace Hardware. [laughter] It’s like, yeah, it’s Jesus equivalent, right? Yeah. He goes into temples and throws stuff over if he’s going to do anything. He doesn’t go into temples and go, “Right, I’m suing you.” Right.

1:24:05 Yeah. Opponents in the New Testament. Didn’t he have beef with the doctors and lawyers and oh famously Jesus not a fan of lawyers and maybe this is maybe this is down a jokes going well if I can just lawyer harder then he’ll love me you know [laughter] he built his whole self worth on it so he’s like I have to lawyer trying to rebrand lawyers needs Daddy Jesus’s approval he’s like just just love me if I love we need to help him rebrand we need to approach down H Oaks with that bouncy house and cotton candy Mhm. He could he could.

1:24:42 I think it’s just an exciting opportunity for you to rebrand, Dalon. Yeah. Um, bye, Alyssa. Good luck editing your next masterpiece. Can’t wait to watch. Can’t wait to watch. Thanks for dropping in. Let’s do an episode soon, please. I was actually just thinking of that. We should have you back as ASAP as possible. With us, not for gain, but for fun and friendship. [laughter] That’s what I do it for. For her, I remember.

1:25:08 We’re suing Nemo. [laughter] Yeah. Yeah. Do you want to see Nemo with us? I knew this day would come. [laughter] I would hate. You are wearing our trademark color. I am. Yeah, that was our thing. So, I’m Hang. I just better take this shirt off. Yay. Yay. Yay. Um Oh, you June. [clears throat] Anything else that you think we need to touch on? Anyone want to send us a quick super chat with anything you want us to talk about or to send us some love? Any closing thoughts? Perfect.

1:25:46 I for super chats. I will take my shirt off. No. [laughter] No. Nemo will take his shirt. Actually, he probably wouldn’t. He’s He’s pure. I’m wholesome. Tanner will. Yeah. [laughter] For money, Tanner will disrobe. Do anything. Um, my recommendation if anyone’s been having a great time on this stream is to join our Patreon and come and read Veggie Tales Smart with us. It’s really a fun time. It is absolutely crazy the things that can be erotic that you have just never considered could be. Um, we really are having a blast. So, okay, Veronica.

1:26:23 Thank you, Veronica. Hannah, you know what you have to do. [laughter] Okay, we really appreciate. Thank you so much, Veronica. Nemo, thank you for being here as like a a voice of the intellect of scholarly just like facts and stuff. Give yourself more credit. It’s uh it’s been a delight to be here. I’m off to Spain tomorrow for a Thrive event which is very exciting. Yeah. Going to go hang out with some Spanish expos. Good for you. Good time. You know, thriving is kind of my thing.

1:26:57 Uh, expect a lawsuit in the mail. However suit will be, you know, John Dyn used to wear that Thrive hat a lot in his videos. I don’t know if you remember. It’s just like a black hat that said Thrive, I think. But I’ve been uh I have this like red red light hat that I wear every day for 10 minutes and every time I wear it, Jared calls me John because [laughter] it looks like Thrive hat.

1:27:20 I’ve got one of those Thrive hats in the next room. Hell yeah. If I put it on, I’m afraid I might get sued. I’m imagining someone serving John lawsuit papers, but they have to go undercover as an ex Mormon. So, they’ve got like all these fake piercings, like sharp tattoos, full Tim Ballard undercover couples nonsense. [laughter] Yeah. Like I think about, hey, what’s up my fellow apostate?

1:27:46 [laughter] What is up, fellow heathens? What the hell? Am I right? [laughter] Hell yeah. I love I love coffee. [laughter] Starts crying because they can’t tell a lie. Yeah. [laughter] Temple recommends. Who needs one, right? Just like rips it up in [laughter] streaming desk. Okay. I love you both and everyone for being here for this live stream. This has been great. We should Yeah, thanks for joining.

1:28:26 Yeah, Nemo, let’s hang out digitally for an audience again soon. Yes, let’s just do it. And I will be hopefully back in person later in the year. So, woohoo. Good times to be had by all. Okay, well, this is the end of the stream now. Love you all. Bye bye.