Those of us taking interest in the newly hatched lawsuit by the LDS Church against John Dehlin and Mormon Stories have puzzled over the “why now” question. To recap, the LDS Church is suing the podcaster for trademark infringement, asking him to dump or modify the Mormon element from his brand. The lawsuit will be stuck in court pleadings for quite a while, leaving us to wonder what made the church start this crusade now, when Dr. Dehlin has had his shoulder to the podcast wheel for over 20 years.
I did some sleuthing.
The church told us in a press release that its attorneys first started the ball rolling on this dispute in November 2025. So naturally I ChatGPT’d what might have happened in October of 2025 that would change the winds. Hurricane Patty. An 18-inning Dodger game. Taylor Swift’s “The Life of a Showgirl” album.
I was getting nowhere.
But then I found this:
In October, a month prior, Dallin Oaks, a career attorney and retired Utah Supreme Court justice, ascended to the presidency. Yes, he’d been a full-time church leader for over 50 years, but he made his bones in the courtroom. For the first time in a long time, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had an experienced litigator at the helm. While in private practice, President Oaks’ legal career was focused on commercial litigation, and on the bench, he decided cases involving trademark disputes.
If we are to believe the calendar, it seems his first official policy change was lowering the missionary age of women to 18. And apparently, not far behind, was laying the groundwork for a lawsuit against a detractor.
Onward, Christian soldier.
Of course this explanation might be thin. But the timing is hardly any thicker.
So why should we even care? Well, President Oaks has spent his life in valiant defense of religious freedom. He’s consistently taken up sword and shield to champion the idea that the law should protect free speech rather than silence it. So his decision to use legal means to silence a critic is, in a word, unbecoming.
We’ve seen on a national level how “lawfare” (using the judicial process against your political enemies) is spiraling out of control. It would be a revelation to see the LDS Church take an off-ramp on this one and leave the courts to settle legal questions rather than ideological ones.
Neil Daniels, Sandy