Bill Reel and RFM take a look at the recent FAIRMormon apologetic conference that took place last August. The amazing thing is that Mormon apologetics isn’t getting better with age. If anything, Mormon apologetics is getting worse. And that’s saying something! It’s like they’re not just trying to fool nonbelievers, anymore. They’re trying to fool each other! But rest assured, no matter the tricks they try, they won’t get much past our intrepid pair, RFM and Bill Reel!

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What happened to the apostles who helped build early Mormonism—and then walked away? When the original Quorum of the Twelve was organized in 1835, these men were not fringe figures. They preached the gospel, served missions, worked directly with Joseph Smith, participated in the movement’s spiritual experiences, and occupied some of its highest positions of authority. Yet six of those original apostles would eventually leave, be excommunicated, challenge Joseph Smith, or follow a very different version of the Restoration. In this episode of Mormonism LIVE, we tell the stories of Thomas B. Marsh, William E. McLellin, John F. Boynton, Luke Johnson, Lyman Johnson, and Joseph Smith’s own brother William Smith. Their stories take us into the Kirtland banking collapse, charges brought against Joseph Smith, the violence of 1838 Missouri, succession disputes, polygamy, prophetic authority, broken trust, and the question some early Mormon leaders eventually faced: Had Joseph Smith himself gone astray? Some came back. Some never did. Some continued believing in the Book of Mormon while rejecting Joseph Smith’s later leadership. And several went on to build successful lives completely outside the LDS Church. The deeper story is that early Mormonism was far less inevitable—and far more complicated—than it can appear when history is told by the people who ultimately won the succession struggle. The six apostles who stayed in the historical spotlight became prophets and heroes. These six largely became cautionary tales, footnotes, or disappeared from the story altogether. It’s time to put them back into the history.

Tonight on Mormonism LIVE, Bill Reel and Radio Free Mormon are joined by special guest John Dehlin for an exhaustive examination of the LDS Church’s lawsuit against Mormon Stories.

Instead of arguing about the case in the abstract, we take 30 specific claims made by the Church and its attorneys and put them side-by-side with the court record, the Church’s own filings, Mormon Stories’ responses, the mediation history, and recent public statements by Church attorney David Jordan.

John Dehlin also joins us to explain what actually happened behind the scenes—including why Mormon Stories changed its branding before the lawsuit was filed, what the Church asked for during mediation, and why he believes the Church’s current public description of the case leaves out crucial context.

Among the questions we investigate:

• Did Mormon Stories intentionally copy the Church’s blue “light-rays” branding?
• Does the Church’s evidence really show trademark confusion?
• Did John Dehlin intentionally choose the name Mormon Stories to create confusion—or does the twenty-year history of the podcast tell a very different story?
• Does the evidence support the LDS Church insisting that the lawsuit was “never about the word Mormon”?
• Did the Church abandon brands such as Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Mormon Channel, and Mormon Messages and how does that affect their preserving those trademarks with the USPTO and how might such affect this case?
• Did Church attorneys accurately represent a Mormon Stories guest who supposedly believed the podcast was Church-affiliated?
• Were Mormon Stories’ existing disclaimers really inadequate—and were the Church’s proposed disclaimer requirements as simple as they are now being portrayed?
• Why did David Jordan publicly use BAD MORMON as an example of a name nobody would confuse with the Church when the Church previously opposed Heather Gay’s Bad Mormon trademark on the explicit ground that it would cause confusion?
• And did the Church really avoid asking for damages?

We also discuss the ACLU and Electronic Frontier Foundation’s involvement, Mormon Stories’ fair-use defense, the Church’s copyright claims, the doctrine of laches, and where the case appears strongest and weakest for both sides.

Most importantly, this episode asks a simple question:
When the public statements are compared with the actual documents, who is telling the truth?

The LDS Church vs. Mormon Stories: Who’s Telling the Truth?
Special Guest: John Dehlin

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Transcript For Tonight’s Show – https://mormondiscussionpodcast.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/09/Final-Mormon-Stories-30-Claims-transcript-final-version.pdf

On this episode of Mormonism Live, we sit down with Rachelle and John Moyer, the creators behind “Ex-Mormon: The Musical,” to talk about how the project came together, what inspired the songs, and why music can be such a powerful way to process faith, identity, loss, humor, and life after Mormonism. We’ll dig into the story behind the album, the creative process of turning the ex-Mormon experience into a musical, and some of the themes woven throughout the soundtrack. We’ll also play and discuss several of the songs along the way. Whether you’ve left Mormonism, are questioning, still believe, or simply appreciate clever songwriting about complicated human experiences, this should be a fun and fascinating conversation about what happens when religious deconstruction meets musical theater. Listen to “Ex-Mormon: The Musical (Original Musical Soundtrack)” on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/4OxkzS1jbuwicBjZkGw2TS Join us as we talk with Rachelle and John Moyer about the humor, pain, creativity, and lived experience behind Ex-Mormon: The Musical.

#ExMormon #ExMormonMusical #MormonismLive #Mormon #LDS #FaithTransition #ReligiousDeconstruction #PostMormon #MormonStories #musicaltheatre

Ex-Mormon The musical
https://JosephSmith.com/
https://exmormonsoundtrack.com/

John’s comedy Shows
https://johnmoyer.com/tickets

Elder Bruce R. McConkie gave one of his most famous talks in history in 1980 named “The Seven Deadly Heresies.” RFM and Bill Reel break down this talk, exposing not only what Elder McConkie says, but why he says it; together with the things Elder McConkie doesn’t say at all! This one you won’t want to miss!

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Tonight on Mormonism Live, we examine a recurring pattern in Joseph Smith’s prophetic career: when he encountered something mysterious, incomplete, inaccessible, or simply unknown, he rarely seemed content to say, “I don’t know.” Instead, he supplied an answer—and often an extraordinarily detailed one.

A skeleton becomes Zelph, complete with a name, identity, history, and ancient associations. Egyptian papyri become the writings of Abraham. Egyptian figures become Abraham, Pharaoh, Shulem, Olimlah, gods, and cosmic teachings. The Kinderhook Plates produce an ancient genealogy. A stone becomes a seer stone capable of revealing hidden knowledge. Native Americans become Lamanites. Landscapes become Cumorah, Zion, the Garden of Eden, Adam-ondi-Ahman, and the “plains of the Nephites.”

And the pattern extends beyond objects and geography. Where scripture appears incomplete, Joseph supplies the JST, Book of Moses, Enoch material, and D&C 7’s hidden parchment. Where ancient language is unknowable, he supplies the “Pure Language” of Adam. Where the universe remained largely mysterious, Joseph supplies an elaborate Abrahamic cosmology involving Kolob and an entire hierarchy of named heavenly bodies.

But this raises a more important question than whether any single claim sounds strange: How reliable was Joseph Smith’s method of knowing?

We separate these claims into those that eventually became independently testable, those where some physical evidence exists but Joseph’s specific identification remains difficult to test, and those constructed around realities essentially beyond external verification. And a troubling pattern emerges: where later evidence allows us to check Joseph’s extraordinary claims, serious problems repeatedly appear.

So what should we make of the claims that remain safely beyond our ability to test?

This episode explores the possibility that Joseph Smith’s greatest prophetic advantage may have been the unknown—because the less anyone around him could verify, the more room he had to “know.”

Joseph Smith Always Had an Answer: The Pattern Behind His Claims

RFM and Bill Reel are joined by Dr. Thomas Murphy to discuss what the presence of Native American myths, individuals, and stories in the Book of Mormon means. Are these evidence the Book of Mormon is true? Or do they give us an insight into some of the creative grist Joseph was using to compile his narrative of ancient American inhabitants? World-renowned expert in the field Dr. Murphy helps us find the answers!

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In June 1834, while marching with Zion’s Camp through Illinois, Joseph Smith and his followers came across an ancient Native American burial mound. Members of the group dug into the mound and uncovered a human skeleton—with what appeared to be an arrowhead among its ribs.

According to multiple members of Zion’s Camp, Joseph Smith then received a vision revealing the identity of the dead man. His name was Zelph. He was described as a “white Lamanite,” a warrior and “man of God” who had fought under a great prophet named Onandagus. Wilford Woodruff recorded that Onandagus was known across a territory extending from “the hill Cumorah” to the Rocky Mountains and that Joseph received this information “in a vision.”

But the story gets considerably more interesting when we dig deeper.

In this episode of Mormonism Live, we examine the earliest surviving Zelph accounts from Wilford Woodruff, Reuben McBride, Levi Hancock, Heber C. Kimball, and others. What did these witnesses independently agree Joseph said? Which details appeared later? And how did the story change as it was edited into the official history of the Church?

We also explore Joseph Smith’s own remarkable letter written during Zion’s Camp describing the group as wandering across the “plains of the Nephites,” examine the possible connections between Zelph, Cumorah, the Land of Desolation, and Book of Mormon geography, and look at what modern archaeology has discovered about the mound where the skeleton was reportedly found.

Was Zelph simply an unusual nineteenth-century frontier story? Or did Joseph Smith make a specific prophetic claim about an actual ancient person—one that potentially tells us where Joseph believed Book of Mormon peoples lived?

Zelph the White Lamanite: Digging Up Bones

This is where archaeology, Mormon history, Book of Mormon geography, and Joseph Smith’s prophetic claims collide.