For nearly a decade, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been engaged in a top-down rebrand meant partly to solidify its focus and bona fides as a Christian religion.
The U.S. Department of Defense, led by conservative evangelical Pete Hegseth, appears unconvinced.
On Friday, spokesperson Sean Parnell confirmed on social media a report that the department had trimmed its list of recognized religious affiliations, used by its chaplains, from more than 200 to 31.
The Latter-day Saint faith was among those to make the cut. But there was a catch.
The list denotes 20 faiths as Christian, including Catholic, Orthodox Christian, Baptist and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Not, however, the Utah-based faith.
Asked by The Salt Lake Tribune if this omission was intentional, a member of the department’s press team pointed to the statement posted by Parnell.
The Office of the Secretary of War is announcing a significant change to the Department’s categorization of religious affiliation. In a long overdue move, we reduced the list from over 200 unmanageable categories to 31. With this move, we are returning to the original intent of… https://t.co/dgHX5ytzjJ pic.twitter.com/eho537O08J — Sean Parnell (@SeanParnellASW) June 5, 2026
“This decrease in religious affiliation codes is not designed to make any claims on the legitimacy of any faith or religious belief, nor is it intended to provide a list of ‘officially approved’ religions,” he wrote. “Rather, it is designed to allow chaplains to quickly look at the religious composition of their units and determine how they structure resources to best provide for warfighters of all faith groups.”
However, an accompanying video by Hegseth seemed to suggest the change wasn’t entirely one of streamlining bureaucracy.
“In previous administrations, our Chaplain Corps was infected by political correctness and secular humanism,” he said. “…Faith and virtue were traded for self-help and self-care. We started correcting that drift [in December], and today we’re going further.”
Asked if the church planned to respond, a spokesperson for the faith pointed to the FAQ portion of its website. It reads: “Latter-day Saints believe God sent his son, Jesus Christ, to save all mankind from death and their individual sins. Jesus Christ is central to the lives of church members.”
Utah Sens. Mike Lee and John Curtis, both members of the church, took to social media Saturday to condemn the seeming snub, with Curtis stating he is “working now to ensure a correction is made.”
Among those eliminated were Unitarian Universalists, various Wiccans, deists, atheists and others, according to Military.com, the first to report the news.
Have they ever been Christians with the crazy stuff they do and believe?
They believe in and follow the teachings of Christ as the center of the religion. So yes.
Muslims also believe in Jesus. Does that make them Christian as well?
No, Christ isn’t the center of it. Christ to Muslims is like Abraham to Christians in a way. It’s not a perfect analogy but gets the gist across.
I love this.
You might be asking why? Every Mormon I know is a staunch Trump supporter. The fact that it’s coming back on them so quickly is just chef’s kiss.
Half the Mormons I know hate his guts. But that’s sample size and social bias, probably. The only Mormons I willingly still associate with hate the dude’s fucking guts.
My sister converter to the faith in like 2007, I think? She was always a-political, like to the point of not really having paid attention whatsoever from my understanding (we did not grow up together). While she is still a member officially, and religiously believes, she has left the state of Utah, left the church, no longer attends, and her and her husband don’t really associate with any other mormons after 2016. The hatefulness of Trump being supported by her community really upset her and she had to leave. The final nail in the coffin, the thing that spurred her to get genuinely politically active, was Israel/Gaza. Now I don’t think the church would take her back if she begged. Not that she would. Lol
Ah yeah, every conservative minority ever. “But we were on your team guys!?”
Leopards have a steady diet of faces these days.
I’d feel bad for the Mormons, but they’re a bunch of shitheads, like most religious organizations.
It’s gonna be so fun to have a so-called “government” increasingly getting into the business of the No True
Scotsman, er Xtian, game…Hegseth is a wicked and despicable drunkard, but let’s be honest, Mormons were never Christians, and if people started to consider them as such, they might as well consider Muslims and Jews as Christians too. I am more surprised that Jehovah’s Witnesses are considered Christians on that list.
Speaking strictly as an ex-Mormon, I’m going to have to disagree with you there. Personal lived experience, they’re definitely Christian. They’re also a cult, and the religion is based on a pack of lies, but no bones about it; they do, in fact, believe in Jesus. They put Joseph Smith on the same level as St. Peter, but they don’t worship him.
I don’t get why people say they aren’t Christian. Every time someone tries to explain it to me, it’s a wildly different set of guidelines every time.
Mormons believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ, that makes them Christian. Sorry that you don’t like that, but it is what it is.
This is really the core of it. If someone starts nitpicking over the other details, they’ve just joined a crowd of ~46,400 other groups all called Christians arguing in a similar way.
Also it’s understandable the source would focus on Mormons but I find Unitarian Universalists getting cut way more offensive. They’re like the care bears of religion, come on now.
Unitarian Universalists
We are kind of interested in joining up as a family, and it’s more about the community than any kind of doctrine.
Personally, I’d probably join a pagan/OTO thing but that might not be the best model for the kids, LOL.
One of my favorite stories about the UU, though, was that someone said they learned how to read Tarot at one of the church events as a teenager - and later became a Wiccan or pagan, I forget which. I’m picturing some of the church ladies I know/have known and thinking how they’d react to the divination stuff. Never mind later becoming a literal pagan.
But they also believe that anyone can become a god, which, in the eyes of others, denies the uniqueness of the divinity of Jesus.
That’s how other denominations define it though. They all fall under the sect of Christianity because they believe in and center their teachings around Jesus. Not because they have other beliefs as well.
Edit:I may have misused denomination and sect but point being there is a larger grouping of “people following Jesus and his teachings central to their religion” And dozens of smaller groupings that go about that process differently.
, denies the uniqueness of the divinity of Jesus.
So does the triune god
Not really, since all three are still the one, unique god.
“And you get a planet, and you get a planet. But not you, until 1978.”
It’s fan-fic all the way down.
Bro, all of Christianity is a fan-fic.
Jesus never once sought out a literate person to write down his teachings in his lifetime. Everything we know about him was written by his fans quite a while after his death. The New Testament was cobbled together by several different writers and then attributed to the apostles.
If that ain’t fan-fic, I don’t know what is.
Comparatively, Mohammed had three scribes take down his words. If the story of Moses is to be believed, he delivered the Ten Commandments on a stone tablet with his own hands. Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon himself (or translated it himself from golden tablets if you believe that). Aleister Crowley wrote his own holy books and graded them with a system to let readers know which documents were sacred and which ones were commentary. The teachings of Buddha are similar to Jesus in that they were passed down orally for generations before they were written down, but nobody is claiming that those documents were penned by the Buddha or anyone who knew him in his lifetime.
So, as far as claimed prophets go, the story of Jesus is one of the most fan created documents of them all.
It’s all bullshit, my dude. Do you really want to go down that road?
Right? I find it interesting how certain xtians are certain that other xtians are not “real” xtians. Most especially when the xtians that seem to be most certain that they are the real xtians seem more like Paulians when you look a lot closer at what they emphasize…and Paul never even met the character of Jesus from their text!
I personally find it all rather wild. BTW, I was raised as an xtian, at least nominally. Also, my parents and just about everyone I knew viewed LDS with very much side-eye.
The point is that virtually all of this stuff is made up. When people are like, bu-bu-but the Mormons say that Mormon men can have their very own planet where they are a god - I can only shrug. They worship the same guy, though, and you guys are all making unprovable claims, sooooo this sounds like a real playground “but MY dad can beat up YOUR dad!” kind of thing to those of us that reject it…
Is that the only thing that matters in defining a Christian? Mormons have a whole other testament, which no other Christian denomination does.
Is it in continuity with Protestantism? Yes, but I think the addition of a whole other holy text is enough of a ruptural break from Protestantism to consider it something new
That’s why there are different denominations within the sect of Christianity. It’s all Christianity because it centers on Christ and his teachings. But it’s done in a million flavors.
Edit:I may have misused denomination and sect but point being there is a larger grouping of “people following Jesus and his teachings central to their religion” And dozens of smaller groupings that go about that process differently.
Yes, but when you add a whole other testament, featuring even more teachings of Christ, than surely there’s something distinct about that theological baseline of Mormons from your average Christian
How does having more scripture that centers on Christ make them less Christian? Is it really any different than just having a bunch more recorded sermons from any teachers of Christ? It all centers on Christ, so whether they have no scripture or infinite scripture their belief and their teachings are centered on Christ, which is what makes a religion christian.
In that case, why are protestents considered Christians when most of them also have a different Biblical cannon from the Catholic Church?
There’s no easy way to do it; I consider “Christian” the umbrella term for anyone who considers Jesus to be their savior, then get more specific about type from there.
This is the way. You’ll see some people get red-faced over the “Nicene creed” and so on.
Bringing up the Nicene creed is not really quite the flex that some xtians seemingly think that it is, though. If anything it only serves to highlight all the problems of trying to define something like “True Christianity”.
First of all, it’s clear the fractures were coming very early. Also, they apparently had to vote on what is alleged to be revealed holy scriptures, and what they mean.
This is all rather problematic. You’d think a divine creature(s) would be able to construct a way to know what is absolutely, without question and without debate, what is the real, unaltered true original texts (something like a digital signature for example) and how to interpret it.
We definitely do not have that. Instead we have endless centuries of scribblings from apologists, lots of violence and schisms and declarations of heresy and apostasy.
So do Muslims =]
No they don’t. Jesus is a prophet in Islam, but he’s not deified
So what makes Mohammad special? He is just a prophet but for some reason he has much more weight.
My fault. I thought prophet fits under divinity.
Depends on denomination and sect.
Yeah I don’t get why that point is controversial? If Mormons are Christian then why aren’t Muslims? They both had a new prophet reveal the errors of the new testament, creating a doctrinally distinct new religion.
Mormons
Oh, that’s what Latter-day Saints are. Yeah, no, not Christian even by the loosest definition.
Different sects of the same cult all of them. Differentiating is pointless really. All clinically insane and a danger to society.
Checkmate findies! So brave tips fedora
Atheists also can be dangerous to society. What is this New Atheist revival shit? It’s fucking cringe. Go read some Terry Eagleton and come back later
What part of atheism is dangerous? They just don’t believe in a god(s).
Also, what qualifies as “New Atheist” and why is it cringe? I’m not familiar with Terry Eagleton - is he part of the New Atheists or is he some critic of it?
What part of atheism is dangerous? They just don’t believe in a god(s).
I’m not saying Atheism, the lack of god belief, is dangerous. I’m criticizing the position that religion is somehow the source of the world’s problems.
Also, what qualifies as “New Atheist” and why is it cringe?
The “New Atheist” movement of the 2000s was a reaction, on the one hand, to a genuinely problematic encroachment of Evangelical Christianity into American public life.
On the other hand, a blanket unnuanced opposition to religion as a concept, caused a lot of these ostensibly liberal atheists to be cajoled into supporting the same War on Terror being Championed by the Evangelical Christians they opposed so much.
For the New Atheist, Islam was, “the motherlode of bad ideas” and that we should be waging wars in the middle east, not because of Gog and Magog or whatever Bush was on about, but because Islam was illiberal, and that the US should impose secular liberalism in places like Iraq, by force.
New Atheism got a lot right about the ways reactionary religiosity was damaging at home, but ended up walking hand-in-hand with those same people, when it came to blindly supporting disastrous US foreign policy.
And I’m calling if cringe, because is the same millieu that birthed the sterotype of the fedora tipping le euphoric Reddit Atheist. Many of whom would themselves go on to be the exact kind of “anti-SJW” online influencers who would help meme Trump into the Whitehouse in 2016.
I’m not familiar with Terry Eagleton - is he part of the New Atheists or is he some critic of it?
Eagleton is an Atheist, but is also very critical of the New Atheist movement. Both for the reasons of supporting US imperialism like I mentioned above, but also because he takes issue with the philosophical underpinnings of the movement.
Essentially, he argues that New Atheism is premised on a set of category errors, wherein they misunderstand religion as a primitive version of science, which means they misunderstand modern American Protestantism, and then apply their critiques of that misunderstood Protestantism across all religions, without actually meaningfully understanding or criticizing any of it.
He has a book about this called Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate, if you’re interested
What’s an Atheist? I’m just a normal person who grew up in a normal family, instead of a cannibalistic and/or genital mutilating cult.
You don’t genuinely believe that the only people who circumcise their babies are people who believe in God, do you?
No but it’s but it is a hit factor of why it is done. Someone was religious and then says I don’t want my son looking different then me. And so on and so on.
Would you say that, in this moment, you are euphoric?
As a Thelemite, we don’t expect to be included in the first place.
Are there any communities here on Lemmy for thelema? Not a practitioner myself, but I love learning about it. And anthroposophy.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.
I started one on Lemmy World when I first joined, but abandoned it when I moved to DB0 due to lack of interest from other users. I would be happy to start one on DB0 if people were interested, and I am always open to DM’s if you have any questions or would like to discuss it. I would never try to convert anyone, but I’m always available to any aspirant or interested party. I consider it part of my personal duty as a magician.
Love is the law, love under will.
(Apologies for the weird mumbo jumbo at the beginning and end of that, it is a Thelema thing that makes sense when you’re initiated. Thanks for understanding or tolerating it to those who think I’m a weirdo, lol.)
Thelema has always been super fascinating to me. I’d love to learn more if you have resources to direct me towards. There’s actually a Lemmy server specifically for religions. I started one over there for Episcopalians, but it’s been so long I’ll have to dig up the info on it as I don’t remember the sever name. Philosophy and religions subs are the thing I miss most from the other site
Nothing like gatekeeping your imaginary friend club…
Now wait a second. As the beloved prophet John Wayne (Hallowed be his name) said, “Hold your horses”.
I am an ordained minister in the ULC (Universal Life Church - I know it sounds like a life insurance policy gig - but I did pay like $75 for the full Reverend package), does that make me non-Christian.
In truth, there are Jewish Christians, Hindu Christians, Scientology Christians, Latter Day Saint Christians, secular Christians, Wiccan Christians, Islamic Christians, even female, gay and black Christians (NOOOOOO! )
I don’t think you can pigeon-hole anybody into anything. There are literally 8.3 billion religions in the world right now. Your perspective/interpretation of God, Christianity, atheism, creationism, Jainism, Buddhism, Judaism, Islamism, feminism,… is completely different than mine.
How are there Jewish Christians?
Summary: A person can be a “Jewish Christian” if they are ethnically Jewish by heritage but Christian by religious belief, or if they belong to modern theological movements like Messianic Judaism which deliberately blend the two practices.
- Wikipedia
What do you suppose the apostles, and their leader himself, were?
Judaism has never revolved around the veracity of messianic figures. Can i give you a helpful answer? No, but that’s clearly beside my point.
This is hilarious because when I was unfortunately living there (and generally speaking here, of course), if you called a mormon a christian, it was seen as an insult. At least back then, they typically thought of themselves as better than (with a lot of things, but in this case, better than christians). Now that the christian fascists are in charge of the country, the mormon church suddenly wants in on the grift and they claim that they were always christian.
Also, Mike Lee is a dumbass.
I’m honestly surprised by your comment. Is this based on one specific experience you had with someone?
I have also lived there, but I never met any member of that faith who would be offended by being called a Christian. It has always been the opposite experience for me.
I had this experience with multiple people in high school, actually. Maybe it was just where I grew up? I was fairly close to Utah county (although, thankfully, not in it) which could have changed things.
The first time I had someone get offended over it, I kind of brought it up in a joking but curious manner. They explained that they don’t consider themselves Christian and that the bible should never be used on its own (meaning it should always be supplemented by the Book of Mormon). While that’s definitely just the base of the Mormon religion, they very much explicitly told me that they were not Christian, and were not very happy at all. This was especially confusing to me because they do use the bible, just not as their primary text.
Another time in high school, it somehow came up in a conversation with a few (Mormon) of my peers, and while this time they weren’t unhappy to my face, they did the whole fake, friendly smile thing (the same one they used when they made fun of me for not being Mormon) and laughed at me, basically saying that “no, silly, we are not Christian.”
It was a long time ago and the exact details are fuzzy, but I do remember several times where they did not appreciate being called Christian.
I think that may have been more to do with high school kids not understanding their own religion. Mormons have always been Christians. The kids probably thought christian meant the same as protestant. Which Mormons definitely disagree with. They consider themselves restorationists, not protestants. But they’ve always thought of themselves as Christians.
In my experience, nearly every xtian denomination thinks they are better than other sects. Otherwise, why would they choose that particular lifestyle brand?
Also: I remember my amusement when I first learned that LDS refer to outsiders, including non-Mormon xtians and Jews, as “gentiles”.
Some use gentile to mean anyone not in the religion. Most understand it in the biblical sense despite this.
Definitely. I think Mormons excel at this however, I don’t fully know how to explain it though. Growing up non-Mormon (a gentile, as you say, lmao) in that area was… interesting. I was sometimes bullied for it, not in a physical sense but they would definitely make fun of me, to my face but mostly behind my back. In a way, it was almost more insidious than normal bullying, because they’d be all cheery and happy to my face and then they’d make fun of me when I wasn’t around or when they thought I couldn’t hear them.
Utah is a huge bubble, and most people there don’t end up leaving, even when they become adults. The primary way Utah Mormons experience the world outside of their bubble is through their missionary programs and other church functions. Where Christians are pretty much everywhere in the US and don’t have a “home base” bubble, Mormons are the opposite. This makes them feel super empowered to put themselves above the other religions, if that makes sense.
Just more proof about what religion actually is at the end of the day.
Never forget that the LDS church is one of the biggest real estate holders in the US. They own billions and billions of dollars worth of real estate, all tax exempt. They make tons of money off of that, along with the 10% minimum tithe. They’re probably one of the richest organizations in the US.
There needs to be stronger regulations on religious organizations. But something outside of taxing them. Taxation gives representation. And I don’t want religion feeling like it has a right to be heard in politics. There are enough religious zealots already trying to ruin government.
I need to start a church. Maybe happen upon some golden tablet.
Take some shrooms and go digging in some field, I’m sure you’ll be able to start something based on what you find!
Lol go check my video posts, there’s a good one on how to start a cult. Funny enough it’s kind of a thin line sometimes between cult and culture… just a collection of stories people maintain and inoculate their children with.
What’s really sad is that any of this makes a difference.
They follow Christ, don’t they? Or do Mormons have a different savior and God than other Christians?
Christ is the central figure and all teachings are based on him. It’s Christianity. But other groups in Christianity try to define it based on their interpretations of what they think Christiaity means. So some of them try to say mormons aren’t but it’s a skewed metric. It’s centered on Christ, that’s Christianity.
As a former Mor[m]on, a lot of the pushback about not being Christian is usually tied up in the doctrines about Jesus and individual salvation.
For example, the church teaches, though in a roundabout way, that Mary was physically impregnated by God. (Though, this should be a point in their favor since Republicans love child r@pe.)
Also, for those who qualify, they can become gods themselves and have their planets and stuff. Since the church doesn’t go into details, there is debate whether that means each new god would need a new Jesus or that the Original Jesus’™ sacrifice applies to the new gods’ domains.
Dope, I love when religion and sci-fi mix. Now I’m imagining space Mormon mini gods vying for power and influence over the galaxy like the Goa’uld in SG1. Also the main reason scientology is such a hoot and a half.
There’s a reason why so many comic conventions stop off in SLC. When you’re not allowed to have kinky sex, drink, or smoke to let off tension, the really devout ones have their interests come out in very creative ways.
Mormons are the biggest god damn nerds you will ever meet, because they’re not allowed to have other hobbies.
Battlestar Galactica and Stargate both had Mormon writers. So did Dungeons and Dragons.
And event wickng and jump humping. It is so stupid all these hahah god didn’t say this just have sex your already doing it with extra steps.
Funny enough, so are most people deep into bdsm, at least so far as I’ve met them. People into bdsm are the band / anime nerds and swingers are the cheerleaders and jocks.
That’d be dope. I used to think that everyone who becomes a god gets their own universe. The cross over potential would be awesome.
Hell, let’s throw the Q Continuum in as well.
I can only imagine the Q playing games with the Goa’uld system lord’s and Mormon mini gods. Toss in the Demiurge for good measure and maybe a few Jedi.
Personally, as a Mormon minigod, I’d totally make some Xenomorphs just to mess with everyone. “Oops! I was messing around. I have noooooo clue how they got out. UwU.”
And we wonder why our world is so fucked. Probably some dude just messing around for the lolz.
Don’t they have an exact number of people through all time they think are getting into heaven? It’s not a very large number either.
That’s the Jehovah’s Witnesses - 144,000. Though I thought they had removed the cap. I’m too lazy and apathetic to check though.
ah yes. 100 gross. clearly one of their higher ups did warehouse work at some point.
Base twelve was more common in previous centuries. This is going back to the good old days, not current events.
That’s Jehovah’s Witnesses. Mormons actually believe in 3 heavens: the Celestial Kingdom (for gold-medal Mormons only), the Terrestrial Kingdom (for regular Christians and basically decent people), and the Telestial Kingdom (made up word for the free tier of their holy subscription service. This is the one your buddy Jesus already paid for.)
Their version of Hell is actually extremely hard to get into. You basically have to look God in the face as one of his prophets and tell him where he can stick it. AFAIK, the canonical shitlist in Mormonism is, like, three names long.
Religious people are already weird voodoo believers. Mormons just take it even further.
Also, IIRC, Jesus “was” the savior, but they believe that we needed more than him to save us because the world is icky icky. Jesus teachings got relegated to “good guidelines to follow” but John Smith “revised” Christianity when God supposedly spoke to him.
Or something. Religion is fucking stupid.
I thought it was Jesus part two: the american continent as told by John Smith aka the stories aren’t about Johnny boy.
Jesus 2: Electric Bugaloo
Lol
Mormons do not follow the Nicene Creed, they are not Christians.
That’s not how that works.
That’s like saying “they’re not Catholic, so they’re not a real Christian.”
It’s reductive and not particularly helpful for categorization. Coptic christians, for example, are one of the most ancient sects and they use a different version of the creed that was clarified in 381 to remove “Macedonious’ heresy against the divinity of the Holy Spirit” and again in 431 to add an introduction.
So they don’t follow the Catholic and protestant creeds. Furthermore, most Christians couldn’t quote the thing if their life depended on it. Saying that one has to follow the creed to be a Christian makes no sense, especially when there are approximately 40 to 50 thousand discrete ways of being Christian.
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The classic who’s in and out of the club. It’s interesting what was decided to be the official canon and what was allowed open for interpretation. For those like me who didn’t know
The Nicene Creed was a result of the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325. The creed emphasizes the doctrine of the Trinity in response to the teachings of Arius, a clergyman who denied the divinity of the Son, the second member of the Trinity. This orthodox statement of faith is used by many denominations, including the RCA.
That’s nice, grandma. /s
