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.
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.