Mormons Make Great FBI Recruits

I spoke with some LDS youngsters who came to my door some time back. They're friendly. I learned that they do not like being referred to as "Mormon" but instead prefer "LDS". For them, being called Mormon is derogatory.

This is a new phenomenon, too. It was only a few years ago that there was a church-wide semiannual congregation (known as General Conference) where the leadership announced that it was bad to be referred to as "Mormon".

The reasoning is: Mormon is a character in their scripture (The Book of Mormon), but he is not the main figurehead for the church, so referring to them as though he is, is a misrepresentation.

Youngsters are probably not the best source for this info as they're too young to remember that 20 years ago "Mormon" was perfectly fine, and in fact a lot of Mormons called (and still call) themselves "Mormon." Some time back the leadership of the Church decided that Mormon was offensive for some reason and made it so.

But then "LDS" is now out of date as well! The leadership has decided that they don't want to be called "LDS" anymore. They even dumped the wonderfully succinct "lds.org" domain for "churchofjesuschrist.org."

Now they want you to use the full name of the Church (at least the first time referenced in the convo), which is "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." So for example, if you want to refer to a person you would have previously called "Mormon" or "LDS," you should instead use "member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." There is a minor relief though. On subsequent references you can shorten it to "Church of Jesus Christ" or "the restored Church of Jesus Christ."[1]

Personally I like the (still silly long) acronym COJCOLDS. But realistically very few Mormons are going to offended if you call them "LDS."

[1]: https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/style-guide

I was raised Mormon. The whole time I grew up we were told by all the previous prophets to be proud to be called Mormon. It was a sense of pride.

But the new/current prophet hates it and said that God told him he doesn't like the name anymore and that being called Mormon is "a victory for Satin" (the devil).

God is a little inconsistent within Mormonism. First he wanted Polygamy and it was sooo important that he even sent an Angel with a flaming sword down to earth to get them to practice polygamy (even though the prophet was already practicing it in secret at the time). Then in 1904 when the Supreme Court forced the church to stop practicing polygamy or else they would take all assets away. Then magically within days, God told the prophet that its actually ok if they don't do polygamy anymore. Then he hated black people for a while and wouldn't let them into the temple or get the priesthood (which essentially kept them out of heaven according to Doctrine), then changed his mind in 1978 when public pressure was mounting. He didn't want children of Gay people to be baptized in his church for a few years, and then changed his mind after the PR got really bad. Mormon God is heavily influenced by American PR.

The next prophet will probably embrace the name "Mormon" again. So don't stress too much about it. Most active Mormons can't keep track of what doctrine currently is or isn't which is why so many times you get different answers from different mormons about policies and doctrine. Because it really depends which prophets you grew up under, because things change dramatically as they take the helms of power and claim to speak for God.

It has been a cycle. For a period before Hinckley was president (1995-2008), the term Mormon was discouraged. Hinckley was more media savvy and embraced it. Going even further back, Mormon was acceptable. It all depends who is in charge at the time.

Is that an effort to blend in more with evangelicals?

I wouldn't say "to blend in" although I don't think that's wrong either. The stated goals are to emphasize that the COJCOLDS believe in and worship Jesus Christ, and are a "Christ centered religion." There's definitely some unity goals here to be more accepted as Christian, but they also really believe that the name of the church was literally set by Jesus Christ, and that He (Jesus) is inspiring the current leadership to restore the God-given name.

So there are a handful of factors/motivation at play, but yes a huge goal is to brand themselves more as Christian.

Yeah all Mormons have whiplash from changing doctrines, rules, and guidelines that change throughout their life.

I was raised during the "Hinckley" reign. So Mormon was a term of endearment during the time and embraced.

Things like the caffeine that is being talked about elsewhere on this thread is similar. When I grew up it was frowned upon, but now its acceptable.

The temple covenants and rituals have changed many times throughout my life. I don't attend anymore, but I heard that they just changed it again within the past month or so.

I don't think the church cares about blending with evangelicals, more that they don't want entities that consider themselves adversarial to the church controlling the image the church projects.

Evangelicals consistently consider the LDS/Mormon faith a danger to their version of Christianity- and therefore seek to label it unchristian to poison the well.

Allowing that counter-messaging to percolate by not embracing their actual name that starts "Church of Jesus Christ," (at the very beginnings was called "Church of Christ," though as you can imagine that led to differentiation issues.[0]) became problematic as the "Mormons aren't Christian" messaging became more and more emphatic from its rivals.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/nam...

When I was growing up in the 90s, I had a few LDS friends. My school had a ton of LDS kids for some reason even though I didn't grow up in an area that's known for them. These kids always described themselves as "mormon". I never heard the term "Latter Day Saints" until much later.

Huh? The current prophet doesn't "hate" it, and never said that God told him He doesn't like it either. You're putting your own words into his mouth. Let's be more precise in representing others, even if we disagree with them.

My perception is that they don't want to "blend in" to the point that there's no distinction, but they want acceptance under the umbrella of Christianity. Most other groups under Christianity reject LDS doctrine as heresy, LDS church says "we are Christians though". I'm not trying to project an opinion about who is correct, just trying to describe what I think is going on.

While you're probably right the previous poster was over-exaggerating. Your accusation is meaningless without additional details.

To their point: When I was a kid, caffeine was looked upon very poorly. Now, every Mormon I know drinks Soda and in fact the amount of Soda Shops has exploded in areas known to have large LDS populations.

I believe not accepting the divinity of Christ in the trinity is the stumbling block. Same with Muslims, who misunderstand the trinity to mean three Gods.

They/we do accept the divinity of Christ, we just don’t accept the Nicean creed version of the Trinity.

That version of the Trinity wasn’t/isn’t universal and other accepted Christian churches that don’t follow the Nicean creed - something shared with Jehovahs Witnesses.

Characterizing it as 'misunderstanding' is disingenous, we just don't believe it stands up to scrutiny. Any inquiries into the nature of the trinity result in the trinitarian doing one of two things: collapsing into obvious polytheism, or claiming their doctrine is incomprehensible and therefore inscruitable, neither of which are satisfying answers. Many Catholics in particular will in fact fall into what their church considers various heresies in trying to wrap their heads around what they claim to believe.

All members of the LDS are Mormons; but, not all Mormons are members of the LDS. In addition to the LDS, there is also the the Fundamentalist Church of (Jesus Christ of) Latter-day Saints and the Community of Christ.

CNN's web site had a piece on this yesterday: https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/29/us/mormon-beliefs-explained-c...

The whole "we can progress to become gods" thing is a stumbling block to "normal" Christianity, too. As is the "these other books are also scripture".

The latter of the two is probably reasonable, because claiming that a finite mind can not grasp an infinite one is a reasonable conclusion (even from a thermodynamic point of view :)).

“I and the Father are One” is the genesis.

Not all mysteries are scrutable in a given axiomatic framework, thankfully Gödel taught us that.

> Soda Shops

I live in SLC and it's hard to miss.

https://www.franchisetimes.com/dealmakers/soda-brand-swig-wi... (First thing I searched and I guess they just got awarded some bullshit. Convenient timing.)

Some excerpts:

> And so in April 2010, Swig was born in St. George, in a valley in southwestern Utah

> we grew from two [2] stores in 2013 to 17 stores until 2018

But good for them, I suppose.

    The reasoning is: Mormon is a character in their scripture (The Book of Mormon), but he is not the main figurehead for the church, so referring to them as though he is, is a misrepresentation.

That's the explanation I was given as well. Thanks for clarifying and thank you all for the explanations.

Salt Lake City is the only city I've lived in with late night/24 hour coffee shops.

> Fundamentalist Church of (Jesus Christ of) Latter-day Saints

The correct abbreviation is FLDS I think.

To be fair, others label the LDS as "unChristian" as well, with solid reasoning. For example, the Catholic Church rejects LDS baptism as invalid. That alone makes them a non-Christian. For purposes of marriage between an LDS member and a Catholic, that is a "Disparity of Cult" case that you would also see with a Muslim or Hindu.

LDS profess Christ, to be sure, and they adhere to OT/NT conservative values, and outwardly seem like nice Christian people. But they also embrace a "new Gospel" with extra books beyond the Christian canon that change the whole message. And, if you pay attention to their terminology while they speak at length, you may eventually realize that the LDS use words that have completely different meanings from the ways other Christians use words. If you've changed the underlying definitions and then speak in the same way, you're saying completely different things to the in-group without outsiders knowing the difference.

The LDS sect is fundamentally "henotheistic" rather than mono- or poly-. They literally believe that Jesus and God the Father are/were separate celestial gods, and they literally believe that every man can become a god of his own celestial kingdom, with a minimum of one celestial wife and celestial children to accompany them for the rest of eternity. They've taken major features of Judaic Temple worship, mixed in a good deal of Freemasonry, and come up with something that is far beyond Christianity as any Christian knows it.

That's an oversimplification and not charitable. Trinitarians are perfectly capable of defending the doctrine without making stupid mistakes. I wouldn't call the doctrine "incomprehensible"; it's just beyond human understanding, in a way that we could contemplate it for the rest of eternity without reaching the fullness of what God has planted in that seed of knowledge.

It's easy to believe in the Trinity if you approach it as a little child, as Jesus encourages, and if we word it simply as the Fathers did. If we don't attempt to adorn it with our own analogies or explanations, it's elegant, simple, and transcendent.

Mormon was an ancient prophet who compiled and abridged the record which he called the Book of Mormon. When the church started publishing the book, people started calling members of the church, 'Mormons'. It was largely used as a derogatory term by those who did not like the church, but members eventually embraced it.

Kind of like the term 'Yankee' was a derogatory term for Americans that the British came up with. Eventually, Americans embraced it and even named a baseball team after it.

The church and its members do not think the term is bad, but think it can distract those who think the church is not Christian so it is trying to de-emphasize it.

There is additional doctrine, beyond question. It is a church that is open to further revelation equal to that which came from biblical apostles.

There is, however, nothing incompatible with Christian worship prior to the Nicean creed. Definitely post-Nicean it is a heretical sect vs mainline Christianity, but so is all of non-Catholic/Orthodox Christianity on some point or another if you cite the Catholics as the authority, if only on the issue of who's in charge.

There is plenty in the Bible to support a henotheistic view of Godhood, so it isn't extra-Biblical/Christian, just not the enforced POV post-Nicea.

> [he] never said that God told him

> You're putting words in his mouth

Ok... His exact words were:

"The Lord has impressed upon me the importance of the name He has revealed for His Church, even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints...the name of the Church is not negotiable.”

He later said (in the same speech):

“[The name] is a correction. It is the command of the Lord.”

I'm not about to split hairs. But he claims to be a prophet and represent God. Then he gets in front of the church at a worldwide conference, when he knows the most people will be watching and says "The Lord has impressed upon me...", "It is a command of the Lord".

You can call it what you want, but he is clearly implying that his deity told/impressed/inspired/commanded this change.

I'm not putting words in his mouth. These are the transcripts from his announcement. This is what he said. It is hard to interpret it any other way. He seems to be very clearly stating that this is directed by "the Lord".

Jehovah's Witnesses are not more accepted than Mormons as Christians in my experience. Or any other church in Wikipedia's non trinitarian category.[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Nontrinitarian_denomi...

Yes, you can find hints of henotheism in certain parts of the Hebrew scriptures. However, henotheism in Judaism had died out by the time Christianity developed. It's not something found in the New Testament.

Catholic dogma classifies Protestants heretical Christians and Mormons not Christians. The Council of Nicaea codified already dominant rejection of henotheism.

> Catholic dogma classifies Protestants heretical Christians

No, it actually does nothing of the kind.

Teaching which was not dogma once did, though the current teaching is more nuanced (and not just in the negative sense of recognizing that some Protestants are not validly baptised and therefore cannot be heretics regardless of their beliefs.)

I forgot dogma has a more specific meaning in Catholicism. My understanding of current teaching is Protestant beliefs are material heresy but not formal heresy. Please correct if I am mistaken.

> My understanding of current teaching is Protestant beliefs are material heresy but not formal heresy.

Beliefs, as such, cannot be distinguished as formal or material heresy, because if a belief contradicts a necessary belief of the Catholic faith, whether a person holding it engages in formal or material heresy depends on other aspects of the individual heretics relationship with the belief, not the content of the belief.

And the Church doesn’t hold that “Protestant beliefs” as a class are heretical for the baptized to hold. There are beliefs within the Protestant community that the Church holds to contradict necessary elements of the Catholic faith so as to be capable of being heresies when held in the requisite circumstances, sure.

Also, there’s an evolving view both theologically – which kind of follows on practical treatment – that the doctrinal divisions between the Catholic Church and the Protestant Churches, as well as those between the Catholic Church and Eastern and Oriental Orthodox are, in general, as relates to (even validly baptized) members of the respective communities of a distinct theological character from heresy (which is essentially the religious equivalent of “treason”), even if heresy was the right frame early in the respective splits. This provides a theological reinforcement for (and in some respects follows from) efforts focusing on dialogue, clarification, and resolution of disputes rather than condemnation, which have made some progress in (in the case of the Protestant direction) both the Anglican-Catholic and Lutheran-Catholic dialogues.

I think there are over 40 churches descended from the teachings of Joseph Smith now (someone knowledgeable once told me this, I don't have a source). Most of them are very small.

An initial split occurred before leaving Missouri with a large number of followers including Joseph Smith's mother and other family members (as I recall) choosing to follow James Strang to Beaver Island instead of Brigham Young to Utah.

That settlement was forcibly broken up, but it's an interesting story. You can google James Strang, (The King of Beaver Island) to read more on it. That church is still around as well and claim to be the true inheritors of the teachings of Smith.

https://www.ldsstrangite.com/

> Beliefs, as such, cannot be distinguished as formal or material heresy, because if a belief contradicts a necessary belief of the Catholic faith, whether a person holding it engages in formal or material heresy depends on other aspects of the individual heretics relationship with the belief, not the content of the belief.

My understanding is the individual heretic's relationship with the belief separates material heresy from formal heresy. What aspects of the individual's relationship with the belief separate material heresy from not heresy?

> Also, there’s an evolving view both theologically – which kind of follows on practical treatment – that the doctrinal divisions between the Catholic Church and the Protestant Churches, as well as those between the Catholic Church and Eastern and Oriental Orthodox are, in general, as relates to (even validly baptized) members of the respective communities of a distinct theological character from heresy (which is essentially the religious equivalent of “treason”), even if heresy was the right frame early in the respective splits. This provides a theological reinforcement for (and in some respects follows from) efforts focusing on dialogue, clarification, and resolution of disputes rather than condemnation, which have made some progress in (in the case of the Protestant direction) both the Anglican-Catholic and Lutheran-Catholic dialogues.

I know of the desire to avoid the word heresy. Has this evolving view yet produced a new preferred term?

> I wouldn't call the doctrine "incomprehensible"; it's just beyond human understanding, in a way that we could contemplate it for the rest of eternity without reaching the fullness of what God has planted in that seed of knowledge.

I am trying but failing to see the difference here. It sounds like what you're saying is, "I wouldn't call the doctrine incomprehensible, it's just that we (as humans) can't comprehend it"

> It's easy to believe in the Trinity if you approach it as a little child, as Jesus encourages, and if we word it simply as the Fathers did.

If you approach it as a little child, it's also very easy to believe in Santa Claus, but that doesn't make it any more true (or any more likely to be true either).