Latter-day Saints Are NOT Christian To The Government?

This is probably the best outcome that could have happened after the huge backlash over the Department of War’s list of religions.

When the Department of War released a new, simplified list of Religious Affiliation Codes, it would appear that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint was not labeled as "Christian."

There was huge backlash to this, so the Department of War responded by removing the “Christian” label all together.

In their statement on twitter, they said they updated the codes because “The Pentagon’s job is not to adjudicate theological debates, but instead to ensure sincerely-held faith is respected and encouraged in our ranks.”

And I think that’s the key that many seem to be missing.

I’ve seen some Latter-day Saint read a lot into this, maybe it really is prejudice, maybe the government is taking a stance of the trinity.

But this isn’t the government as a whole, but rather how religions are coded in the military, so that, for example, a chaplain can quickly understand how many religious adherents there are in a given unit.

The problem was that the list of Religious Affiliation Codes had gotten so large and convoluted that it was hard to make sense of it.

But in simplifying their list, they triggered a massive theological debate on whether Latter-day Saints count as Christian or not, when other edge cases like Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists were clearly given the Christian designation.

So removing the label “Christian” all together makes a lot of sense to me.

It avoids the divisive categorizations all together and ensures that Latter-day Saint service men can easily gain access to the religious resources they may require.

As a Latter-day Saint, I consider myself to be a Christian and a follower of Christ, but I know not everyone agrees with me and I don't necessarily expect the government to weigh in on that.

What do you think? Was this the right move? Let me know in the comments.

#lds #mormon #churchofjesuschristoflatterdaysaints #churchofjesuschrist #christian


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