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LDS.org and Mormon.org changing names


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2 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

On the contrary, the changes are in conformity with the name that was given by revelation. And in conformity with the instruction the resurrected Christ gave the Nephites. 

If it’s fascinating to watch it is precisely to because divine direction is counter-intuitive to those with a mindset such as yours. 

But is it an objective fact that, as Caliboy puts it, "all it is doing from a marketing point of view is making the search engines generic to a hundred other religions"?  One has to ask whether it is the Lord's intention to make it more difficult to find His Church?  One can consult the story of Gideon in the Bible in order to find an occasion when the Lord's seeks a lesser number as part of a winnowing process.  Is that the purpose here?  Is it our place to reason why?  Or just to do or die?  As you say, "counterintuitive."

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3 hours ago, not_my_real_name said:

This seems at odds with the “non-negotiable” nature of the name of the church as described by the Prophet. 

The fact remains that non-Members know the Church by a single name, and it is not a commandment directed at them to adopt the new terminology.  Rather it appears to be a rebranding effort in order to emphasize Jesus Christ.  The prophet is indeed making this a matter of huge internal import.  I doubt that outside interests will adopt the new verbosity/prolixity.  Ask me ten years from now what the actual effect has been.  We may all look back then and acknowledge the wisdom of it  Or someone may be saying "I told you so."

Edited by Robert F. Smith
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11 hours ago, bsjkki said:

The new names have arrived. What do you think? https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900058704/church-news-ldsorg-mormonorg-other-social-channels-are-changing-to-reflect-the-full-name-of-the-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints.html

 

As a result:

“Jesus Christ is at the center of His Church and we will be blessed as we strive to make Him the center of our lives,” wrote the First Presidency in the letter titled, “Using the correct name of the Church.”

 

Pretty cool!

Wonder what the "Christians" will do with us taking back the brand name they co-opted. ;)

 

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17 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The fact remains that non-Members know the Church by a single name, and it is not a commandment directed at them to adopt the new terminology.  Rather it appears to be a rebranding effort in order to emphasize Jesus Christ.  The prophet is indeed making this a matter of huge internal import.  I doubt that outside interests will adopt the new verbosity/prolixity.  Ask me ten years from now what the actual effect has been.  We may all look back then and acknowledge the wisdom of it  Or someone may be saying "I told you so."

“Let me explain why we care so deeply about [the name of the Church]. But first let me state what this effort is not:
    It is not a name change.

    It is not rebranding.

    It is not cosmetic.

    It is not a whim.

    And it is not inconsequential.

Instead, it is a correction. It is the command of the Lord.”

“Thus, the name of the Church is not negotiable. When the Savior clearly states what the name of His Church should be and even precedes His declaration with, “Thus shall my church be called,” He is serious. And if we allow nicknames to be used or adopt or even sponsor those nicknames ourselves, He is offended.
What’s in a name or, in this case, a nickname? When it comes to nicknames of the Church, such as the “LDS Church,” the “Mormon Church,” or the “Church of the Latter-day Saints,” the most important thing in those names is the absence of the Savior’s name. To remove the Lord’s name from the Lord’s Church is a major victory for Satan. When we discard the Savior’s name, we are subtly disregarding all that Jesus Christ did for us--even His Atonement.”

President Russell M. Nelson, October 2018 General Conference

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2 hours ago, not_my_real_name said:

“Let me explain why we care so deeply about [the name of the Church]. But first let me state what this effort is not:
    It is not a name change.

    It is not rebranding.

    It is not cosmetic.

    It is not a whim.

    And it is not inconsequential.

Instead, it is a correction. It is the command of the Lord.”

“Thus, the name of the Church is not negotiable. When the Savior clearly states what the name of His Church should be and even precedes His declaration with, “Thus shall my church be called,” He is serious. And if we allow nicknames to be used or adopt or even sponsor those nicknames ourselves, He is offended.
What’s in a name or, in this case, a nickname? When it comes to nicknames of the Church, such as the “LDS Church,” the “Mormon Church,” or the “Church of the Latter-day Saints,” the most important thing in those names is the absence of the Savior’s name. To remove the Lord’s name from the Lord’s Church is a major victory for Satan. When we discard the Savior’s name, we are subtly disregarding all that Jesus Christ did for us--even His Atonement.”

President Russell M. Nelson, October 2018 General Conference

So?  Are you taking that as a commandment directed to all mankind, or instead only to members of the Church?  Do you expect that secular institutions and other religions will automatically fall into lockstep on this?  Or do you expect that it will be business as usual on the internet?

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7 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

But is it an objective fact that, as Caliboy puts it, "all it is doing from a marketing point of view is making the search engines generic to a hundred other religions"?  One has to ask whether it is the Lord's intention to make it more difficult to find His Church?  One can consult the story of Gideon in the Bible in order to find an occasion when the Lord's seeks a lesser number as part of a winnowing process.  Is that the purpose here?  Is it our place to reason why?  Or just to do or die?  As you say, "counterintuitive."

That’s possible, I suppose, but given the emphasis President Nelson has placed on this directive (I don’t see how he could have made it any clearer that the directive came from God), I don’t see it that way. On the contrary, I see the intent to be a refining of our message to the world to the end that it will be easier, not harder, to identify it as <the> Church of Jesus Christ and not some entity separate and apart from Him, whereby, for instance, some individuals harbor the notion that they can claim affiliation while at the same time denying the historic authenticity of the Book of Mormon, the prophethood of Joseph Smith or, even worse, the reality and divinity of Jesus Christ. 

Maybe, as you suggest, this will be a refiner’s fire of sorts. But I don’t believe it will be because the proper use of the Church’s name has made it difficult to spot the “true and living church of Jesus Christ” among hundreds of other organizations. 

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type in thechurchofjesuschrist.org and you get:  http://thechurchofjesuschrist.org/

Oh wait it's not "The Church of Jesus Christ" anymore.  It's just a "church of Jesus Christ".  interesting.

I find this will only confuse people--which seems like a traditional satan thing to me.  lds.org and Mormon.org are so simple and so pure.  I wonder what happens when people start realizing it's silly to get caught up in what's in the name.  

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11 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Pretty cool!

Wonder what the "Christians" will do with us taking back the brand name they co-opted. ;)

 

I think it is time to for us Catholics to bring back the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition and boot out you heretics ;)

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We’ve owned “Mormon” and “LDS” for so long that it seems futile to abandon them at this late date. I understand the sentiment but not the imperative. How many people don’t let our missionaries in because they think we worship some guy named Mormon and not Jesus Christ? Will it really help to self-identify with nomenclature that not only doesn’t abbreviate well—probably by design—but doesn’t set us apart from other religious societies? I’ll go along, but....

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If I had some tarot cards or seer stones, I believe I might see that the Church is conducting a complete rebranding.  I might even speculate that Joseph Smith is about to lose some of his importance.  We will now start to emphasize the Bible, minimize JS, and start becoming a mainstream Christian church.  This is my guess.

 

 

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10 minutes ago, esodije said:

We’ve owned “Mormon” and “LDS” for so long that it seems futile to abandon them at this late date. I understand the sentiment but not the imperative. How many people don’t let our missionaries in because they think we worship some guy named Mormon and not Jesus Christ? Will it really help to self-identify with nomenclature that not only doesn’t abbreviate well—probably by design—but doesn’t set us apart from other religious societies? I’ll go along, but....

I thought it was interesting that the first given reason for this change is to impact members, not nonmembers. 

"The Church is now making changes to many of its communication channels to reflect the faith’s full name and better convey commitment to follow Jesus Christ. More than getting the name right as an institution, the invitation to use the full name of the Church is an opportunity for Latter-day Saints to refocus their lives on the living Christ.

“Every day we should ask ourselves, ‘How can we better live as Jesus Christ taught and lived?’” President Nelson said. “This mindset will help fill our lives, our homes, our neighborhoods, and our churches with more of Christ’s light and power.”

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5 minutes ago, the narrator said:

Matthew 7:21-23 always comes to mind when I'm reminded of this effort.

Or maybe some Shakespeare?

Quote

What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet;
So Romeo Mormon would, were he not Romeo Mormon call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title.

 

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41 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I thought it was interesting that the first given reason for this change is to impact members, not nonmembers. 

"The Church is now making changes to many of its communication channels to reflect the faith’s full name and better convey commitment to follow Jesus Christ. More than getting the name right as an institution, the invitation to use the full name of the Church is an opportunity for Latter-day Saints to refocus their lives on the living Christ.

“Every day we should ask ourselves, ‘How can we better live as Jesus Christ taught and lived?’” President Nelson said. “This mindset will help fill our lives, our homes, our neighborhoods, and our churches with more of Christ’s light and power.”

This.  The squawking on this topic is pretty compelling evidence of the importance of the emphasis on knowing whose we are.

Sadly, most of the topics and discussion here treat the mormon aspects of discipleship (church, leaders, dissidents) while few treat the Divine aspects of that discipleship.

I suggest we’d all benefit from more focus on Christ, and would further suggest that the result of that focus would be a fresh perspective on all things mormon, e.g. increased clarity and perspective.

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1 hour ago, the narrator said:

Matthew 7:21-23 always comes to mind when I'm reminded of this effort.

Are you saying Pres Neslon is going to get embarrassed in front of God, trying to convince the mighty one that the name is the moistest important thing about it all?  

I think of that matthew passage and chuckle.  I can't believe God would be like that.  Sounds silly.  "oh you tried, did you?  well trying didn't do anything useful to me.  Get out of my presence, loser". 

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12 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

So?  Are you taking that as a commandment directed to all mankind, or instead only to members of the Church?  Do you expect that secular institutions and other religions will automatically fall into lockstep on this?  Or do you expect that it will be business as usual on the internet?

Yes, I think it was a commandment for all mankind; he is not just President of the Church but Prophet to the world. For anyone to not heed a command so clearly identified by the Prophet as being from God is disobedience, regardless of membership in the Church. Going back to my original post, it seems only natural that a faithful discussion board make efforts to align itself with a divine directive.

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11 minutes ago, not_my_real_name said:

Yes, I think it was a commandment for all mankind; he is not just President of the Church but Prophet to the world. For anyone to not heed a command so clearly identified by the Prophet as being from God is disobedience, regardless of membership in the Church. Going back to my original post, it seems only natural that a faithful discussion board make efforts to align itself with a divine directive.

some might suggest he is not a prophet at all.  I understand that sentiment is not the position of most on this board but I'll suggest most people in the world don't care one bit whether you call members mormons, LDS, or use the more formal name.  All are equally irrelevant to the mass majority.

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2 hours ago, esodije said:

We’ve owned “Mormon” and “LDS” for so long that it seems futile to abandon them at this late date. I understand the sentiment but not the imperative. How many people don’t let our missionaries in because they think we worship some guy named Mormon and not Jesus Christ? Will it really help to self-identify with nomenclature that not only doesn’t abbreviate well—probably by design—but doesn’t set us apart from other religious societies? I’ll go along, but....

Seriously?

I had no idea that Mormonism had anything to do with Christianity.

Something about worshiping American Indians who they thought were saints... And read about in The Book of the Mormons.

What does Jesus Christ have to do with that?

We had kind of a strange family that lived next door we thought were Mormons but they kept to themselves thank goodness. Lots of kids. People came and went we didn't know how many wives the guy had or what.

That's the way they are after all pretty clannish people. ;)

When I first actually understood the church I thought "Man they got to get rid of that name Mormon... Why haven't they figured out that's their main problem?"

And then we have  "Hail to the prophet ascended to heaven traitors and tyrants now fight him in vain ... mingling with gods  can plan for his brethren..." 

So does that now mean that Joseph and the gods are hurling thunderbolts at his enemies?

And then we wonder why people think we worship Joseph Smith?

There's a whole lot that can be misconstrued.

It's got to change.

Edited by mfbukowski
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