Mormons not Christian (according to new military list)

[Calm]

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

f I presented myself as a Latter-day Saint with intimate insider knowledge on the inner-held beliefs of Catholics, and if I were to write an article directed to other Latter-day Saints, and if I were to state: "Catholics claim to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, the only path to salvation" and "they claim to believe that he is divine and that we must follow his teachings," I think Catholics might think that, in this particularized context and to that particular audience, I am imputing something onto them different from actual belief, namely, only claimed belief.

Interesting, because my reaction is you are just being accurate in what you know.  Your experience is what they claim, not actual thoughts you hear.   Why would they claim something different than what they actually believe?  Why would they lie?

Edited June 12 by Calm

[Calm]

4 hours ago, MiserereNobis said:

I came across this subject in another news article on this subject. Douglas Wilson is the pastor to Hegseth and has preached in the pentagon. On his blog on April 28th he published this letter written to him:

A clear appeal for Wilson to talk to Hegseth about it. Not labeling LDS as Christian would be a solution to this pastor's issue.

Wilson didn't agree to do anything. His response was:

Does anyone know what LDS chaplains wear on their uniform?

Not the cross. (Added:  oops, I was wrong, lol; I thought it would be the same as the headstone, I guess.)  Moroni with a horn like on the temple I thought.  Will look it up.

Here is LDS chaplain guide page if interested:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/callings/military-and-chaplain/chaplains?lang=eng

Battle of the AIs, to speed up research I asked chat but their link didn’t refer to the emblem, which it claimed was Moroni.  Goggle AI (because it came up without asking) says it’s the Latin cross which makes more sense given the listed concern.  Its link was reddit (semirandom people).

There are a number of posters in this reddit thread saying it’s been a cross to identify them as Christian and capable of leading nondenominational Christian meetings (one at least said Protestant meetings).

https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/1ji2b8p/mormon_chaplains/

Google is working hard to avoid giving me an authoritative source apparently and Chat is just making stuff up.  Too unfocused to do the work myself, sorry.

Edited June 12 by Calm

[Calm]

Got smart…In the church link above, there is a link to the chaplain guide book which has this picture (I was hoping it actually said something, but nothing came up):

 

Edited June 12 by Calm

[Notatbm]

Here is a list of us army chaplain branch insignia. There are several. I have only ever seen a cross and a Torah. Others are listed but no moroni

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_branch_insignia

[why me]

The original response was based on ignorance. And the stereotypes that are related to Mormonism. But it was corrected. It has always been an uphill battle for the LDS to be included in the Christian category. It dates from the time of Joseph Smith. 

[Navidad]

9 hours ago, why me said:

The original response was based on ignorance. And the stereotypes that are related to Mormonism. But it was corrected. It has always been an uphill battle for the LDS to be included in the Christian category. It dates from the time of Joseph Smith. 

Ditto . . . . It has always been an uphill battle for the non-LDS Christian to be included in the Christian category by Mormon doctrine and stereotypes. It dates from the time of Joseph Smith. 😇

[bluebell]

1 minute ago, Navidad said:

Ditto . . . . It has always been an uphill battle for the non-LDS Christian to be included in the Christian category by Mormon doctrine and stereotypes. It dates from the time of Joseph Smith. 😇

No it hasn't.

[The Nehor]

On 6/10/2026 at 6:45 AM, Stargazer said:

Weren't they? Maybe not in Zion, but that's because they were surrounded by fellow LDS all the time, and had no need for it. But I feel that you're misjudging matters a bit. One of my long-term home teaching families took their five younger children out of public school in Washington state when their oldest child started going "the way of the world" due to what she was being force-fed in school. They home-schooled all the rest, and you would have said they weren't learning any kind of independence to be able to stand up to pressure. But all of them who were home-schooled turned out marvelously strong in the gospel. All married in the temple, the boys all serving honorable missions, and every one of them are strong, independent, and productive members of society. 

This was explicitly about defying parental expectations. None of the other kids did that.

On 6/10/2026 at 6:45 AM, Stargazer said:

Out here in the "mission field" our youth grow up surrounded by Gentiles and get their opportunities to stand up every day. It's home where they find their respite from the pressure.

Except in those homes where it isn’t a respite. You know, the kids that don’t believe the gospel but playact to get along. Or the queer kids who live in perpetual fear of being found out.

On 6/10/2026 at 6:45 AM, Stargazer said:

As for me, I grew up in a largely unreligious home, joined the church all by my lonesome, and so my independence was learned at home. And I think my father regretted giving me permission to be baptized at age 14, because he was NOT happy that I decided to serve a mission four years later, instead of going to university like he wanted. Would I have done just as well in a 100% TBM family? I have no idea, but I suspect so.

It isn't always the environment or the nurture. It is sometimes the nature of the individual. 

So defied parental expectations with church support which, again, is the opposite of what I described.

[The Nehor]

9 hours ago, bluebell said:

No it hasn't.

Creeds are an abomination. Those professors are all corrupt.

[Navidad]

9 hours ago, bluebell said:

No it hasn't.

Interesting. Do I, Navidad, a non-LDS Christian, have remission of my sins outside the LDS Church? Do I have the Gift of the Holy Spirit, present and with me full time? And do I have the promise of eternal life in the presence of my Savior Jesus Christ and God the Father as a redeemed child of His outside the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints? Aren't these three things evidence of being a Christian, having lived a Christian life, and looking forward to the everlasting life promised me in John 3:16?

I believe you have these three gifts as Christians within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Do you believe I have access to these three gifts that my Christian commitments to, and covenants with the Savior grant me, reciprocally as He promises in His covenant with me, just as I am—a Christian Evangelical Mennonite who loves the Lord with all my human capacity as I love my wife? 

[Navidad]

11 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Creeds are an abomination. Those professors are all corrupt.

Whew, thank goodness I adhere to no creeds, and what a relief; I am not a professor of anything anymore. I once was, but I have repented of that! 

[bluebell]

31 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Creeds are an abomination. Those professors are all corrupt.

And yet, we still consider them Christian, right?

We don’t believe someone has to profess correct creeds to be a sincere follower of Christ. 

[Calm]

3 hours ago, Navidad said:

Aren't these three things evidence of being a Christian, having lived a Christian life, and looking forward to the everlasting life promised me in John 3:16?

Sure, but they aren’t necessary to be considered a Christian. That’s a much lower bar in the LDS world.  

[bluebell]

3 hours ago, Navidad said:

Interesting. Do I, Navidad, a non-LDS Christian, have remission of my sins outside the LDS Church? Do I have the Gift of the Holy Spirit, present and with me full time? And do I have the promise of eternal life in the presence of my Savior Jesus Christ and God the Father as a redeemed child of His outside the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints? Aren't these three things evidence of being a Christian, having lived a Christian life, and looking forward to the everlasting life promised me in John 3:16?

I believe you have these three gifts as Christians within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Do you believe I have access to these three gifts that my Christian commitments to, and covenants with the Savior grant me, reciprocally as He promises in His covenant with me, just as I am—a Christian Evangelical Mennonite who loves the Lord with all my human capacity as I love my wife? 

A Christian is someone who is a sincere believer in Jesus Christ.  For latter-day saints, there is only one religious test used to determine whether or not someone is a Christian:  Do they believe in Christ and do they consider themselves one.  

[Tony uk]

5 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Creeds are an abomination. Those professors are all corrupt.

By my understanding, as RC. The Apostles Creed was a statement of faith by the early Christians, who lived in a time, not that long after the mission in this world of Jesus. A creed that was later updated by the Nicene Creed. 

[The Nehor]

5 hours ago, bluebell said:

And yet, we still consider them Christian, right?

We don’t believe someone has to profess correct creeds to be a sincere follower of Christ. 

We do now. We didn’t so much in the early days. They were all apostate and were going to hell.

Plus this is still in D&C 127:

“It is an imperative duty that we owe to God, to angels, with whom we shall be brought to stand, and also to ourselves, to our wives and children, who have been made to bow down with grief, sorrow, and care, under the most damning hand of murder, tyranny, and oppression, supported and urged on and upheld by the influence of that spirit which hath so strongly riveted the creeds of the fathers, who have inherited lies, upon the hearts of the children, and filled the world with confusion, and has been growing stronger and stronger, and is now the very mainspring of all corruption, and the whole earth groans under the weight of its iniquity.”

“For there are many yet on the earth among all sects, parties, and denominations, who are blinded by the subtle craftiness of men, whereby they lie in wait to deceive, and who are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it—“

So the view of the rest of Christianity was:

And they are the mainspring of all corruption.

We acknowledged that others professed to be followers of Christ and that the other Christian churches blind sincere seekers of truth through deception.

 

I know the Church now is focusing much more on camaraderie and a kind of ecumenicalism but that is not how it has always been.

[The Nehor]

24 minutes ago, Tony uk said:

By my understanding, as RC. The Apostles Creed was a statement of faith by the early Christians, who lived in a time, not that long after the mission in this world of Jesus. A creed that was later updated by the Nicene Creed. 

True, I was paraphrasing Joseph Smith’s account of the First Vision where the resurrected Jesus said that the creeds were an abomination in his sight and that those professors (the other religious leaders Joseph listened to or all the professors of Christianity everywhere depending on how you interpret it) were all corrupt.

[Calm]

24 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

We acknowledged that others professed to be followers of Christ and that the other Christian churches blind sincere seekers of truth through deception.

Did we ever call even those we saw as corrupt nonChristian?  Serious questions. I have seen stuff that essentially labeled some as bad or apostate Christians, but I see that as still labeling them as Christians. 
 

Did we ever label those who had false doctrine as nonChristian?
 

I am not defending or diminishing the insult because much was insulting, imo. I want to be accurate.  

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

Did we ever call even those we saw as corrupt nonChristian?  Serious questions. I have seen stuff that essentially labeled some as bad or apostate Christians, but I see that as still labeling them as Christians. 
 

Did we ever label those who had false doctrine as nonChristian?
 

I am not defending or diminishing the insult because much was insulting, imo. I want to be accurate.  

Sort of. I mean the Church’s history is long enough that it isn’t consistent but you do have some saying or hinting that Christians aren’t Christian or just outright calling other Christians brute beasts or devil worshippers and profoundly ignorant fools and the like.

"The Christian world, so-called, are heathens as to the knowledge of the salvation of God" -Brigham Young

The “so called” directly implies that they are wrongly called Christian.

"...all the priests who adhere to the sectarian religions of the day with all their followers, without one exception, receive their portion with the devil and his angels." - Joseph Smith in the Elder’s Journal

Yikes on bikes!

"…the devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century." - John Taylor

"Brother Taylor has just said that the religions of the day were hatched in hell. The eggs were laid in hell, hatched on its borders, and then kicked on to the earth." -Brigham Young

“Believers in the doctrines of modern Christendom will reap damnation to their souls.” - Bruce R. McConkie

"After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christendom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They all belong to Babylon." - George Q. Cannon

"With a regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world." - Brigham Young

"This is not just another Church. This is not just one of a family of Christian churches. This is the Church and kingdom of God, the only true Church upon the face of the earth..." - Ezra T. Benson

Not as inflammatory but suggests we aren’t Christian like everyone else and that everyone else are either lesser Christians or not really Christians depending on how you read it.

And President Hinckley when asked about the statement of Jesus in the First Vision where he talked about the creeds being abominations and everyone being corrupt:

“We accept that as a statement which came to him which is printed, of course, and published in his history as a statement. But we go forward with a friendly relationship, with a respect for people everywhere and with an effort to accept them as we meet them and, where opportunity exists, to talk with them and explain to them what we believe.... We don't criticize them for what they believe. We accept the good that comes of that understanding which they have, but we feel we having something to offer beyond what they have.”

The times they are a changin.

[Navidad]

8 hours ago, Calm said:

Sure, but they aren’t necessary to be considered a Christian. That’s a much lower bar in the LDS world.  

I genuinely and sincerely don't understand this. For me, being a Christian is all about one thing—a genuine and sincere covenantal relationship with Christ, not a label. The three things I mentioned that the LDS deny me are the essential core ingredients of being (that is the operative word) a Christian. I would also suggest this is true for being an Evangelical.

Perhaps that is why I have had such a problem understanding the exclusivity of the LDS over these many years. My entire thinking system is based on relationships, not claims. Ditto for being a husband. Ditto for the truth. Truth is a relationship, something I am becoming and that is being revealed in me as I mature as a human being. It is not a possession I claim. 

Maybe this difference of thinking gets at some of the tension over whether many non-LDS Christians believe LDS claimants are really Christians. A claim and a name (ha! Clever) are not the same (cleverer)!

After years of faithful attendance, ministry, and miles of chapel carpet vacuuming, I could claim to be LDS, couldn't I? But that would make that claim neither accurate nor true without “becoming” a member, would it? Profound discussion. Thanks. Ditto to Bluebell - Thanks. 

[Navidad]

6 hours ago, The Nehor said:

We do now. We didn’t so much in the early days. They were all apostate and were going to hell.

Plus this is still in D&C 127:

“It is an imperative duty that we owe to God, to angels, with whom we shall be brought to stand, and also to ourselves, to our wives and children, who have been made to bow down with grief, sorrow, and care, under the most damning hand of murder, tyranny, and oppression, supported and urged on and upheld by the influence of that spirit which hath so strongly riveted the creeds of the fathers, who have inherited lies, upon the hearts of the children, and filled the world with confusion, and has been growing stronger and stronger, and is now the very mainspring of all corruption, and the whole earth groans under the weight of its iniquity.”

“For there are many yet on the earth among all sects, parties, and denominations, who are blinded by the subtle craftiness of men, whereby they lie in wait to deceive, and who are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it—“

So the view of the rest of Christianity was:

And they are the mainspring of all corruption.

We acknowledged that others professed to be followers of Christ and that the other Christian churches blind sincere seekers of truth through deception.

 

I know the Church now is focusing much more on camaraderie and a kind of ecumenicalism but that is not how it has always been.

Such an interesting and insightful conversation.  I appreciate it very much. There is a wide diversity of belief in the LDS church these days; as there is in the Evangelical community. Your description is what I live every day here in close proximity to the colonies. However, I must also state that this or that bishop can make a life-changing difference in the attitude of a ward. Ditto for a pastor in a non-LDS church. So I am not pointing fingers, just stating my lived reality in both worlds. 

Edited June 13 by Navidad

[Navidad]

6 hours ago, Calm said:

Did we ever label those who had false doctrine as nonChristian?

If that is a question for a wider audience than Nehor, then I would suggest a resounding yes. That is a label given every time an LDS missionary knocks on a door, discovers the inhabitant to be a committed Christian, and continues "teaching." That is a label given every time a church leader says "I know your wife is a godly lady, but she cannot possibly have the Gift of the Holy Spirit! Oh, and that is nothing personal. It is just what our doctrine teaches." That in almost exact words from a national CEC leader (and friend) whose name many of you might know. Nothing personal?????????????

LDS folks (including on this forum) take as very accurate the truth of their lived experience, as determinative of what is and not an anomaly or a fringe experience. Please grant me the same claim. Maybe it would be enlightening to have a thread entitled "What is a Christian?" instead of "Are members of the LDS Church Christians?" That might get down to the nitty-gritty a bit better. By the way, what is the "nitty gritty?" Where did that phrase ever come from? If I remember my Missouri history well, there were claims on some children being "nits." I wonder if that is connected to the nitty in nitty gritty. Oh my—see how Navidad's mind works? I need to know everything! Drives people nuts! Sorry!    

[MiserereNobis]

12 hours ago, Navidad said:

Interesting. Do I, Navidad, a non-LDS Christian, have remission of my sins outside the LDS Church? Do I have the Gift of the Holy Spirit, present and with me full time? And do I have the promise of eternal life in the presence of my Savior Jesus Christ and God the Father as a redeemed child of His outside the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints? Aren't these three things evidence of being a Christian, having lived a Christian life, and looking forward to the everlasting life promised me in John 3:16?

 

18 minutes ago, Navidad said:

I genuinely and sincerely don't understand this. For me, being a Christian is all about one thing—a genuine and sincere covenantal relationship with Christ, not a label. The three things I mentioned that the LDS deny me are the essential core ingredients of being (that is the operative word) a Christian. I would also suggest this is true for being an Evangelical.

Putting these two posts together leads me to believe that your definition of a Christian is someone who:

1) Has a remission of sins through Christ,

2) Has the Gift of the Holy Spirit present with them all the time,

3) Has the promise of eternal and everlasting life.

I see a couple of problems with this definition. First, if you asked me "is Navidad a Christian" and the criterion I have to use to answer that question are these three things, I would have to say "I don't know." How do I know if your sins have been forgiven, if you have the Holy Spirit, or if you will be heaven? Those are things that only God knows. This would be true of every single person. By this definition, I don't know if there is a single Christian on earth. That makes this definition of a Christian not very useful.

Another problem is that a large number of non-LDS Christians would use these three criteria to deny LDS of being Christian.

I think a more useful definition of Christian is someone who claims to be a Christian and their beliefs fall within the large and blurry-edged umbrella of Christianity. By that definition you, Navidad, are a Christian, and LDS are Christians, too.

[MiserereNobis]

4 minutes ago, Navidad said:

If that is a question for a wider audience than Nehor, then I would suggest a resounding yes. That is a label given every time an LDS missionary knocks on a door, discovers the inhabitant to be a committed Christian, and continues "teaching."

Let's look at this from the perspective of the Catholic Church. We consider you Christian in both larger definition (your belief in Christ) and sacramentally (your baptism was valid). Yet we would definitely continue to teach you. We would catechize you, form you, for a year or longer (some people take two or three years) until receiving you into the Church through confirmation and the Eucharist at Easter time. This is officially called the Order of Christian Initiation for Adults (OCIA, previously known as RCIA).

So we don't differ from the LDS here. We sincerely look at you as Christian, yet would teach you, catechize you, form you, and then confirm you, and would be very happy that you joined the Catholic Church.

[Navidad]

4 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Yikes on bikes!

"Yikes on bikes!" Now that is brilliant! You skipped the quote by then-Apostle Kimball that I was committing blasphemy every time I baptized someone! I am writing a series of small books (100 pages or less) I am deeming "Focus Books." Maybe I could add one about all the "persecution" non-LDS Christians have faced at the hands of members of the LDS church. But there are two problems with that: 1. It would be divisive; 2. I would need more than 100 pages!  I need to paste and save your post!  "Yikes on bikes!" That is really good! How about this for a title? - "Yikes on Bikes . . . Lightning Strikes"