Defense Department cut roughly 180 religion codes from previous list, with mostly Christian denominations remaining

Mormon leaders, military veterans and elected officials reacted with anger to a new Department of Defense policy that does not consider The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to be a Christian religion as part of a wider effort to cut down the U.S. military’s list of recognized faiths.

“The Pentagon’s decision to list The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints apart from other Christian faiths is wrong and needs to be corrected,” Republican Rep. Mike Kennedy, of heavily Mormon Utah, wrote on X on Sunday.

  • JTskulk@lemmy.worldEnglish
    52·
    1 day ago

    I hate to agree with him, but isn’t what he said true? Isn’t Mormonism more like Islam where they both have a new prophet after Jesus but worship the same Allah? They’re both Abrahamic religions, but neither is Christianity.

    • DisasterTransport@startrek.website
      6·
      1 day ago

      Ironically when it comes to the nature of God Muslims and Mormons couldn’t be farther apart. Like Christians, Mormons believe in the divinity of Christ, i.e. that he is the Son of God (or “Heavenly Father”), but they reject the Trinity, i.e. that God is one substance in three parts*. Mormons instead believe that God is three separate beings of one purpose and will. Muslims are more like Jews in that they don’t think he was the Son of God, but where Muslims think he was a prophet and the Messiah, Jews are… indifferent? Maybe they think he was some smart guy, or maybe he didn’t exist. Nice story, who cares basically. Muslims reject the Divinity of Christ because they reject the Trinity because the oneness of God is a core of their beliefs.

      *the Trinity gets complicated when you start asking different denominations or even different congregations about it. it is a divine mystery, you’re not actually supposed to get it. i didn’t make that up, that is what a lot of christian doctrine actually teaches. but they still argue about it. religion is wild

      **i’m also not a theologian so notes will be accepted

    • Olmec@retrolemmy.com
      2·
      1 day ago

      I don’t know Islam enough to speak about it when it comes to this type of distinction. LDS however, worship Jesus, and God the Father. The modern prophets are there only to clarify doctrine, perform ordinances, and help direct the members toward Jesus. They don’t supercede Jesus.

      This whole thing really just depends on the definition you come up with. You could write a definition that Catholicism is the only Christian religion, because it is the direct decendant of the church Christ built. All other worshipers are offshoots. In practice, that isn’t a great definition, because Catholicism isn’t close to a majority of people that worship Christ. So you need to expand to include those offshoot religions. You don’t want to go too far though, otherwise you get people making their own Christian church, but doing whatever they want in the name of it.

      So it is all pedantic talk. I think LDS should be included in Christianity, but I can understand why someone would argue against it, in the name of trying to keep to the core Christian religions.

      • Holytimes@sh.itjust.works
        21·
        1 day ago

        That’s only true in a small number of Christian denominations.

        Seriously go look up the abrahamic faith family tree. There’s a truely staggering number of splits. And the belief interpretation of the scriptures and how outsiders view each wild differ to the point that if you didn’t know better you wouldn’t even realize 70% of them are related beyond Jesus being involved.