The Department of Defense eliminated a "Christian" designation from its entire list of recognized military chaplain religions on Monday, a move that came directly after Utah political leaders erupted over the Pentagon's initial exclusion of Mormonism from that classification.
The DOD had drastically culled its roster of officially sanctioned faiths, shrinking from 211 recognized religions to just 31. The Latter-day Saint Church made the cut, but without the "Christian" tag applied to Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses, Lutherans, Christian Scientists, and numerous other denominations on the revised list.
The omission ignited an immediate political firestorm. Utah's entire congressional delegation, all members of the Latter-day Saint faith, pushed back forcefully against the classification. But their defense of Mormonism's Christian identity unleashed a counter-assault from evangelical and mainline Christian groups who branded the Utah-based church as heretical and accused its founder Joseph Smith of false prophecy.
Senator Mike Lee, himself a Latter-day Saint, summed up the complaint on social media: "The U.S. government has no business recognizing the Christianity of literally every other religious sect that worships Jesus Christ, with one exception."
The Pentagon responded by stripping the "Christian" descriptor entirely from its list, citing "redundant and unnecessary labeling" as the rationale. The move essentially reset the debate by removing the category altogether rather than settle the theological dispute over whether Mormonism qualifies.
The dust-up reflects deeper fault lines between the Latter-day Saint Church and American evangelicals, despite years of strategic alliance-building. Church leadership has worked to court evangelical support on shared political priorities, downplayed doctrinal differences, and even rebranded its own identity, dropping the word "Mormon" and eliminating culturally distinctive pageants in an apparent bid to blend into mainstream conservative Christianity.
The courtship appears largely one-sided. Polling data suggests evangelicals have not warmed to the Latter-day Saint faith. More significantly, Latter-day Saints themselves are drifting away from the Republican coalition. Recent research shows the church is one of just two major American religious groups that has tilted toward the Democratic Party over the past two decades, a shift drawing national attention as Arizona's 11 electoral votes hang in the balance.
Author James Rodriguez: "The Pentagon tried to split the baby and only reminded everyone why this fight matters in the first place."
Comments