Who Gets to Decide Who’s a “Christian”?

If you’ve been following the news lately, you might have noticed a bit of a dust up involving Latter-day Saint politicians who have otherwise been very vocal Trump supporters. The Defense Department recently announced a change to the way it coded different religions for active military personnel. Why? Apparently it was an effort to help military chaplains better “anticipate the religious support needs” of service members. Prior to this, there was a list that included over 200 faiths, and it was trimmed down to 31.

I’m a bit baffled by the justification for this in the first place. In a digital age, having a list that’s 200+ entries long isn’t a big deal. From what I’ve read, this wasn’t some big issue military chaplains had been complaining about for years. The 200+ faiths were just a way to recognize the variety of different beliefs individual members of the military had. Were some cut that were very small? Probably. Did they need to be cut? I don’t think I’m equipped to answer that, other than to say I’d want to see the actual cost a longer list was incurring. Even if just a few people claimed a certain religion, if it cost almost nothing to list it, then why omit it?

But what got many adherents of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (often labeled as Mormon) in a huff was the fact that their religion wasn’t coded as “Christian” in the official list. Quakers, Methodists, Baptists, Catholics, and more–21 of the 31 entries were labeled as Christian in the official document. Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and agnosticism weren’t. That makes sense, but to have Latter-day Saints lumped in there with the non-Christian faiths really rubbed some the wrong way.

Politicians complained, and a new list has been issued. The solution? None of the faiths are listed as Christian anymore. And those politicians are treating this as a big win for . . . something or other.

Personally, as a Latter-day Saint myself, all this has done is highlight the fact that a strong contingent of the world (or at least the country) doesn’t view us as Christian. They say the Jesus Christ we worship is different from the Jesus Christ everyone else worships. Sort of like if I said I really like pepperoni pizza, but my definition of pepperoni pizza was “chocolate cake.” They’d say I could claim I loved pepperoni pizza all I wanted, but really I was just a chocolate cake addict. “You can say the same word, but you don’t mean the same thing,” is their argument.

I’m pretty used to this, honestly. I read widely, and all it takes is to skim Reddit for a half second to realize any time my religion is brought up, it’s lambasted. Cult. Fraud. Bigoted. Evil. I’ve read it all. And I’ll note that just removing “Christian” from all the faiths listed by the military in no way served to rectify any of this. It just sidestepped the issue completely, probably because if they had listed Latter-day Saints as Christian, you would have had even more people start to object to that.

By and large, Latter-day Saints are often treated as well-intentioned but fairly gullible at best and downright Machiavellian at worst. “How could anyone be so stupid as to believe something like that?” is an argument I see again and again. “They’re just in it for the money” is another one. I could go on, but I don’t really see the point. It’s one thing when the accusations come from people who see all religion as bad and Latter-day Saints as just another flavor of that, but it cuts more when it’s coming from other people of faith. My immediate family has literally had people we’ve been friends with for years suddenly turn around and call us brainwashed cultists. That’s the sort of thing you remember.

So when stuff like this “Official Religion List” comes up, it brings a whole ton of baggage with it. I’m not claiming Latter-day Saints are perfect, or that they’ve never had serious issues in their religion. Any church is going to have these, because it’s made up of individuals, and humans are decidedly imperfect. That includes church leaders of all creeds. But when people try to tell me what I believe, or that I just don’t understand my own religion enough, then they lose me. I’ve been a part of this faith for more than 40 years. I’ve been a full-time missionary. I’ve been in significant local leadership positions. I know what I believe, and I know why, thanks very much, and your day-long deep dive on Mormonism after you watched The Book of Mormon musical isn’t really going to wow me.

Trump-aligned Latter-day Saints view the change of the official list as a victory. It isn’t. It’s just a way for the administration to still try to cater to our faith while doing its best to keep us at arm’s length, so they don’t irritate any of the churches out there who still view us as imposters. But labels like this do matter, and I wish people would realize the harm they do. In a world where so many people seem to be dead set on dividing all of us as much as possible, we should be looking for anything that can unite us.

Ultimately, what matters most to me is my personal faith. I consider myself a Christian, because I do my best to follow His example. To show compassion. To love my neighbor. To turn the other cheek. And if someone wants to run around after me, push their glasses up on their nose, and say, “Well actually,” then let them. I learned a long time ago not to let other people’s opinions get in the way of my relationship with God.