When Russell M. Nelson was sustained as president and prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 2018, one of his first official acts concerned the church’s name. The word “Mormon,” whether in reference to the church or its members, was now to be avoided, despite the apparent success of the “I’m a Mormon” public relations campaign begun under Nelson’s predecessor, Thomas S. Monson, in 2010.
Though the new policy made an exception for historical expressions such as “Mormon Trail,” it ruled out “Mormonism” as “inaccurate,” favoring instead “the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.” The policy stipulated that references to the church itself should begin with its full name, with later mentions shortened to “Church of Jesus Christ” or “restored Church of Jesus Christ.”
The impulse behind the new directive was understandable. After enduring endless attacks from writers charging that Mormonism is a non-Christian cult, the Latter-day Saint leadership wanted to lay claim to the church’s fundamental Christian identity.
But churches’ efforts to control their names rarely go according to plan. In 1988, three Lutheran denominations merged to form the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). The term “evangelical” was a throwback to the German evangelische Kirche, or “Protestant church.” Leaders of the ELCA thought they could reclaim this sixteenth-century connotation and its root meaning of “evangel” (gospel).
The problem was that in America, “evangelical” was—and still is—synonymous with conservative Protestant. Evangelical Protestants show no signs of ceding the term to the liberal ELCA. Witness the reaction of Southern Baptist conservative Albert Mohler when the ELCA elected its first transgender synodical bishop earlier this month. “I’m just going to state very openly,” Mohler said, “[the ELCA] is not by any kind of theological definition evangelical.”
The ELCA is now in the confusing situation of trying to distinguish itself from its more “evangelical” breakaways such as the North American Lutheran Church, founded in opposition to the ELCA’s ordination of LGBT clergy.
Words assume a life of their own in popular usage, sometimes for the sake of convenience. Mormons are not the only group known by a one-word nickname. The United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing is more familiar to most people as the Shakers. Members of the Religious Society of Friends are better known as Quakers.
Popular usage also dictates how words are understood. Today’s hyper-partisan political environment has reinforced the evangelical Protestant association that many Americans have with the word “Christian.” If someone says he bought a cake at a Christian bakery, few Americans would take this to mean a bakery run by a liberal, mainline Protestant.
Still, as I tell my students, we can endeavor to be more precise. “Christian” is a term that inevitably begs to be qualified. For starters, there are the most basic distinctions among the faith’s branches: Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox. And in the introductory course I teach on the Christian tradition, I add a fourth branch: Mormon Christianity.
All four branches follow Jesus as the Messiah and savior of the world, which is why I regard them as different expressions of a common faith in Christ. But beyond that basic agreement, they make incompatible claims, including Mormonism’s adherence to the additional body of revelation contained in the LDS scriptures.
The uniqueness of that claim is one reason I believe “Mormon” (a term taken from the name of the Nephite prophet in the Book of Mormon) remains the most historically precise shorthand for this American-born branch of Christianity.
While I have no problem with “Latter-day Saint Christianity” and have tried, in deference to the church’s guidance, to use it more often, we still need a handy “-ism” comparable to Catholicism or Protestantism. That’s why I’m not alone among historians (including Latter-day Saint ones) in continuing to refer to “Mormonism” and “Mormon” in scholarly writing.
The church’s directive to use “the Church of Jesus Christ” or “the restored Church of Jesus Christ” as shortened references is unworkable outside of LDS contexts. The Church of Jesus Christ is the whole Christian world—Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, and Mormon. And “restored Church of Jesus Christ,” as the LDS journalist and historian Jana Riess has explained, “posits a theological claim about restoration that it is not journalists’ job to validate or invalidate.”
So as the church’s new regulation on nomenclature approaches its three-year anniversary, I hope the hierarchy will reconsider the benefits of “Mormon” and “Mormonism.” While I can’t speak as an insider, I think the church’s “I’m a Mormon” campaign had it right: this is a name to embrace, not avoid. There’s so much to admire about the tradition—from temple rites such as baptism for the dead, to the exuberant open-endedness of the LDS scriptures, to the warm-hearted generosity of Latter-day Saints themselves—that “Mormon” should be a term of honor, not embarrassment.
© 2021 by Peter J. Thuesen. All rights reserved