This is going to differ quite a bit from my usual content, but there are three things that have popped in the past week that involve Mormons, and I didn’t see anyone else here at W&T posting about them, so I figured why not. They fall into three distinct camps that are incredibly familiar:
- The Secretary of “War” excludes Mormons from the Christian category.
- Utah’s Gov. Cox thinks he’s being clever and not just homophobic and inconsistent by announcing June is “Fidelity Month.”
- Mormon leader (church historian Kyle McKay) being racist. If you want to be generous you could just say “rambling and tone deaf,” but wowzers does this guy need a stage manager or at the very least, someone to unplug his mic.
What we are really seeing in the two political stories is that punching down is the one core requirement to be acceptable to MAGA. Oh, and NOT BEING A MORMON. Leopards, meet face.
Wife Beating Alcoholic Warmonger Says Mormons Aren’t Christian Enough
MAGA looooves Mormon votes, just not actual Mormons. Their preachers fill their heads full of bad faith arguments and bigotry, and they eat it with a spoon and ask for seconds.
Of course, Mike Lee comes in swinging, demanding to be included in the club, and apparently Trump agreed that it was bad politics to piss off the LDS vote that is 70% unwaveringly behind him (especially since Trump DGAF at all about this internecine Christian BS), so the compromise is that the Department of Defense / War no longer designates any sect as Christian, which feels very “Fine! Are you happy now, losers? We hate letting you say you’re Christians so much we will just not call anyone Christian. Babies.” (read that in your Colin Jost as Pete Kegsbreath voice).
Most of the responses to this have been about what you would expect:
- “We’re NOT Christian . . . according to their definition, so I don’t care.”
- “It doesn’t matter what some random politician thinks. God will judge us.”
- “I wear it as a badge of honor to be singled out for my beliefs.”
The real story here is that they cut the list of religions down from around 180 to 30. I’m not hearing a lot of clamoring about the 150 that didn’t make the cut. I also haven’t heard a lot of Mormons noticing that JWs got the Christian label. J freakin’ Ws. Their beliefs are far less mainstream than LDS teachings.
And the real story behind all of that is that this is a part of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s plan to favor Evangelical Christianity and remake our nation according to its very specific values that the majority of the country does not share. Evangelical Christians: 1, Pluralism: 0.
Just for funsies, I’ll drop this video of Colin Jost: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHo9alvGm5w
Gov. Cox Decides Pride Goeth Before (his own political) Fall
As we all know, June is Pride month, as Governor Cox formally recognized every year until 2024 when he suddenly started realizing MAGA might not like it. Cruelty was back in vogue. Don’t believe me? Consider what some LDS people are saying about Pride Month:
I am once again forced to ask the obvious question: are the straights alright? This move reminds me when I was a kid and heard the joke: “We have mother’s day and father’s day. When do we have children’s day?” and the reply from their wise elder was “But EVERY day is children’s day.” In this analogy, the straights are the coddled children.
When I see such unhinged comments as the above, I am reminded of the old adage that some “straight” people think more about gay sex than gay people do. As my sister once observed, the bigger the prude, the bigger the perv. Or as Jung put it, “That which we resist persists.” When I read these comments they just look like projection to me. Will the real demented, uneducated, deluded weirdos please stand up? Conflating homosexuality with pedophilia is particularly rich given that they are totally fine with ignoring what we know about the Epstein Files.
If we are going to have a Fidelity Month, doesn’t that imply that you get a hall pass the other 11 months? Is this like making an “Honesty Month”? It feels like Lent. Rats, I was going to cheat on my spouse, but now I can’t because it’s June.
I can’t wait until next month when Cox announces Julyteenth, which is Juneteenth but for white people. Which brings us to . . . our next Mormon moment.
This Guy’s Little Light is Shining Way Too Much
If you didn’t watch the clip of Kyle McKay rambling about the spectacle of Mormons who are WHITE singing “This Little Light of Mine” which is a BLACK song (according to him), well it’s something to behold. He seems to be implying that it’s silly and ridiculous for a white person to do a thing he considers “black,” which honestly reminds me of my mom referring to movies, TV shows and neighborhoods as “a black one.” Yikes. Here’s a link to the video in which he also says he had a conversation with another leader in the stand who is imagining he’s in an African slave ship while singing it. White people LOLZ, amiright?
Just to clarify, the song was written in the 1920s, well past abolition, although it was first sung in American black Christian churches, likely starting with the AME (African Methodist Episcopal church). It was popularized during the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, probably also something our boy Kyle would consider a mark against it (Civil Rights aren’t for white people, after all–that’s just silly). Fun fact: I guarantee you that Kyle McKay wouldn’t consider himself racist. He probably also thinks we live in a post-racial country because . . . Obama.
And let’s not forget that he started that horrifying ramble with a throwaway reference he apparently thought was charming and universally relatable to his childhood enjoyment of torturing and incinerating grasshoppers with a magnifying glass.
- Had you seen all three of these stories? What did you think when you heard these stories?
- What reactions are you seeing or hearing from people you know?
- Do you think MAGA Mormons understand that they are carrying water for people who don’t respect them and will never accept them?
- Will racism ever be a disqualifier for white Mormon men to be given a microphone?
- Do you think less of Gov. Cox who used to get a lot of attention for his “disagree better” initiative?
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
It is impossible for me to care any less about PRIDE month; or “Fidelity Month” for that matter. (Although, I would support June being dedicated to honoring Veterans.) As for the rest of it – it’s just the mind numbing, childish chatter that is constantly churning; and fodder for those who have nothing better to do.
As far as racism being a disqualifier for white Mormon men have you forgotten about Brad Wilcox? It’s aggravating and embarrassing that the church cannot seem to correct this cultural problem in the leadership.
Do you think MAGA Mormons understand that they are carrying water for people who don’t respect them and will never accept them?
No. Among the common responses you didn’t list were:
“The only reason they didn’t put Christian before our name was that it was already so long that it wouldn’t have fit on the line.” (Left unsaid—it’s Russell Nelsons fault.)
“The name of Christ is already in our name so it would have been redundant”. (But “Christian: Church of Christ”, which made the original list, is apparently not redundant.)
In both cases, the responses translate to “There were valid reasons for what they did, so there is plenty of space for us to believe that they actually do accept us.”
The list excluding Mormons from the list of Christian groups was no doubt influenced by widespread belief asking right-wing conservative evangelicals that Mormons’ views of Jesus and God are so offensive and heretical that they aren’t real Christians. That view still circulates and it is first order hysteria. I’ve personally spoken with people who believe that Mormons aren’t Christians and they are insane. Just the other day I interacted with a person who claimed that Mormons don’t believe that Jesus and only Jesus saves. When I inquired about his odd logic he went on to express his offense that Mormons taught that you’re saved after all you can do and taught of works. Sigh.
Look, the average Protestant believe and the average Mormon really don’t view God that differently: someone that you pray to in order to feel good about yourself and to get through challenges. The average believer lacks the sophistication to articulate what the Trinity even is. Mormons don’t generally live their lives obsessing about God and Jesus being distinct, or having bodies of flesh and bone, etc. “On no, there are differences in interpretations of the Bible, they’re not Christians!!!” completely ignores the history of Christianity itself, which has exhibited disagreements about the nature of God and Jesus from the 1st century. I find it really rich that conservative Protestants now accept that Catholics are Christians but not Mormons considering the long history of strife between Catholics and Protestants.
FWIW, as best as I understand it, the whole DoD religion list originally didn’t have “christian” as a moniker before any denomination; they ADDED that to the shortened list, and generated a snub outright by that. So less the Colin Jost voice, and more someone saying “crap, I wasn’t able to sneak that in”. But still – why did they decide to list “christian” for any faiths to begin with, other than to pursue some kind of christian nationalist angle?
I had not heard of the Kyle McKay story, and all I can say is WTH. Why on earth would that be a topic of discussion – even for “introducing levity” or whatever – in a stake conference???? Or a ward meeting? WTH? There is the idea of knowing your audience, but come on – if he were speaking to an audience of known white supremacists, would he have made jokes about eating watermelon or something? Ugh. I mean, I don’t know if cultural sensitivities should have prohibited talking about the song at all, but at the least could have just said – man, those of us who come from a very WASP tradition just CANNOT sing this song as well as it deserves to be sung.
Great post!
This week I discovered Monte Mader, thanks to the interview on Data over Dogma podcast deconstructing tradwife and purity culture that is permeating all right wing agendas. Well worth watching!
She had a very authoritarian upbringing, but is now very outspoken and well informed on all the issues that thinking women (and men) care about. She has her own podcast as well called Flipping Tables.
Grizzerbear, veterans already have two months, May and November. The fact that you either didn’t know that fact already or willfully ignored it tells me everything I will ever need to know about you. Trump is also a draft-dodger who is on record calling veterans “suckers and losers,” so stop pretending to respect the troops. You obviously don’t care. You’re not fooling anyone anymore.
I served my mission among evangelicals in the early-2000s, so I’ve known for over 20 years that these people openly hate and despise us. For them, we are scarcely a notch above Muslims and atheists, and only barely as good as Jews and Catholics, whom they also only begrudgingly tolerate. Literally our only saving grace in their eyes is that our theology despises LGBTQ people almost as much as they do, otherwise they would gleefully exterminate us too—and if they ever did succeed in killing off all the gays, they would surely come for us next, too.
This minor kerfluffle with the War department—along with the evangelical reactions to the Michigan Church arson last year—are but the warning shots off the bow, ones that most Mormon conservatives are too blind to hear. They repeatedly fail to acknowledge that evangelicals don’t like us, they believe we’re all deservedly going to hell, and they consider the church’s current political alliance with them to be but a brief marriage of convenience, one that will only be too happy to exit once they no longer need us.
“By their fruits ye shall know them.” The ugly comments from Church members about LGBTQ people aren’t an aberration–they’re the natural fruit of the Family Proclamation. If you believe the Proclamation’s doctrine came from God, why wouldn’t you conclude that “those people” are an abomination? The only remaining question is how much you’ll tolerate their existence in this life before God sorts them out in the next.
That is, after all, the Church’s actual current position: be kind and loving to LGBTQ people’s faces, but their relationships are serious sin–even though the Church now concedes orientation isn’t chosen–and they’re categorically excluded from exaltation. “We love you, but the highest heaven has a no-gays policy” is not a message that produces good fruit, no matter how sweetly it’s delivered.
That’s the thinking behind Cox and other conservative governors trying to overwrite Pride Month with “Fidelity Month.” I was never a big Cox fan, but I’ll admit I appreciated that he once seemed more decent on LGBTQ issues than his Utah Republican peers. That version of Cox is gone–he stopped recognizing Pride in 2024, and Fidelity Month is just the rebrand. He’s fallen fully in line with the bigoted status quo.
Had you seen all three of these stories? What did you think when you heard these stories? Yes. I agree with what you have written in this outstanding post.
What reactions are you seeing or hearing from people you know? Indifference.
Do you think MAGA Mormons understand that they are carrying water for people who don’t respect them and will never accept them? No. My MAGA LDS friends believe they are respected and loved by the administration.
Will racism ever be a disqualifier for white Mormon men to be given a microphone? No.
Do you think less of Gov. Cox who used to get a lot of attention for his “disagree better” initiative? Disappointed but not surprised. In Utah, leaders march to the beat of the MAGA drum.
With respect to Cox, we FINALLY have our bridge to heal because everyone hates him. His messaging has made it very clear that he was upset about the data center, as he was probably inclined to profit from it personally, but then backpedaled when he saw firsthand the visceral reaction from both sides of the political and LDS/non-LDS aisles. He’s a tool.
As for the Mormon/MAGA relationship, MAGA loves their votes but does not love them. Mormons are the Gretchen Weiners to MAGA’s Regina George. They can’t make fetch happen.
As for how much support we owe veterans vs the marginalized, it’s been my experience that veterans get recognized several times a day at all the ball sports events in the USA. Which is great. The fact that some people, including Mormons like our own contrarian grizzerbear55 somehow thinks that if we love and support the queer community there won’t be enough love and support for veterans or billionaires tells me everything I need to know about his complete misunderstanding of how love works.
To wit, never once have I told one of my kids that I ran out of love caring for their siblings that day and to come check in again with me tomorrow. Never.
My reaction to the classification of LDS outside Christianity was that it looks an awful lot like the establishment of a state religion. Categorizing Mormons outside Christianity is done on the basis of specific Protestant definitions of who they consider a follower of Jesus. Changing their minds about whether I’m Christian feels like a lost cause to me, but inserting those doctrinal views into a government document should not be allowed. I, too, was quite surprised to see the JWs still included in Christianity. I’ve not yet encountered someone who cares about the boundaries of Christianity and puts us on opposite sides of their boundary. On the other hand, this defense department isn’t the sort of organization I expect careful planning and proofread documents from. It could well have been an oversight by their chief officer over Christian nationalism.
I have not lived in Utah for a long time, so what little I hear about governor Cox includes a lot of very mixed signals. I don’t know that I have enough context to make sense of it all, but my general impression is of someone who aspires to be both serious statesman and loved by MAGA. I don’t think you get to be both.
There was a church-produced songbook from maybe the 1950s, I think it was red in color, that had a lot of songs for children and youth along with many folk songs. It included many black American songs written just like the counselor was singing. I know it included “Shortnin’ Bread” and many others. Does anyone remember that book? It was similar in size to a hymnal, but was a separate book. It would be considered as scandalous today, but many Latter-day Saints were raised with it.
It was called “Recreational Songs” and published by the Church in 1949.
Had you seen all three of these stories?
I had seen them all except the one about Cox announcing June as fidelity month. I don’t find it surprising. I see many orthodox Latter-day Saints go out of their way to be spiteful during Pride month.
To be honest it all makes me lose hope. All of it. I used to be angry but now I find myself hopeless.
When will people get tired of all the hate? Where is the bottom where people wake up, realize there aren’t any fruits to their behaviors, and decide to bury their weapons of war? We’re not there yet. Members of the church of Christ still overwhelmingly support all *waves hands wildly like Kermit the Frog* …this. That means there’s room for the community to go even lower than where we are right now.
How can members have faith in Christ, whom they have not seen when it’s impossible to put faith in their neighbors, which they have seen.
Where’s the end? At what point to people tire of the culture wars and start to serve rather than exert control?
I begin by issuing my strongest possible condemnation to prejudice of every kind. I second this by condemning stupidity. As Abraham Lincoln famously said, “It is only by the cultivation of the habit of intellectual criticism that we shall be able to rise superior to race prejudices. … Intellectual Criticism will annihilate race-prejudices, by insisting upon the unity of the human mind in the variety of its forms”.
Honestly, I’ll give a little grace to Kyle McKay, because even though it was super painful to watch him and extremely awkward, as a musician as well, I get what he’s trying to say–that is, in my view, this new hymn in our hymnal has had all the life sucked out of it because of our insistence on quiet dignity and reverence in sacrament meeting. When he’s talking about this song as “black” song, he’s referring to the energy they bring to gospel music that we just do not bring and when we don’t do that, it feels somehow wrong–and I get that, I agree. “This Little Light of Mine” should be sung standing and clapping to the beat with people almost dancing. The keyboardist should be really leaning into that. I wish he would have led with a comment desiring that when we sing songs suck as that, that have a rich black history to them, we sing them with the same energy, conviction, faith and rhythm the song was meant to have instead of this dead fish we’d been handed. That would definitely bring energy into the Christ-centered boredom that has become all our meetings. Poor guy has been rake over the coals for being racist and I just don’t think that is what he was trying to say.
JCS, was that Abraham Lincoln or Alexander Crummel, himself of African descent.
“You didn’t call us Christians” seems like just the kind of thing Mormons and LDS leaders and LDS politicians would get worked up over. Not all the crazy and offensive and grifty stuff that Trump does, no. It’s that a list issued by the Dept. of Defense didn’t label us as Christians like the other dozen denominations.
The first list is, however, another piece of evidence showing the extent to which the US military has become Pete Hegseth’s White Christian Nationalist Army. Instead of whining about how the LDS Church was labeled on the earlier list, LDS politicians should be pressuring Trump to get a qualified Secretary of Defense appointed. Not that any current LDS politician, of course, would actually consider acting that responsibly.
JB: if nothing else…you are consistently hyperbolic (albeit generally a kind soul) I think. “Killing off the Gays”……Hmmmmm. I don’t really think so. I just don’t think y’all need your own month of celebration; just like I don’t think my ancesters deserve a month of Celebrating the Irish Culture. I just don’t care. Live your Life….most of us are never celebrated. Big Deal.
JCS
Curious to continue posting Oscar Wilde quotes that you attribute to Abraham Lincoln.
As for the label of Christian, I think Christian Nationalists
(MAGA) have ruined the word and the concept of what Christianity should should be (Love thy neighbor as thyself) -to such an extent, that the term seems meaningless!
“JCS, was that Abraham Lincoln or Alexander Crummel, himself of African descent.”
I believe the correct answer is Dua Lipa
Grizzbear,
May is military families month and November is veterans month. And then there are a number one-off holidays related to military action. There are plenty of months to celebrate something related to the military or veterans.
I had heard of two of them but not Fidelity Month. Barf. What a slap in the face to all the queer kids in the state. Absolutely despicable.
I’ll tell you who needed Fidelity Month: A guy you may have heard of by the last name of Smith who used to send his friends away on missions and coerce their wives into marrying him while they were gone. The world is full of unfaithful husbands, sure, but it’s a rare one who invokes an angel with a drawn sword to justify his lechery.
And by the way, the church can whinge all it wants about not being included in the category of Christian, but when you’re the kind of church that practiced polygamy and still insists that your members wear special underwear as a metaphysical protection from evil, you’ll be damn lucky if you evvvver shake the image of plural wives and magic underwear. You can’t eat your jello salad and have it too.
The only story of these three that I heard about before this post was the Dept of War not labeling Mormonism as a Christian religion. The news story on AP News was actually pretty fair. They quoted a few “real” Christians saying that Mormons aren’t Christian because of our view of the Trinity, and that God used to be a man and then progressed to Godhood. Since the Catholics, and Protestants by inheritance, spent decades working out the Nicene Creed to make sure everyone believed in the Trinity and that God/Jesus were never ordinary humans, it would be odd if they agreed to let Mormons in the Christian club.
The Mormons quoted in the news article do not understand why Catholics and Protestants don’t think we’re Christian. John Curtis (Utah Senator) completely missed it when he defended his status as a Christian: ““Latter-day Saints are among the most patriotic, service-oriented individuals in our country,” Curtis posted on X in defense of his faith. “They are also unequivocally Christian — just look at who is in the name of the Church.””
It wouldn’t be that hard for prominent Mormons to at least have a basic understanding of the Trinity and the Nicene Creed. The Catholic and Protestant opinion has nothing to do with the name of the Church, or LDS people being patriotic and service oriented. It’s a little embarrassing that apparently no one in Church leadership will admit to understanding the doctrinal differences.
And about the necessity for Pride Month, and why it’s called “Pride.” The reasons come from the history of queer oppression. It used to be illegal to be gay in the USA. You could get arrested, fired, ostracized, beat to death, whatever, just because of your sexual orientation. Many LGBTQ people were deeply ashamed of themselves and who they loved.
In June 1969, police raided a gay gathering spot at Stonewall, in New York City. Rather than just running away, the gays fought back. There had been momentum building for a gay rights movement for a while, and that June 1969 riot touched off the modern gay rights movement. Pride month is in June because that’s the anniversary of the Stonewall uprising. And it’s called “PRIDE” because gays were done with being ashamed of who they were. Conservatives want to make being gay shameful again, but the movement is too far along and too widespread. Gays don’t have to be ashamed of being gay. And yeah, we get a month to celebrate.
Notice that Pride is an unofficial month of celebration. There are no gay national holidays. Memorial Day is a govt holiday; Veterans Day is a government holiday; the 4th of July is a government holiday. Pride is a community celebration. No one gets a day off. The banks don’t close. I mean, honestly you whiney crybaby conservatives, can you just get over yourselves for five minutes and realize that not everything has to center you and your preferences? The gay community organizes Pride month.
It’s comparable to how March is Irish month — it isn’t a national holiday; it’s a community with a parade and traditions and a lot of fun. Or even how Halloween has taken over the entirety of October. Halloween isn’t a government holiday. It’s a spontaneous celebration by a community that loves to dress up and eat a lot of candy. Stores pitch in, most people at least nod tolerantly at the celebrants even if it’s not their favorite holiday. I don’t like gory Halloween decorations, but I don’t think the government should declare October to be Hello Kitty decorations month. You can put up with something that doesn’t thrill you for the sake of acknowledging that the community on this planet is bigger than you and your friends.
I am with Janey on Pride month. We don’t need no stinking sell out governor who doesn’t even have the guts to stick to his own principles for us to have Pride month. He sold out to the haters, so we know how much “fidelity” *he’s* got. Pride is a grass roots, common people declared month to remember the history of our LGBT+ friends and family.
So, here’s to Jimmy, my dear best friend from high school who did feel the shame of not being accepted, so essentially ran away to California in 1970 because he felt he would be more accepted. He didn’t even dare come out to the few of us who already knew because we were close enough to him to figure it out, and we loved him anyway. What he found instead in California was the beginning of the AIDs epidemic and he died of AIDS before his friends even knew where he went. And here’s to my lesbian daughter and her dear wife who died a year ago and we miss. And here’s to my chosen trans daughter who took such good care of my daughter while they were both dealing with the death of her sister and my daughter’s wife. And here’s to my other daughter who is bi and my granddaughter who punched a guy in his nasty mouth for being rude to her gay friend. If I toast anymore friends and family, I’ll run out of diet soda, so love to all my proudly lettered friends.
As far as the other stories, I have to wonder about the comment of “This Little Light” being a black song, was that really discrimination or was it saying us stupid white people can’t get that song correct because we are stuffed white shirts. Or was it a case of people misunderstanding intent and going all “offended” before they bother figuring out what is going on. I don’t know, but I have run into other times someone is just jumping to “offended” over something that to their uneducated ears might sound racist but was really just an old word for “stingy”.
And as far as who is or is not “Christian” I don’t look at their supposed beliefs, but who lives as a Christian. And the warmongering secretary of warmongering dude who probably pushed for that missing definition of what classification of religion Mormons are, well, he ain’t very Christian. He flunked the basics of Christianity. That hateful arrogant jack’s behind may claim to be Christian, but he obviously is not anybody Jesus would associate with.
As a veteran, I was intrigued by the news of the Pentagon’s new shortened “approved religion” list, the subsequent Mormon backlash, and quick revision, though I thought the media, as well as Mormons, made a much bigger deal of it than they should have. Ostensibly, the list was intended to reduce confusion for chaplains in how best to provide spiritual support for the troops in their care, but I seriously doubt that was the case at all. The fact of Latter-day Saints being excluded from the “Christian” umbrella was probably more a result of general ignorance among the committee that drafted that list than any specific targeted attack. Even so, it triggered the LDS persecution complex, and I welcome that, because it’s worth it if it gets more than a few MAGA Mormons to wake up and smell the Postum. They need to realize that the MAGA Christian Nationalist vision for the future of America does not include Mormons, never has, and never will.
Curiously, the new list has an entry for JWs, who aren’t permitted to serve in the military. Also, the new list treats Judaism and Islam as singular, monolithic belief systems, rather than ancient faiths with many nuanced subcategories. Meanwhile, the same list has dozens of various Protestant denominations that are virtually indistinguishable from each other, to anyone but the most dedicated scholars of ecclesiology. Back in my active duty days, I proudly served alongside people who identified as Atheist, Wiccan, “no preference” and one dedicated Star Wars fan who self-identified as a Jedi, even had it printed on his dog tags.
Even so, it was a little odd to hear Mike Lee getting petulant about Mormons getting left out of Christianity (though there’s nothing shocking about him grandstanding to score political points). I’m not quite as old as Lee, but I am old enough to remember a time when we Mormons would have worn that exclusion as a badge of honor, because we considered ourselves “a peculiar people”, proud to stand apart from mainstream Christians as the only “true” followers of Christ. Mormons trying to cozy up to (and gain acceptance with) mainstream Christians is a relatively recent phenomenon, and one that I’m not entirely comfortable with for reasons I already mentioned. Even more curiously, the Pentagon’s response was to take the “Christian” prefix away from ALL Christian denominations. The MAGA decision makers would rather burn down the clubhouse and ruin it for everyone than formally just let Mormons come inside, which is really telling.
As for the racially insensitive general authority, I’m appalled but not necessarily surprised by the ignorance and tone-deafness. While his remarks wouldn’t have raised any suspicions among my now-deceased grandparents, this guy is young enough and well-traveled enough to know better. Sadly, the Church GA promotion system is designed to elevate men like him (lack of empathy, hubris to spare, general ignorance about how the real world works, etc.). Even setting aside the racial insensitivities, his talk has the same rambling, unfocused but self-congratulatory tone with unremarkable anecdotes as is typical for visiting GAs at stake conferences, which is one of many reasons that I stopped going to stake conferences years ago. I hope this video continues to follow him forever more.
I used to get my feathers ruffled whenever evangelicals claimed that Latter-day Saints aren’t Christian because we worship a “different Jesus.” But the more I’ve thought about it, the more I think the entire debate is flawed.
Both sides are arguing over who has the correct ideas about God and Jesus, as though Christianity is primarily about getting the concepts right. I don’t think it is. Christianity isn’t fundamentally a belief system—it’s a way of living. It’s a way of embodying love, forgiveness, mercy, and self-sacrifice. The fixation on having the “right” theology often turns the means into the end.
So should Latter-day Saints be offended by the claim that we worship a different Jesus? Honestly, we do have a different conception of Jesus in many respects. But that doesn’t make our version more or less correct than anyone else’s. It’s still an idea, an interpretation, a mental model. Ironically, modern religion often repeats the very mistakes Jesus challenged: confusing doctrine with discipleship, believing salvation comes from affirming the right propositions, and treating certainty as the measure of faithfulness.
The whole formula feels backwards. And, frankly, exhausting.
I was a member of the “New Life Club” at my high school–this was back in the late 70s. We all got along pretty well. And then one day the president of the club told the group (during lunch break) that his pastor had told him that “Mormons” were an apostate group. And so he felt an obligation to have me removed from the club.
It was an odd situation–there I was sitting on the grass with everyone else. And after the president’s spiel on why it would be wrong to associate with such folks as “Mormons” he told me directly that I cold no longer be a member of the club. And so what happened? I got up and quietly walked away. And amazingly those club members who knew that I was an OK kinda guy said nothing. They just sat there quietly and watched me walk away.
Back in those days I was too dumb to be offended or shocked–it wasn’t that big of a loss to me personally. But I’ve wondered if any of them have ever regretted not speaking up. My guess is that some of them probably felt a bit conflicted–perhaps even to the point of being motivated to learn a little about Latter-day Saint theology.
Janey correctly pointed out the importance of the Nicene Creed for this discussion of who is and isn’t a Christian. The Jesus of the Gospels is all about what we should do and how we should act (see Matthew 25, in particular). There’s nothing at all in the Nicene Creed about doing and acting (aka servant ministry), only believing. That’s because its authors cared most about setting boundaries, and everybody outside the favored group were labeled heretics. Today’s Christian Nationalists are very much inheritors of the latter.
Years ago here in my hometown in Jackson County, Missouri, a large Baptist church had ongoing Sunday School classes teaching kids and adults that LDS and RLDS were non-Christian cults inspired by the devil. For all I know, those classes may still be active.
Anyway, at least from my vantage point, it appears that Mormons (if I may use the term) are on the whole far better Matthew 25 Christians than many of the Evangelicals I see.
Unfortunately, Rich, you. have made a categorical error by including Evangelicals within the larger group of Christians. Evangelicalism is an ultra right-wing political movement masquerading as a religion. Certainly some members of this group are Christians, but most would deport Jesus on the grounds of his skin color, religion, woke beliefs, and blatant disregard of purity culture, religious fundamentalism, and hypocrisy. There have been actual interviews with members of this authoritarian political movement who have stated that Jesus would have to come in the “right way.”
Looks like Kyle McKay offered an apology. Good for him. Hopefully HQ learns from this.
Vajra, it is not just Evangelicals who do not consider Mormons to be Christian. It is just that Evangelicals and Southern Baptist that are loudest about it. Catholics and all Protestant sects officially agree that we fall outside of their firm boundary of Christianity, it is just that most have been more polite about it. I once worked at Catholic Family Services (counseling) and had a pretty good discussion with the Catholic Father about the doctrinal points. He was more accepting of our lack of belief in the Trinity than he was about our view of Satan as a fallen being who was co-eternal with God and Jesus and horrified that Satan could be considered a brother to Jesus, as in we are all children of Heavenly Father, so we are all brothers and sisters. The “we can become God’s” idea was quite blasphemous. That put humans much much too close to equal to God. So, really, it is our view of God as once having been human and the idea that Satan and us humans are co-eternal with God, more than anything to do with the Nicene Creed that is the “why”that Mormons are not Christian. Everything is created by God in the Christian view and we think we are co-eternal and the idea that God didn’t create humans. It is this view that makes us not Christian, not lack of support for anything decided in Nicene in 300 ad. So, really it is much more basic in our view of ourselves as compared to God.
Pride has always also been about celebrating the effort and enormous sacrifices people have made to get us where we are.
Dan Savage said, “we buried our friends in the morning, we protested in the afternoon, and we danced all night.” Burying those friends was literal. Protesting their treatment, sometimes at great personal expense, was literal, and the dancing was literal as well. They know the importance of celebrating their efforts and celebrating life.
I have done nothing to deserve inheriting the ability to be relatively well understood and accepted from those that came before me, but I can celebrate with them and show how grateful I am for all that they did for me and people like me.
Anna, I understand that. My point is that the evangelical movement uses “Christian” as a brand and Jesus as a bobblehead. It was an extension or modification of Rich’s post.
“Not every one that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he that doth the will of my Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.”
If you’ve gone on a mission, you should be well aware that “Christians” don’t think Mormons are Christians. We could parse it out and say Evangelical Christians feel that way or Baptists, but when you really start to look at it, Mormons do look at Christ differently than other Christian religions. Having a living prophet who speaks for God is just one thing. Even Mormons have a hard time with that if it’s about Masks, vaccines, or blacks having the priesthood because you’d think God would get it right instead of having to change his mind or us having to explain to someone, like our kids, that the church wasn’t ready for the full revelation at the time and it had to be revealed a little at a time, line upon line.
Gov. Cox and his “Fidelity Month” are a direct affront to LGBTQ individuals. Fidelity Month is not his creation but was first proposed by a Princeton professor, Robert George. Of course, he is a very conservative individual proposing that Americans redirect their core values of faith, family, and patriotism by pledging fidelity to God, spouses, families, country, and communities. It all sounds good, warm, and fuzzy, but it doesn’t talk about love, inclusion, acceptance, or differences. Do a Google search, and it’s easy to see it’s a smoke screen to ignore LGBTQ individuals.
Finally, Elder McKay is the Church Historian. He, of all people, should know what things mean and should have the restraint not to make fun of them. Good that he apologized; he needs to repent and set an example of what a Christian would say or do and show us that Mormons are indeed Christian instead of some religious sect stuck in Jim Crow.