Comment by geocrasher
3 years ago
I spoke with some LDS youngsters who came to my door some time back. They're friendly. I learned that they do not like being referred to as "Mormon" but instead prefer "LDS". For them, being called Mormon is derogatory.
I was raised Mormon. The whole time I grew up we were told by all the previous prophets to be proud to be called Mormon. It was a sense of pride.
But the new/current prophet hates it and said that God told him he doesn't like the name anymore and that being called Mormon is "a victory for Satin" (the devil).
God is a little inconsistent within Mormonism. First he wanted Polygamy and it was sooo important that he even sent an Angel with a flaming sword down to earth to get them to practice polygamy (even though the prophet was already practicing it in secret at the time). Then in 1904 when the Supreme Court forced the church to stop practicing polygamy or else they would take all assets away. Then magically within days, God told the prophet that its actually ok if they don't do polygamy anymore. Then he hated black people for a while and wouldn't let them into the temple or get the priesthood (which essentially kept them out of heaven according to Doctrine), then changed his mind in 1978 when public pressure was mounting. He didn't want children of Gay people to be baptized in his church for a few years, and then changed his mind after the PR got really bad. Mormon God is heavily influenced by American PR.
The next prophet will probably embrace the name "Mormon" again. So don't stress too much about it. Most active Mormons can't keep track of what doctrine currently is or isn't which is why so many times you get different answers from different mormons about policies and doctrine. Because it really depends which prophets you grew up under, because things change dramatically as they take the helms of power and claim to speak for God.
When I was growing up in the 90s, I had a few LDS friends. My school had a ton of LDS kids for some reason even though I didn't grow up in an area that's known for them. These kids always described themselves as "mormon". I never heard the term "Latter Day Saints" until much later.
Huh? The current prophet doesn't "hate" it, and never said that God told him He doesn't like it either. You're putting your own words into his mouth. Let's be more precise in representing others, even if we disagree with them.
> [he] never said that God told him
> You're putting words in his mouth
Ok... His exact words were:
"The Lord has impressed upon me the importance of the name He has revealed for His Church, even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints...the name of the Church is not negotiable.”
He later said (in the same speech):
“[The name] is a correction. It is the command of the Lord.”
I'm not about to split hairs. But he claims to be a prophet and represent God. Then he gets in front of the church at a worldwide conference, when he knows the most people will be watching and says "The Lord has impressed upon me...", "It is a command of the Lord".
You can call it what you want, but he is clearly implying that his deity told/impressed/inspired/commanded this change.
I'm not putting words in his mouth. These are the transcripts from his announcement. This is what he said. It is hard to interpret it any other way. He seems to be very clearly stating that this is directed by "the Lord".
While you're probably right the previous poster was over-exaggerating. Your accusation is meaningless without additional details.
To their point: When I was a kid, caffeine was looked upon very poorly. Now, every Mormon I know drinks Soda and in fact the amount of Soda Shops has exploded in areas known to have large LDS populations.
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Youngsters are probably not the best source for this info as they're too young to remember that 20 years ago "Mormon" was perfectly fine, and in fact a lot of Mormons called (and still call) themselves "Mormon." Some time back the leadership of the Church decided that Mormon was offensive for some reason and made it so.
But then "LDS" is now out of date as well! The leadership has decided that they don't want to be called "LDS" anymore. They even dumped the wonderfully succinct "lds.org" domain for "churchofjesuschrist.org."
Now they want you to use the full name of the Church (at least the first time referenced in the convo), which is "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." So for example, if you want to refer to a person you would have previously called "Mormon" or "LDS," you should instead use "member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." There is a minor relief though. On subsequent references you can shorten it to "Church of Jesus Christ" or "the restored Church of Jesus Christ."[1]
Personally I like the (still silly long) acronym COJCOLDS. But realistically very few Mormons are going to offended if you call them "LDS."
[1]: https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/style-guide
It has been a cycle. For a period before Hinckley was president (1995-2008), the term Mormon was discouraged. Hinckley was more media savvy and embraced it. Going even further back, Mormon was acceptable. It all depends who is in charge at the time.
Yeah all Mormons have whiplash from changing doctrines, rules, and guidelines that change throughout their life.
I was raised during the "Hinckley" reign. So Mormon was a term of endearment during the time and embraced.
Things like the caffeine that is being talked about elsewhere on this thread is similar. When I grew up it was frowned upon, but now its acceptable.
The temple covenants and rituals have changed many times throughout my life. I don't attend anymore, but I heard that they just changed it again within the past month or so.
Is that an effort to blend in more with evangelicals?
I wouldn't say "to blend in" although I don't think that's wrong either. The stated goals are to emphasize that the COJCOLDS believe in and worship Jesus Christ, and are a "Christ centered religion." There's definitely some unity goals here to be more accepted as Christian, but they also really believe that the name of the church was literally set by Jesus Christ, and that He (Jesus) is inspiring the current leadership to restore the God-given name.
So there are a handful of factors/motivation at play, but yes a huge goal is to brand themselves more as Christian.
My perception is that they don't want to "blend in" to the point that there's no distinction, but they want acceptance under the umbrella of Christianity. Most other groups under Christianity reject LDS doctrine as heresy, LDS church says "we are Christians though". I'm not trying to project an opinion about who is correct, just trying to describe what I think is going on.
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I don't think the church cares about blending with evangelicals, more that they don't want entities that consider themselves adversarial to the church controlling the image the church projects.
Evangelicals consistently consider the LDS/Mormon faith a danger to their version of Christianity- and therefore seek to label it unchristian to poison the well.
Allowing that counter-messaging to percolate by not embracing their actual name that starts "Church of Jesus Christ," (at the very beginnings was called "Church of Christ," though as you can imagine that led to differentiation issues.[0]) became problematic as the "Mormons aren't Christian" messaging became more and more emphatic from its rivals.
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/nam...
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All members of the LDS are Mormons; but, not all Mormons are members of the LDS. In addition to the LDS, there is also the the Fundamentalist Church of (Jesus Christ of) Latter-day Saints and the Community of Christ.
CNN's web site had a piece on this yesterday: https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/29/us/mormon-beliefs-explained-c...
I think there are over 40 churches descended from the teachings of Joseph Smith now (someone knowledgeable once told me this, I don't have a source). Most of them are very small.
An initial split occurred before leaving Missouri with a large number of followers including Joseph Smith's mother and other family members (as I recall) choosing to follow James Strang to Beaver Island instead of Brigham Young to Utah.
That settlement was forcibly broken up, but it's an interesting story. You can google James Strang, (The King of Beaver Island) to read more on it. That church is still around as well and claim to be the true inheritors of the teachings of Smith.
https://www.ldsstrangite.com/
> Fundamentalist Church of (Jesus Christ of) Latter-day Saints
The correct abbreviation is FLDS I think.
This is a new phenomenon, too. It was only a few years ago that there was a church-wide semiannual congregation (known as General Conference) where the leadership announced that it was bad to be referred to as "Mormon".
The reasoning is: Mormon is a character in their scripture (The Book of Mormon), but he is not the main figurehead for the church, so referring to them as though he is, is a misrepresentation.
Mormon was an ancient prophet who compiled and abridged the record which he called the Book of Mormon. When the church started publishing the book, people started calling members of the church, 'Mormons'. It was largely used as a derogatory term by those who did not like the church, but members eventually embraced it.
Kind of like the term 'Yankee' was a derogatory term for Americans that the British came up with. Eventually, Americans embraced it and even named a baseball team after it.
The church and its members do not think the term is bad, but think it can distract those who think the church is not Christian so it is trying to de-emphasize it.
That's the explanation I was given as well. Thanks for clarifying and thank you all for the explanations.