In early June 2026, the U.S. Department of War streamlined its list of recognized religious affiliations for service members from over 200 options to just 31. The move, intended to aid chaplains in providing targeted support, sparked immediate backlash when The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) was listed separately rather than under the “Christian” category.
Utah Republican Senators Mike Lee and John Curtis, among others, condemned the decision as “unacceptable” and pushed for correction, highlighting ongoing tensions over whether Latter-day Saints qualify as Christians. The Pentagon later adjusted the list by removing explicit “Christian” sub-labels altogether to avoid doctrinal judgments.
This administrative flap is not merely bureaucratic. It reignites a longstanding theological debate at the heart of LDS distinctiveness: the nature of God. A 2018 video from the popular LDS YouTube channel Saints Unscripted (formerly 3 Mormons) illustrates this vividly and explains why many Nicene (historic, creedal) Christians view Mormonism as outside classical Christianity.
Saints Unscripted (formerly 3 Mormons) is one of the biggest LDS channels on YouTube. In 2018, they did a video called, “Is God Married? Do we have a Heavenly Mother?”
— Defiant Baptist (@DefiantBaptist) June 7, 2026
Pay close attention to the foundation for this belief and remember that these aren’t fringe Mormons. This is… pic.twitter.com/nHmIeGtsH6
In the clip posted by EDW contributor, Defiant Baptist, young LDS presenters openly affirm belief in a Heavenly Mother, the divine wife of Heavenly Father, and literal mother of human spirits. They ground this in:
- The plural Hebrew Elohim (suggesting multiple divine beings).
- The idea that spirit children are born to heavenly parents.
- References to ancient Canaanite worship of Asherah (consort of El) as a cultural precedent for a divine feminine alongside Yahweh.
The Mormon view of Heavenly Mother flows directly from Joseph Smith’s later theology: God was once a man who progressed to godhood; humans can follow the same path via eternal marriage and exaltation. This is a form of henotheism or polytheism (multiple gods, with one worshipped as our Father) rather than monotheism in the classical sense.
Thus, the DOW decision (even if later adjusted) reflects a practical recognition of these differences. While Latter-day Saints revere Jesus Christ, read the Bible, and self-identify as Christians, their doctrine of God, cosmology, and soteriology diverges sharply from the historic faith once delivered to the saints. Evangelical apologists and theologians have long argued that Mormonism represents a cult movement with its own scriptures (Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants) and prophets that introduce ideas absent from and often contrary to biblical revelation.
One valid ciriticims of Pete Hegseth’s DOW is that the Mormons are singled out while Christian Scientists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Oneness Pentacostals, and even Quakers are allowed to remain in the camp. However, it would be difficult to argue, using Nicea as a standard, that the Mormons are not significantly more deviant than the other cults labeled briefly as Christian.
2 Responses
If your denomination puts another book alongside the Bible, it is a heretical sect, rather than merely Christian.
Folks I’ve encountered from such sects are more diligent than most Christians, so I’m happy to let God sort them out.
Historically the “Christian” label has been a Protestant definition. Reformer Martin Luther himself referred to the “Heilige Christliche Kirche” in the Apostle’s Creed, replacing “Catholic” with “Christian”. However none of the early Protestant reformers viewed Church as anything other than an episcopate instituted by the respective reigning “holy” emperor, or in other words a state church where every subject is a member by being under his reign. They would never recognize any independent congregation ever as a “Christian Church”. And neither the Roman-Catholic Church as a whole of course. “Christian” in a Protestant reformer’s sense doesn’t mean anyone ever “chooses” their church like Americans do. The medieval “Christian Church” fought the anabaptists, who emigrated to America as a result. America’s independence was pretty much getting excommunicated from the “Christian Church”.
So the issue started much earlier than Joseph Smith reading things out of his hat. The removal of “Christian” was the correct course of action. By the strict definition there are simply no valid “Christians” in America, as there is no longer any “Christian” emperor appointing the archbishop, making all Americans members of his “Christian” church.
Since the founding the republic “Christian” became a self-appointed label that anyone can use. By doing so it lost all of its original meaning, so that even many believers stopped using it.