For My LDS Readers: Pentagon Eliminates Christian Heading Rather Than Include Church

The Hill reports: "Pentagon reworks ‘offensive’ policy affecting LDS after Mormon lawmakers loudly protest." The article relates:

    The Pentagon has reworked a list of religious designations service members can register as after Mormon lawmakers in Congress blew up over a previous list that did not label The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) under “Christian.”

    Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth earlier this year declared the Pentagon would cut down the faith codes – the recognized faith groups meant to provide more accurate demographic data on religious beliefs held among service members – from 200 to just 31. He called the former system “impractical and unusable” with many codes never used at all. 

    On Friday, the Pentagon announced service members could only register one of those 31 religions on their personnel records. But LDS was not listed under one of the 21 Christian labeled denominations to choose from, upsetting several Utah lawmakers, including Sen. Mike Lee (R), who called the new designation “very unfortunate.”

[snip]

    In a post to X on Friday, Pentagon press secretary Sean Parnell displayed the May 20 memo directing the changes, saying they were “long overdue” He said the Pentagon is [sic] making “any claims on the legitimacy of any faith or religious belief,” rather, it is trying to streamline data collection and religious support for soldiers, sailors and airmen. 

[snip]

    But that was not an acceptable explanation for Mormon House and Senate members, prompting a quick change. The new list now has just 30 faith codes, including LDS, but does not specify which religions fall under the Christian designation.

    “Last week, a proposed list of simplified faith codes was released to the media. The Pentagon list included redundant and unnecessary labeling, and the mistake has been fixed,” a Pentagon X account posted on Monday.

    “The Pentagon’s job is not to adjudicate theological debates, but instead to ensure sincerely-held faith is respected and encouraged in our ranks,” according to the post.    

The Pentagon spokesman tried to make it sound like an oversight, but someone, somewhere, made that decision. And rather than include the Church under the umbrella of Christianity, they just removed Christianity as a category.