Did you know that the Mormon church is the same as the LDS or Latter-Day Saints? Did you also know that these are the same as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints? Further, did you know that it is Christ-Centered and, therefore, a Christian faith?
As I recount my life, I recall being asked often, “What religion are you?” That was always an easy answer as I responded, “I’m a Christian!” This response was regularly well received. I was, therefore, deemed acceptable among my Christian peers.
Around Junior High school, I recall my response being met with, “Well yeah, we’re all Christian…. unless you’re Buddhist, Jewish or Atheist…or something!” It was as if it had become incredibly less significant to others that anyone declared they were Christian: As if the world had somehow been saturated with people being a part of the body of Christ and the question was no longer relevant.
As I got older, I noticed the question shifted to “What church do you attend?” This question seemed increasingly more difficult to answer as many were unaware that the church I attend is a Christ-centered church. When I would respond, I was regularly met with sideways glances, a visible shift in body stature, or an audible “Oh,” dripping with a disdained energy of “you’re one of those people”. I’ve even had people back away as if they would catch some invisible disease!
Now it seems as though I am very rarely asked about my faith. I’m asked neither “What religion are you,” nor “What church do you go to?” When the subject does come up, the exchanges have been a healthy mix of, ‘clearly, you’re not my tribe,’ and defending my Christian beliefs as I’m deemed unacceptable among Christian peers when they discover I’m a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (emphasis added).
This brings up another observation. So often, I’ve heard - or heard of - others vocally sitting in their judgment with statements like:
“Those Mormons are a cult, influenced by Satan himself! But those LDS people? Now, they’re some good people. I’ve never heard of the Latter-Day Saints, though.”
Concerning humanitarian efforts, I’ve heard something similar:
“You never see ‘those Mormons’ pitching in, but those LDS people are great. You know who really contributes and always shows up with a ton of volunteers, though, is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.”
So, very few people seem to understand that ‘those Mormons’ or ‘the LDS’ are, in fact, the same body of people they deem acceptable in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. When I’ve informed
them of this fact, they are quite visibly astounded, completely confused, or argumentative. Perhaps even more interesting in this observation are those who claim they have “never before met” a member of my church. Considering the worldwide membership of nearly seventeen million as of the 2021 Statistical Report provided in April of last year, I find this extremely hard to believe. I suspect that it’s safe to say they have encountered a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints but didn’t know it. Most likely because said member didn’t have horns or show up in the community in all the heinous ways they would anticipate. Of course, I write that with a chuckle and light heart. No. Indeed, it’s far more likely they have encountered a member of my church and assumed them to be Christian. The odds just don’t add up for me.
I feel the need to speak into my comment above about horns. While it was light-hearted and meant to invoke a giggle, it comes from the many times I’ve witnessed the deeply seeded hatred, disgust, and disdain actively taught or preached about my church during many functions held across several denominational and non-denominational sects. During almost every event, I overheard conversations, sermons, or teachings declaring that every other Christian faith was an appendage of the body of Christ. All except the church I attend. Rather, my church was spoken of in heinous ways. Clearly, there is an incredible disconnect. For years I’ve been baffled by this palpable separation of my Christian church from all other Christian denominations. I’d like to take the time to recount two personal experiences.
In my youth my best friend - I’ll call her Ginger - was an active member of the Assembly of God in our area. I was only semi-active in my church at the time but would actively speak of my Savior. Even so, she and her family would regularly say, “I just wish you would accept Jesus as your personal Savior.” It was like they never heard me declare Him as MY Savior. While I wasn’t fully active, I did fully embrace my Christianity and wanted to share it with Ginger. So, I invited her to all the activities that I did attend. I can recall her only coming to one event during high school, though I don’t recall ever thinking twice about her absence at my church functions. Rather, in my full acceptance of my faith, I could easily accept her in her own. Also, it wasn’t difficult for me to find the areas in which our faiths or theologies paralleled. For one, I’m eager and quickly able to accept others fully; for another, there are several parallels! Just a brief bit of back story, we met our Junior Year when Ginger’s family moved to the area. It wasn’t until Senior Year that I understood exactly why she didn’t attend my church functions as often as I did hers and, more importantly, why the acceptance wasn’t reciprocated.
For Youth Night at her church one week during our senior year, the Lead Youth Pastor had set up a Q&A with a companionship of local missionaries from my church. I was so thrilled to learn about the activity. What a wonderful thing to do as we’re all one part of the collective body of Christ, right? I thought, “this will be great!”
During the Q&A everyone had wonderful questions. The Youth Pastor was engaging, civil, hospitable, and
seemingly easily found her humanity for the two young people she had invited into her sacred space. However, when she walked the missionaries to the door of the youth room to show them out, her humanity exited with them. She no sooner turned on her heels with venomous disdain, ranting that what they shared was “NOT what they believe” and “they are Satan’s church, never to be trusted.” I remember being so shocked that I audibly gasped and leaned so far away from her energy, out of fear, that my legs came uncrossed in the position I was sitting on the floor. She had become a completely different person in an instant. I was so in complete shock.
As I pondered on the experience, I realized that I had been awakened to years of this behavior. When I explored the historical data bank of my brain, I found countless encounters at Ginger’s church functions and other Christian functions outside of my church, just like the Q&A, although far more subtle, which is probably part of why I missed them. I guess the other part might be because I can’t recall there ever being a time in my faith where a speaker got up on Sunday, or a Youth Leader during a weekly meeting, to actively teach anything other than Christ-centered gospel truths to the best of their mortal capabilities. There was never a time I personally experienced someone in my church declaring heinous things about other groups of people, religious or otherwise. Now, I’m only 42, so I’m not saying there hasn’t been a time historically. I’m simply saying up to that point in my life, I hadn’t personally witnessed anything like it - on any level - at my church functions. Even now, I am unable to recall a time as I think about all the years from high school through the present.
From High School up through adulthood, I have often been plagued by the persecution I’ve fallen victim to until I met a wonderfully open Evangelical Christian - I’ll call her Nadine. It was with her that I experienced my second most significant encounter. Before I detail the encounter, I feel a bit of history about my relationship with Nadine is in order.
Never before had I been permitted to so openly speak of my faith and theology with another Christian of a
different denomination than I was with Nadine. It was delightfully refreshing. We had amazing conversations, diving deep into doctrine that we both ascribed to. I thought, “Why haven’t conversations or relationships like this happened in my life before?” As Nadine and I discussed this lament at length and often, her insight was shocking.
This insight came when Nadine introduced me to a book titled Kingdom of the Cults by Baptist Minister and counter-cultist Walter Martin (published in 1965), which for decades, according to Nadine’s understanding as a Pastor’s wife for several years, had been a handbook from which every Christian Preacher, Teacher, or Missionary was taught. She attributed the hatred and discord to Martin’s writing. She and I resolved to correct the injustice of separation and do everything we could to unite all Christians. We even thought about writing a book and traveling to promote such unity through public speaking events. In order to execute our plan, we decided to read the book together, looking for discrepancies and errors. I was eager to use the knowledge to unlock the reason my church was so vehemently bashed my entire life (and learn the basis from which Ginger’s Youth Leader operated after the Q&A).
I feel the need to stress that I do not suggest anyone read Walter Martin’s book, as I could debunk nearly every line of the section about my faith. Those that I couldn’t fully debunk were only because he had the facts about my faith partially true in his limited understanding. Everything else was heinously turned on its head, violently ground up, and spat back out unrecognizable to me as a member of the very church demonized in that particular section. It became abundantly clear to me how irresponsible it was to use someone’s opinions about other theologies as reputable text for college degrees in ministry – if Nadine was correct about it being used in such a way. No wonder there was such a disconnect among the Body of Christ and why Ginger’s Youth Pastor so passionately held my church in contempt. In my search for understanding, I found the definition of cult incredibly ironic: “a system of religious veneration and devotion toward a particular figure or object.” Wouldn’t that make every Christian church a cult as our devotion and veneration are directed toward Christ, our Savior and Redeemer? Yet he was an avid and proclaimed counter-cultist. Simply baffling. Clearly there is way too much negative charge on the word cult. But I digress. My apologies: I’ll get back to the point.
It was during the time of my exploration and debunking, that I attended a Woman’s Event at Nadine’s home and experienced my second most significant encounter. Another attendee - I’ll call her Hazel - had just returned from a mission trip so we knew little about one another. Naturally, I, along with the rest of
the group, asked her how her trip went. After detailing her experiences, she turned to me and asked, “I’m not sure I’ve seen you around the halls of the church; what time do you attend?” Naturally, my answer was that I didn’t attend her church. As I spoke the words of the rather lengthy name of my church, Hazel became noticeably uncomfortable, moved backward in her chair from a forward-leaning, eager and welcoming body posture, and rudely retorted, “Ooooooh……and you like us?” Hazel was one of very few people I had encountered who knew the correlation between ‘the Mormons’ and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I looked over at Nadine, my face silently saying, “This is exactly what we’ve been exploring,” and back at Hazel to genuinely ask, “Why wouldn’t I like you?” It all happened so fast that Hazel wasn’t consciously aware she had audibly insulted me. It was noticeable on her face and by her body language that she didn’t mean to say it out loud, but now that she had, she had to either pony up or disregard it. She started to move to the latter, but I interrupted her with, “No, really. Whenever something like this happens - when someone says something like you just did - it makes me wonder if someone from my church has committed some wrong toward them, and I’d like to correct it.” Her response surprised me: “Oh, not at all. I’ve never even met someone from your church before.” (Yep, you guessed it. This is the encounter described earlier in this post.) The look on my face, I’m sure, said, “Then why was I met with such a response?”
With that she energetically pushed up her sleeves, leaned back into the conversation with a “let’s-do-this”
attitude and came at me with three questions, though I can only recall two. She began, “Okay. Is Christ who He said He was?”
Of course my answer was, “Absolutely, one hundred percent who He said He was.” Surprised yet well pleased, she continued, “The holy trinity?” I answered, “I believe they are three separate beings, the same in purpose.” There was, yet again, a very surprised look on her face and a softened demeanor around her. After the third question was asked and answered, she shrugged, threw her hands up, and said, “Well, okay then!” as if to say, “It’s settled: You’ve passed and you’re fully accepted/acceptable here.“ It was beyond bizarre. I don’t think I’ll ever forget this encounter or that I’m supposed to, for that matter. It has elevated my drive to answer the call to unite all Christians and right the separation wrong I have been a witness of so many times.
Through my exchange with Hazel, I also recall observing that several others around us were noticeably wrecked. I could see and sense that the wheels were turning in their heads and they were intensely confused. I just rocked the socks off of all the years they had been told I was Satan’s spawn in the flesh, that I didn’t worship the same Christ they did, or that I belonged to a cult. The tension, while it diminished after Hazel’s declaration of my acceptance, was molasses thick!
Now, I need to pause right here to commend Hazel. Unlike many who came before her in my life, she invited conversation. She listened and truly received my testimony, setting aside her own life-long judgments about my faith practices. While at first she was closed-off, she made a different choice - a new choice - to genuinely learn for herself from a member of “that church” (you know, the heinous one) on which foundation it was built. In the end, it was a wonderfully Spirit-filled conversation and everyone present walked away knowing it.
So, what is the takeaway? My purpose for this post is to bring awareness; to bridge the gap between all Christian faiths; and to be invited to the body-of-Christ-party, fully accepted as a Christian. I think as a collective demographic of people who believe in Christ, we often desire, wish for, pray for, or even declare a need for a shift back to the time when God was invited into schools, community events, and essentially everywhere. I must wonder, considering my personal experience, if that shift doesn’t start with a deliberate mindset and change in our own language as disciples of Christ to set the stage for us to find common ground with our community, no matter our denomination - just as Nadine and I did. Naturally, this requires us to listen, setting our personal locked-in judgments aside as Hazel did. Which, in my perspective, equates to fully embracing a “love-God-love-people” mindset as to listen is to love.
Let us start today to listen to one another to spread love like the plague it should be, opening doors to conversations which unite us as Christians!
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