This is an archived copy of a post written by Conflict Of Justice (conflictofjustice.com). Used with permission: Conflict Of Justice may not agree with any alterations made.
Last month, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced that the website LDS.org would be switching domain names to ChurchofJesusChrist.org. “Jesus Christ is at the center of His Church and we will be blessed as we strive to make Him the center of our lives,” the church explained. Some complained about poor SEO effectiveness of the new site, but I breathed a sigh of relief, because every time I had urged people to respect the church’s name policy they would point to the church’s LDS.org website address and respond, ‘Why should I stop calling you Mormon and LDS if the church’s own website uses those names?‘
Well, now it uses the correct name. But the Salt Lake Tribune is still throwing a big stink about it. Celebrated writer Peggy Fletcher Stack authored an article titled:
Latter-day Saint leader Russell Nelson trumpets ‘Church of Jesus Christ,’ but so do many other Christian faiths
Disrespect
The first thing I noticed about this headline is that she removed the middle initial from Russell M. Nelson’s name. This is important because the issue at hand is whether The Salt Lake Tribune and other news media should respect our wishes to be called by our name. Peggy seems to indicate that she will call him something else. Also, removal of the middle initial makes him sound less official and stately. (Of course, she includes her full middle name for herself as the article’s author, doesn’t she?)
Shifting Goalposts – The next thing I notice is that this title claims he “trumpets” the shortened name “Church of Jesus Christ.” To “trumpet” something is defined as “to announce or make known loudly or widely.” Is that what Russell M. Nelson is doing? I heard him give one talk in a private General Conference and send out some letters. I would hardly call that “trumpeting.” Maybe she expects him to give another talk about it in the upcoming General Conference? I don’t know. In any case, the first time she threw a stink about the name policy, Peggy’s narrative was different:
“Go ahead. You find an appropriate one-word stand-in for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, its people and its principles. It must be clear and universally acceptable. It must tie the Utah-based faith to Christianity and its own history without confusing it with other denominations. Oh, and it must be short, recognizable and straightforward.” Salt Lake Tribune, August 27, 2018
This was my advice for journalists like her: “When a shortened reference is needed, the terms ‘the Church’ or the ‘Church of Jesus Christ’ are encouraged.’ That’s it! Solved! Just call us the ‘Church of Jesus Christ’!”
Now, yes it’s true, there are other churches out there with the “Church of Jesus Christ” in their name. But wait, aren’t there other churches out there which according to journalists fall under the category “Mormon”? So how is it any different? I haven’t seen The Salt Lake Tribune worry that our “Mormon” church gets confused with unpopular “Mormon” sects like the FLDS, which happens all the time. But when it comes to some tiny Bickertonite sect in Monongahela, Pennsylvania, suddenly we must not be confused with them? How is “Mormon” okay but “Church of Jesus Christ” not?
Even if “Church of Jesus Christ” sounds too much like some other Christian church, why is that even a problem? Well, now she has shifted to a different complaint. Now we have “just amped up the religious rivalry around who owns the name Jesus Christ” by using this domain name. We are amping up rivalry now. Own the name Jesus Christ? When did we ever claim to exclusively own the name Jesus Christ? When has a Christian denomination ever in the history of the world claimed to exclusively own the name Jesus Christ? That’s like telling a plumber he is causing rivalry by including the word “plumber” in his business’s website address. But the church is not a business, and there is no reason for “rivalry” at all.
The problem, apparently, is that we are using a website address “without the ‘Latter-day Saints’ ending — a move some Christians find confusing, curious or downright offensive,” the Salt Lake Tribune reports. Wait, wait, so now they don’t want the name shortened? Can the they please make up their mind here? Do they want a shorter name or don’t they? Which is it?
I just don’t see how it could possibly be confusing or offensive. They quote some Presbyeterian pastor named Rev. Jeffrey R. Silliman who calls the new website domain name offensive. “It accentuates that the rest of us are not the church of Jesus Christ,” he says. Really? If one plumber includes the word “plumber” in his website address, does that insinuate other plumbers are not plumbers? If I put an American flag in my front yard does that insinuate that my neighbors are not Americans? It’s ridiculous. What The Salt Lake Tribune does not mention is that Rev. Jeffrey R. Silliman is a member of the committee for “Mormon” Sunstone Magazine endowment. If he is so offended by our church’s name, why is he involved in a magazine about our church?
Separating Us From Christianity
The reason Antimormons invented the term “Mormon” or “Mormonite” in the early days of the church was to accentuate what made us different. They took the most prominent element of what separated us from mainstream Christianity–the Book of Mormon–and shortened it into a nickname. When a nickname is metonymously derived from whatever makes someone different, it pretty much always turns into a degrading pejorative, doesn’t it? Well, take a look at the enormous banner across the top of The Salt Lake Tribune’s article. How does this relate us to the rest of Christianity:
You see a large white sillouette of the Salt Lake Temple with smaller churches of a different uniform shape scattered randomly around it. What does this image suggest? That our church is different than all of these other Christian churches. They are uniformly Christian but we are fundamentally different. Even LDS splinter sects like the RLDS (Community Of Christ) are included as just another Christian church. Of course, the RLDS switching their name to Community of Christ was no problem was it? Did Peggy Flecher Stack and The Salt Lake Tribune throw a stink about that? Did they complain that it was too long a name or would be confused with other churches? The FLDS could change their name to Community of Christ and be considered uniformly Christian, but we can’t even ask journalists to use our real original name because that is “offensive.” This banner suggests that we consider ourselves bigger and center, and it conditions the reader to think of the church as fundamentally different from Christianity.
But then again, is there some truth to this image? The temple does set us apart, after all. We consider ourselves to be the original church of Jesus Christ restored, with other churches to some degree missing some truth. We consider them to be Christian churches, churches of Jesus Christ, but our priesthood authority is directly led by Jesus Christ and our ordinances are authorized. I think the image is also correct in placing us center, as we are slowly cementing a position as front and center Christian church, leader of the Christian community. My criticism is how it arranges us with other churches. A correct banner image would look something like this:
Salt Lake Tribune’s Offensive ‘Mormon Land’ Series
Meanwhile, The Salt Lake Tribune continues to run an offensive section on their website called “Mormon Land,” which they defined as about the church: “The Mormon Land newsletter is a weekly highlight reel of developments in and about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” The most recent “Mormon Land” article was published March 28th of this year. They have made it clear that these articles are about the church, not just ‘Mormon culture’ or history. We need to be “courteous and patient in our efforts to correct these errors” by the media, President Nelson said. But the days and weeks and months went by, and there was nary a change in how some in the mainstream media group labeled us. Peggy Fletcher Stack’s “Mormon Land” continued in the Salt Lake Tribune uninterrupted. Even after President Nelson gave his talk about the announcement, and after the Associated Press changed their journalistic guidelines out of respect, The Salt Lake Tribune continues to run this offensive series.
President Russell M. Nelson explained that the big problem with the label Mormon is its “glaring omission is the absense of the Savior’s name.” Enemies of the church use the label to “expunge the sacred name of Jesus Christ” from our identity. When a foreigner asks you, “Are you American?” do you reply, “Yes, I’m Utahn”? That would be rhetorically setting up a contour that separates us from the rest of America. And this is what the media’s use of the label Mormon has done with us and Christianity. The Salt Lake Tribune even says the purpose of “Mormon Land” is to “explore[] the contours and complexities of LDS news.” A contour fits something within a boundary. The contour of Utah separates it from the boundaries of Nevada and the other states. Is exploring “contours” about the church really just delineating how we are different? “Mormon” has effectively placed us as a church under an umbrella of sects categorized as “Mormon” while the reality of the matter is the church is directly the church of Jesus Christ.
Is this the role of an independant, non-Latter Day Saint newspaper? Is it acceptable for a big media corporation to appropriate a faith and a culture, define who we are and what we do, to tell us what our contours and what our “complexities” are? How could The Salt Lake Tribune expect to be taken seriously when they report that our website address is found “offensive?” Our website address? What is it going to be next week, CTR rings are offensive because they make other people feel judged? No, what I find offensive is The Salt Lake Tribune nitpicking everything, defining our “contours and complexities,” defining who we are and what we stand for. What is offensive is people who divide Christianity by pitting one church against another, telling us that we should be offended by what website address another church chooses to use. What is offensive is The Salt Lake Tribune following us around, always behind our shoulder complaining like a pernicious ghost. I don’t think this would happen with any other religious or cultural group. Did it happen with the RLDS? As a minority group in America, it is appalling that this kind of behavior towards us is mainstream and accepted.
What About Salt Lake Tribune’s Name? – The Salt Lake Tribune is an awfully long name isn’t it? I think it is unreasonable to expect a blogger to fit the entire name into a headline. Go ahead. You find an appropriate one-word stand-in for The Salt Lake Tribune, its people and its principles. It must be clear and universally acceptable. It must tie the Utah-based organization to the news media and its own history without confusing it with other news groups. And it must be short, recognizable and straightforward. To shorten it to “The Tribune” could confuse it with the endless number of other news groups that also go by the nickname “Tribune,” couldn’t it? From now on, maybe we should call them “The Salty Tribune”? And maybe I should start a series about the contours and complexities of the Salty Tribune–I could call it ‘Saltly Land’?
And then there’s Peggy Fletcher Stack, the writer for the Salty Tribune. She has such an awfully long name, doesn’t she? Isn’t it unreasonable to expect a blogger like me to fit her entire name? To call her ‘Peggy’ or ‘Ms. Stack’ could confuse her with people of the same name. Perhaps we should shorten it to Peg Stack.
Stacky Fletch?
Or maybe F’er Stack?
Instead of complaining about the length of our name or possible confusion with other denominations, I wish The Salt Lake Tribune would talk about the real concern. Stop acting coy. What is this really about? Why do you critics have such a problem with us using our real name? I think we all know the real answer to that question.