{"id":1292,"date":"2026-06-09T06:36:40","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T06:36:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=1292"},"modified":"2026-06-09T06:36:40","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T06:36:40","slug":"making-sense-of-the-pentagons-religious-code-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=1292","title":{"rendered":"Making sense of the Pentagon\u2019s religious code controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This article was first published in the <\/i>State of Faith newsletter<\/i>. Sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox each Monday night.<\/i><\/p>\n

Read more Utah and federal government join forces to manage public lands<\/a><\/p>\n

The latest controversy over the omission of Latter-day Saints from the Christian category on the Pentagon\u2019s religious affiliation list \u2014 which has since been corrected \u2014 brought into focus an important point: While Americans continue to disagree about Latter-day Saint theology, the broad agreement is that deciding who does and does not qualify as Christian is not a call that the government should make. <\/p>\n

\u201cListen, it\u2019s fine if you, as an individual, don\u2019t think Mormons are Christian. Or if you don\u2019t think Catholics are Christians. Or Protestants. But the GOVERNMENT should not be deciding who is and isn\u2019t Christian and THAT is the problem with what the Pentagon did,\u201d April Ajoy, author of \u201cStar-Spangled Jesus,\u201d wrote on X. <\/p>\n

David French wrote that the argument is not about theology, but has \u201ceverything to do with the Establishment Clause.\u201d <\/p>\n

Even Glenn Beck chimed in: \u201cI don\u2019t want the GOVERNMENT classifying religions.\u201d <\/p>\n

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Last night, I got a call from President Trump. During the call, I asked about how the Pentagon had reclassified my faith. He said he would look into it. This morning, he told me it had been fixed. Thank you, President Trump.<\/p>\n

We can disagree on whether “Mormons are Christian.”\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/67fLYAGhnN<\/p>\n

\u2014 Glenn Beck (@glennbeck) June 8, 2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Following fierce pushback from Republican Latter-day Saint politicians to correct the mis-categorization, government officials complied and reiterated their respect for religious groups. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Pentagon\u2019s job is not to adjudicate theological debates, but instead to ensure sincerely-held faith is respected and encouraged in our ranks,\u201d the Pentagon said in a statement on Monday, which came with a revised list that removed the \u201cChristian\u201d category from all faiths. <\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

The goal of this effort is to simplify a previously out-of-control \u201cbelief\u201d coding system that had\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/yCsQDhZcGp<\/p>\n

\u2014 DOW Rapid Response (@DOWResponse) June 8, 2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

On Friday, the Department of Defense released a list of religious affiliations that reduced the number of faiths that it recognizes from over 200 down to 31. On the list of 21 faiths coded as Christian were Lutheran, Quaker and Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses, but not The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which appeared listed in a separate category. The list also removed \u201chumanist,\u201d \u201cWicca,\u201d \u201cNative American\u201d and other religions from the list.<\/p>\n

\u201cLabels matter,\u201d said Joseph DuWors, a retired Army chaplain, Latter-day Saint and current Ph.D. candidate at Claremont Graduate University in Mormon Studies. \u201cWhen you other somebody like that, somebody who you\u2019re not even asking how they prefer to be represented, there is reason for concern.\u201d <\/p>\n

According to the Pentagon, the decision was mostly practical, meant to simplify the religious codes \u201cto allow chaplains to quickly look at the religious composition of their units and determine how they structure resources to best provide for warfighters of all faith groups.\u201d The Department of War\u2019s statement, dated May 20, said this consolidation would \u201cstreamline\u201d religious affiliation for service members. This omission stirred pushback from Republican Latter-day Saints \u2014 Sens. Mike Lee and John Curtis of Utah, and Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho, who asked for the classification to be reversed. <\/p>\n

The kerfuffle resurfaced an old question about categorization of Latter-day Saints in the broader religious landscape, according to Jenna Carson, who became the first female military chaplain endorsed by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and was an active duty chaplain in the Air Force from 2022 to 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s a long-standing question of what to do with us,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

DuWors interpreted the quick adjustment to the fact that the initial omission was more about \u201ctheological carelessness than adjudicating a denomination\u2019s status as \u2018Christian,\u2019\u201d he told me. Still, he has questions about what motivated the prompt willingness to reverse the change. <\/p>\n

\u201cFirst impression as it strikes me as an effort to appease the Latter-day Saint concerns without offending evangelical concerns,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

DuWors believes that the removal of the \u201cChristian\u201d code for other faiths, including the Latter-day Saints, still shows bias. <\/p>\n

\u201cTheir decision to de-label the rest of the Christian groups in preference to not labeling Latter-day Saints as \u2018Christian\u2019 is still suggestive of a bias about Latter-day Saints in the Department of Defense\/War,\u201d DuWors said. <\/p>\n

There is a long history of prejudice against the Latter-day Saints within both government and Protestant cultural circles, he said, which risks being amplified against the background of Christian rhetoric that\u2019s fused with political power. <\/p>\n

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\u201cChanging this label should enable the previous status quo to continue \u2014 Latter-day Saint chaplains will likely function as they did before and Latter-day Saint service members will not feel othered,\u201d DuWors believes. <\/p>\n

Carson, who served in the Air Force, expressed concern that earth-based religions like Paganism and Wicca were excluded from both old and new versions of the list, along with Unitarian Universalists and Humanists. She also pointed out the spelling imprecisions in \u201cLatter-day Saints,\u201d \u201cSeventh-day Adventists\u201d and \u201cBah\u00e1\u02bc\u00ed\u201d that remained in the adjusted version of the list. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs chaplains, our prerogative is to care for the need of the individual in the military and to respect people\u2019s right to practice their religion.\u201d<\/p>\n

She wants to see Latter-day Saint chaplains as bridge-builders within Christian denominations. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think that if we are concerned about not being listed as Christian, I feel like I ought to also be concerned about the other faiths that are not represented,\u201d Carson said. \u201cIt does point to greater questions of religious freedom and religious representation.\u201d <\/p>\n

Fresh off the press<\/h3>\n