{"id":1557,"date":"2026-06-12T04:36:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T04:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=1557"},"modified":"2026-06-12T04:36:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T04:36:10","slug":"the-opportunity-in-the-pentagons-about-face-on-latter-day-saints-and-christianity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=1557","title":{"rendered":"The opportunity in the Pentagon\u2019s about-face on Latter-day Saints and Christianity"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

This article is an excerpt from the weekly <\/i>ChurchBeat newsletter<\/i>. Sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox each Wednesday night.<\/i><\/p>\n

Read more Inside the $100K \u2018hardcore conservative\u2019 campaign to oust Utah\u2019s Senate president<\/a><\/p>\n

The social media tsunami is receding after the U.S. military\u2019s about-face on new chaplain codes that initially appeared to be a government-sanctioned effort to drum Latter-day Saints out of Christianity.<\/p>\n

In case you missed it \u2014 well, there\u2019s no way you missed it \u2014 many Latter-day Saints ran to the walls to defend against what to them felt like an assault on their belief in and faith in Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n

The whole mess made me think of cooler heads: Those evangelicals and Latter-day Saints who spent two decades criss-crossing the United States, Canada and Great Britain to engage on stages in civil dialogue about their beliefs.<\/p>\n

I called one of them, Robert Millet, to ask three questions about the hullabaloo. Here\u2019s what I learned from the former dean of Religious Education at BYU, where he also served as the Richard L. Evans Chair of Religious Understanding.<\/p>\n

Tad Walch:<\/b> Bob, how did this week\u2019s controversy make you feel after spending over 22 years working to build bridges with evangelicals like Pastor Greg Johnson?<\/p>\n

Robert Millet:<\/b> I saw it all on my phone. I also recently saw two Roman Catholics use the term \u201catheist\u201d to describe members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on a television program.<\/p>\n

For some evangelicals and Catholics, Latter-day Saints are not Christian because we do not believe in the post-New Testament creeds and theological formulations concerning Christ and the Godhead, beginning with the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325. (Latter-day Saints believe there are three distinct members of the Godhead who exist in such unity that they frequently are referred to as \u201cone eternal God\u201d in the Book of Mormon. The Nicene Creed states that Jesus Christ is \u201cof one being with the Father.\u201d)<\/p>\n

We also do not believe in the sufficiency of the Bible. We believe in additional scripture.<\/p>\n

At this point, we\u2019re so used to facing this question. This weekend again illustrated that we\u2019ve totally lost the concept that \u201cChristian\u201d is defined by how a person lives.<\/p>\n

Walch:<\/b> The word \u201cChristian\u201d has always had a broader definition than what someone believes about Christ. I\u2019ve seen some Latter-day Saints refer to that limited definition as \u201cChristian gatekeeping.\u201d Couldn\u2019t this be resolved if the discussion wasn\u2019t about \u201cChristian or other\u201d but was instead about \u201cCreedal Christian or other Christian\u201d?<\/p>\n

Millet:<\/b> I remember meeting Richard John Neuhaus after he wrote \u201cCatholic Matters,\u201d and after a delightful, hourlong conversation, he said, \u201cIt\u2019s long past time for Latter-day Saint Christians and Nicene Christians to begin talking respectfully with one another.\u201d<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t have a problem with that definition at all.<\/p>\n

Today, it seems like the conversation no longer is about, \u201cAre you a follower of Jesus?\u201d\u2029or \u201cDo you think you ought to live your life like a Christian, like a follower of Jesus?\u201d Instead, some are too prone to say, \u201cDo your beliefs sit with the post-New Testament creeds?\u201d<\/p>\n

Former Fuller Theological Seminary President Richard Mouw (who apologized to Latter-day Saints at the Salt Lake Tabernacle in 2004 for how they\u2019d been treated by some of his fellow evangelicals) once put his arm around me during an event at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and said to the audience, \u201cThere\u2019s no question in my mind whatsoever that this man is a brother in Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walch:<\/b> What should Latter-day Saints know that would better help them understand evangelicals who would not go as far as Mouw?<\/p>\n

Millet:<\/b> I think there\u2019s some concern about the growth of our church. In that sense, they see us as \u201csheep stealers.\u201d <\/p>\n

And people are afraid of what they don\u2019t understand. My experience has been when I work closely with people on religious matters, be it Roman Catholic or Protestant, once they understand us, it\u2019s a different thing entirely.<\/p>\n

There was an article that came out in Christianity Today years ago about Greg and I and our work together. On two or three occasions, the writer asked members of the dialogue from the evangelical side, \u201cDo you think these people are Christian?\u201d And in almost every case, they said, \u201cThat\u2019s not an easy question to answer.\u201d<\/p>\n

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For me, that\u2019s progress. It\u2019s not an easy question to answer, because they know us well enough to know our behavior and they know us well enough to know our love for the Lord.<\/p>\n

Walch:<\/b> President Russell M. Nelson and President Dallin H. Oaks each have recently and repeatedly called on Latter-day Saints to engage civilly, respectfully and peacefully with others. How should Latter-day Saints respond if they feel misrepresented?<\/p>\n

Millet:<\/b> One of the great things I found during the dialogue was that for me personally, I hated to be misrepresented. The lesson for me was, if I feel that way about myself, why would I ever want to misrepresent anybody else?<\/p>\n

Occasionally one of my students would make a statement like, \u201cWell, you know how the Catholics are.\u201d Or, \u201cThe Baptists or the evangelicals, they\u2019re literally this.\u201d And generally speaking, it was not correct.<\/p>\n

I would say, \u201cCan we talk about that for a minute?\u201d I remember in one large class a young man way in the back said, \u201cWell, Brother Millet, you know how those born-againers are. They believe that once you accept Jesus, you can live anyway you want to live.\u201d<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not their doctrine. That\u2019s not what they believe. They believe the same way we do that once we\u2019ve come unto Christ, once we\u2019ve accepted Christ, then we need to live like Christ. They believe the same things we do, that one\u2019s beliefs ought to be manifest in the way they live their lives.<\/p>\n

What I\u2019m saying is, I have had so many opportunities over the years, and I\u2019m still having them, where I can say, \u201cActually, no, that\u2019s not what they believe. They believe this, this and this.\u201d<\/p>\n

So we can look at situations like what happened this past weekend as opportunities to build understanding.<\/p>\n

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Behind the scenes<\/b><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s what Robert Millet, who spent 22 years working to build bridges, said about the Pentagon’s about-face on Latter-day Saints and Christianity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1556,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faith"],"yoast_head":"\nThe opportunity in the Pentagon\u2019s about-face on Latter-day Saints and Christianity - American Movers Hub<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=1557\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The opportunity in the Pentagon\u2019s about-face on Latter-day Saints and Christianity - 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