Pentagon Revises Religious Affiliation List After Mormon Church Backlash
An earlier version of the list did not categorize The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—commonly known as the Mormon Church—as a Christian denomination, which sparked backlash from members of the faith.
According to available information, the controversy emerged after the Defense Department reduced its system of religious classifications from more than 200 codes to 31. The updated framework initially labeled 21 denominations as Christian but excluded the LDS Church from that designation.
The original classification system, introduced in 2017, was designed to help military chaplains better understand the religious composition of service members and comply with a congressional requirement established in 2013.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stated in March that the previous system had become “impractical and unusable.” Following the criticism, the Pentagon released a revised version of the list on Monday that removed the “Christian” label from all denominations, rather than singling out specific groups.
Lawmakers from the Mormon community said the initial omission appeared to be an error and welcomed the correction.
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