Story Archive

You Know — Them

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints has asked its members, and the news media, to stop calling it the LDS Church — and to drop “Mormon” while they’re at it. The church tried this before, when attention was centered on Utah for the 2002 Olympics, but the church later embraced the nickname in an extensive “I’m a Mormon” ad campaign. Church President Russell M. Nelson, 93, now says the renewed guidance came to him directly from God, and while it’s still fine to refer to their sacred text by its title — The Book of Mormon — referring to the “Mormon Church”, or calling church members “Mormons” or their doctrine “Mormonism”, is “inaccurate and should not be used.” Mormon ...er... LDS ...uh... people from the church who write about the faith predict the effort will fail — again. “It would be extremely unlikely for the majority of journalists to adopt this new style,” says Jana Riess, a columnist for Religion News Service and a church member, “in part because the church has not provided a single word term that is as descriptive as ‘Mormon’ or ‘LDS’.” The new guidance was published on the church’s media web site, MormonNewsroom.org, and the main newspaper in Salt Lake City, where the church is headquartered, headlined their story on the subject, “LDS Church Wants Everyone to Stop Calling it the LDS Church”. (RC/Salt Lake Tribune) ...These things take time.