Topline
The Pentagon on Monday published an updated list of religious affiliations, backtracking days after Mormon lawmakers expressed outrage at a revamped list the Defense Department published last Friday—which didn’t list the LDS church under a subcategory for “Christian” denominations.
Mormon lawmakers, including Sen. Mike Lee, took issue with an update to the military’s religious denomination classification system.
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Key Facts
On Friday, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell posted an updated list of “officially approved” religious affiliations and codes for them, narrowing the list down to just 31 in order to collect better data for military chaplains.
The list included 21 denominations labeled “Christian”—a marker that was excluded from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the primary Mormon church.
The move was met with swift backlash from Mormon lawmakers, including both of Utah’s Republican senators, Mike Lee and John Curtis, as well as Rep. Mike Kennedy, R-Utah.
On Monday, the Pentagon’s rapid response X account said the list published on Friday was just a way to “simplify a previously out-of-control ‘belief’ coding system that had ballooned to over 200 codes,” and it had now fixed a mistake with “redundant” labeling.
Before the change was announced, Lee said he spoke with President Donald Trump about the Mormon exclusion, insisting the president “loves Latter-day Saints.”
The account published a new list on Monday, which eliminated the “Christian” subcategory altogether and listed denominations like Catholic, Lutheran and Evangelical without the “Christian” moniker preceding them.
Crucial Quote
“It’s very unfortunate that the Pentagon has chosen to identify basically every faith group in America that professes faith in Jesus Christ as Christian, with one exception—that is those belonging to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” Lee said in a video message posted on social media before the updated list was released. “I find this offensive, not just because this happens to be my faith, but not just because it happens to be the faith of tens of thousands of U.S. military personnel. But it’s also just repugnant to any sense of decency, any sense of our common heritage and our common belief that the government needs to not weigh in on doctrinal disputes between various religious denominations.” The Pentagon seemed to echo Lee’s statement on Monday, confirming “the Pentagon’s job is not to adjudicate theological debates, but instead to ensure sincerely-held faith is respected and encouraged in our ranks.” The Pentagon had no further comment on the changes when reached by Forbes.
Key Background
The Pentagon’s changes to the list come months after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth promised to make the military’s “Chaplain Corps Great Again,” insisting in a March video the organization had been “infected by political correctness and secular humanism.” Hegseth is a devout evangelical Christian, and has led prayer sessions with servicemembers at the Pentagon in recent months—including a controversial session where he prayed for “overwhelming violence” against the military’s enemies in the midst of the Iran war.
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