For much of their 171-year history, Mormons relished their place outside mainstream Christendom. As sole custodians of the "restored gospel," they proudly claimed having the purest and truest form of Christ's message on earth.
Other Christian creeds were, as Mormon founder Joseph Smith wrote, "all wrong" and "abominations" in the sight of God. With the zeal of that unique gospel mandate, Mormon missionaries and leaders in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints boldly proclaimed the faith's independence from -- even superiority to -- traditional Christianity.
"We were proud of being a 'peculiar people,' " said Kathleen Flake, a Mormon who teaches American religious history at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. "When someone said we were not like other Christians, we said, 'thank you.' "
Mainstream Christians, as often as not, reacted just as zealously in their exclusion of Mormons.
"There is no question that almost every church body I can think of places [the LDS Church] outside the parameters of the Christian faith," said the Rev. Ron Hodges, pastor of Christ United Methodist Church in Salt Lake City. "If the LDS wish to call themselves Christian, they should not be surprised that the multitude of others who have tried to carry that title are not accepting of their designation."
But in the past two decades, the LDS Church -- while holding firm to its restoration doctrine -- has asserted that it should be counted among the world's Christian faiths.
"There are some of other faiths who do not regard us as Christians. That is not important. How we regard ourselves is what is important," LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley said during the April 1998 General Conference in Salt Lake City. "We simply, quietly and without apology testify that God has revealed Himself and His Beloved Son in opening this full and final dispensation of His work."
Even earlier, the church had launched a quiet identity campaign, partly in reaction to critics who insist that Mormonism is at best a non-Christian faith and at worst a cult. To a church with 60,000 missionaries worldwide, the latter is a particularly troublesome label; many countries severely restrict the activities of denominations they classify as cults.
For one thing, the church added "Another Testament to Jesus Christ" as a subtitle to The Book of Mormon. In 1995, it changed its logo to enlarge the words "Jesus Christ."
And just last month, church leaders asked journalists and members to use "The Church of Jesus Christ" as a second reference rather than "Mormon church" and "LDS Church."
The most recent move may have been prompted by Salt Lake City's being a host of the 2002 Winter Olympics, Flake said, "because the international press will be there."
While news organizations have largely ignored the nickname change, Flake, who is in her 50s, and other Mormons believe it better identifies the church "with the gospel of Jesus Christ rather than the gospel of Joseph Smith my generation grew up with."
Still, Flake adds, Mormons must "know how we are different from the rest of the Christian world."
Right now, the "voice you're hearing is the language of traditional Christianity," she said. "You have to listen closely for that Joseph Smith twist on it."
Christian critics are "really our friend in this regard," Flake said. "They are going to challenge us and remind us that we are really not traditional Christians and that will help us find our own language, our own witness in the Church of Jesus Christ."
Harvey Cox, a renowned professor at Harvard Divinity School, agrees. He believes the doctrinal differences so often cited by mainline Christian denominations are gradually fading in importance.
"We have some sorting out to do," Cox said. "So no, I do not at all exclude Mormons from their claim to be Christians. . . . They are evolving, too, [they keep] some of the important additions that Joseph Smith made, but recognize more of the Christian core of Latter-day Saints' faith."
But other LDS faithful are not too excited about the church's push to be seen as Christian.
Mormonism is a "revolution in Christianity, a new way of understanding and framing it that has virtually no need for consistency with past interpretations," says Mike Tueller, an LDS graduate student at Harvard.
The church "can stand on its own two feet and assert its own unique identity," Tueller said. "As long as we insist so strongly on retaining the title 'Christian,' we can never fully do that."
Perhaps no one is as qualified as Bishop Carolyn Tanner Irish, leader of the Episcopal Diocese of Utah, to speak about mainstream Christianity's relations with the LDS Church. She was born and reared a Salt Lake City Mormon, later converting to Episcopalianism and becoming a priest.
"It never occurred to me in my life that I was not a Christian. I was baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, and that is the formula which has always been recognized as effectual in Christianity," Irish said.
While the Episcopal Church accepted her Mormon baptism, however, the LDS Church does not reciprocate, requiring converts to be baptized anew, confessing both their new faith and belief that Joseph Smith was a prophet.
"The reason people have a problem is [Mormons] say they are Latter-day Saints and Christian, yet set themselves apart by not recognizing other Christians," Irish said. "In this name thing, calling themselves 'The Church of Jesus Christ,' what does that make the rest of us? They make difficulties for themselves in that."
Irish believes there are foundational differences over the nature of God, salvation and other doctrines, but she stops far short of excluding Mormons from the Christian family.
"Personally, if someone regards themselves as a Christian, I regard them as a Christian. That has to do with the movement of the Holy Spirit in their own hearts and their relationship to Christ. It doesn't have to do with an institutional identification," Irish said.
Deacon Owen Cummings, theological consultant to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City, echoed Irish's ecumenism.
"God is the final judge and arbiter of what it means to be a Christian," he said. "Catholics recognize there may well be genuine Christian awareness and practice in the LDS Church."
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) delineated its doctrinal departures with Mormonism in a 1998 document, Resource Packet on Presbyterians and Latter-day Saints, including what comprises acceptable scripture, the nature of God and the meaning of salvation.
Last year the United Methodist Church issued a statement outlining its perspective on Mormons' beliefs. It concluded that the LDS Church "by self-definition, does not fit within the bounds of the historic, apostolic tradition of Christian faith."
The Rev. David Henry, pastor of Salt Lake City's Wasatch Presbyterian Church, professes bewilderment over the LDS Church's most recent bid to be accepted into the Christian community.
"For the life of me, I cannot understand why a church who desired so strongly to be over and against Christian churches for 150 years now wants to be considered one," he said. "After strident years of claiming how they are different, the switch to how we are the same takes my breath away."
Hodges adds that by trying to use "a rather exclusivistic name" like The Church of Jesus Christ on second reference, Mormons will not endear themselves to other denominations.
"[That] will merely serve to continue antagonisms, I fear," he said. "Does that make them less than good or fine persons? Absolutely not! They are fine, sincere individuals who make excellent neighbors."
But on the common ground of good works, Christians of all stripes find that doctrinal disputes can become a secondary concern.
"I'm a Christian who lives my life of faith among the Mormons," said Linda Hoffman Kimball, a writer in Chicago who is a convert from Methodism, but insists she retains many of her Protestant beliefs.
"If it was true then, it's true now," she said.
Kimball is sometimes uncomfortable with the term "Mormon" because it means "so many things to so many people.
"More and more I keep my mouth shut about [theological] particulars and just testify of Christ," she said. "I will be his witness in all times and places. I take that pretty seriously."
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