SALT LAKE CITY — As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gathered here for their annual conference this weekend, some church leaders pondered their place among Christian faiths.
For much of their 171-year history, Mormons relished their place outside mainstream Christianity.
Other Christian creeds were, as Mormon founder Joseph Smith wrote, "all wrong" and "abominations" in the sight of God.
"We were proud of being a 'peculiar people,'" said Kathleen Flake in a copyright story in The Salt Lake Tribune. Flake is 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,'" she said.
But as the world's eye begins to focus on Salt Lake City for the 2002 Winter Games, Mormon leaders also are highlighting their ties to Christianity.
Last month, church leaders asked journalists to use "The Church of Jesus Christ" as a second reference rather than "Mormon church" or "LDS Church."
While news organizations have largely ignored the name change, Flake thinks it better identifies the church "with the gospel of Jesus Christ rather than the gospel of Joseph Smith my generation grew up with."
The church also has 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."
Labels aside, some still place the Mormon church outside the Christian creed.
"There is no question that almost every church body I can think of places (the Mormon 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."
Church officials are well aware of this view.
"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.
Harvey Cox, a professor at Harvard Divinity School, said he thinks the doctrinal differences that divide Christian faiths may fade.
"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," Cox said.
April 1, 2001