The pre-eminent leader of the Mormon church Russell Nelson announced that in future everyone should stop using the terms “Mormon Church”, “Mormons” and “Mormonism” when referring to the church or its members. Instead, the church should be called “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” and the members as “members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” or “Latter-day Saints”. He said that even the abbreviation LDS should not be used. The church’s style guide has more.
I think Nelson is going to have a tough fight on this front. It would be like the Catholic Church asking to be referred to as the Roman Catholic Church and its members as Roman Catholics in future. Once people are used to calling an institution and its members something, it will be hard to change the usage.
Nelson said that his god had spoken to him and told him to tell the world all this. It would have been more likely to happen if his god had spoken directly to all of us. But he never does.
Haha, cult leader demanding respect.
This reminds me of my college days, where a frat boy took umbrage at my use of “frat.” He draw an analogy to the word “country,” saying “after all, you wouldn’t call your country a c___t, would you?”
I’ll wager the Mormon Church’s desire will see about as much success as frat boy’s.
R.E.S.P.E.C… too soon?
OK, no respect for the LDS.
But don’t they all worship the Dark Lord Mormon (pronounced like Sauron)?
(At least that’s what an ex-Mormon told me.)
(I mean, they’ve got the rings…)
@invivoMark #4
…but, unfortunately, the rings don’t confer invisibility; they’d be so much more tolerable if they just all disappeared (although I suppose we’d still hear them).
I can sort of see his point -- I think that “Mormons” was originally a term of contempt that was not unlike the use of the term “papists” for Roman Catholics in anglophone Protestant countries.