The Pentagon Decided Mormons Aren't Christian

Dan McClellan Hey everybody, I'm Dan McClellan. And I'm Dan Beecher. And this is Data Over Dogma, where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion, and we combat the spread of misinformation about the same, which is what we're going to be doing today. Whoa,

Dan Beecher man. We, uh, we're, we're, w- we promised it last time. We're diving in with some, some Mike Lee, US senator from this great state of Utah.

Dan McClellan We keep getting asked for more Mike Lee content, so.

Dan Beecher I don't think anyone has asked us for more Mike Lee content.

Dan McClellan No, nobody at all.

Dan Beecher But we're giving it anyway. Uh, it's, uh, the great, the grand embarrassment that is Senator Mike Lee, uh, got embarrassed himself this week, or well, this week for us. It was a few weeks ago for you, but don't you- ... don't you worry about the timeline here. Um-

Dan McClellan Time's a flat circle. Don't worry about it.

Dan Beecher It's, yeah, forget about it. Uh, but the US government decided that Mike Lee wasn't a Christian, and he took issue with that, and now we're taking issue with him. So let's dive in with taking issue. So yeah, Dan, uh, Mike Lee is mad. He got mad. Uh, but one of the things that he got m- the thing that he got mad about is that the United States government, uh, specifically the Department of War, or Department of Defense if you wanna be, uh-

Dan McClellan Rawr. Yes. The

Dan Beecher Department of Rawr.

Dan McClellan The, the Pentagon.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Pete Hegseth, or Kegs Breath as, uh, as the kids are calling him.

Dan Beecher As he's, as he's fondly known.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Uh, Scotchy Pete, as I like to call him- ... has, has decided that Mormons specifically, uh, people of your faith, Dan, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, aren't Christian.

Dan McClellan Yes. Uh-

Dan Beecher Now, this came in the form of a... First of all, Hegseth decided that there were too many religions. It's unruly. It's, it's, it's unwieldy.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Uh, and so he took a, a, a list of, uh, of different religious designations that was somewhere in the neighborhood of 210 to 220.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Uh, reports vary on that list. Yeah.

Dan McClellan And, and this is a list of, of na- uh, religious denominations, groups, and then there was a code, like a, a two-letter code that was associated with them in an effort to help chaplains be able to identify the religious faith of a given, uh, member of the military.

Dan Beecher Right. So, so like, just so that like, you know, if you're a Catholic and, uh, the chaplain there is needing to see to your, to your needs- Yeah ... uh, your ecclesiastical needs, he needs to know if, if he should give Catholic last rites or if he should call someone else over if, you know.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Because to give a, a Jewish, Jewish soldier Catholic last rites would be a, a bit of a faux pas.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher We'll call it that.

Dan McClellan Yes, a party foul on the-

Dan Beecher Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And there's literally no good reason not to have every person's religion available.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher We have enough two-letter combinations to make that happen.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher But Hegseth decided, "No."

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher "We're shaving it down," and released a n- a, a list of n- of, uh, the new sh- very shaved down 31 now categories of religion. Yeah. Yes. And the original list had a bunch of things. It was like Christian-Methodist, Christian-Catholic, Christian-Jehovah's Witness, Christian-blah, blah, blah, and then its own category was the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Yes. Without that Christian thing at the front. Yeah. So people like Mike Lee and our other senator, uh, Chris Stewart, raised holy hell and blah, blah, blah.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And, uh, and so the Pentagon then released the list again, but without listing all of these different things as Catholic or as, as Christian.

Dan McClellan As Christian, yeah. They, they didn't say, "Okay, Mormons are Christians. We'll add the label." Right. They just said, "Fine, we'll take the Christian label off."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And so you have now a list of denominations and no this is Christian, um, super category.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So.

Dan Beecher And also, yeah, like you say, no one at the Pentagon, no one at the White House, no one in the US government said, "Oops, sorry. Of course you're Christians, LDS."

Dan McClellan Right.

Dan Beecher Uh, no one has said that. So- Yes ... I think, I think that this is a really interesting moment for the LDS people, but it's also an interesting reason to, r- or reason for us to talk about what the heck is a Christian.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Um-

Dan McClellan And, and, and part of it, some people have pointed out Pete Hegseth's pastor is Doug Wilson. We've talked about Doug Wilson- Mm-hmm ... uh, in the past. He is a piece of work, uh, from, from-

Dan Beecher That's one way of saying it ...

Dan McClellan a bygone era, yes. Uh, but he, uh, is very much Mormons aren't Christian. And so there are those who think that, uh, Doug Wilson's influence may have trickled down, uh, into, uh, the categorization of Mormons as, as not Christian on this Pentagon list. Um, but, but yeah, it does, it did start a debate on social media that is still raging on Twitter- Yeah ... uh, among the least qualified, uh, commentators. Which i- which is where w- you know, that's kind of... Twitter is like, if you want to find the highest concentration of people who have no business speaking on certain issues, that's where you go.

Dan Beecher Well, peo- people who have no business speaking on certain issues who are willing to portray themselves as experts on that issue.

Dan McClellan Yes. Yes.

Dan Beecher Uh, I think, I- Yeah. I- It's shocking the amount of certainty that you see in, uh, in social media circles, especially on X.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Um, that from people who have just nothing but vibes- ... uh, guiding them.

Dan McClellan Yes. Uh, and, and so there, there are an awful lot of people who, who are like, "Well, of course Mormons aren't Christian."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And, and you have a bunch of different cases that they're trying to make. Most of them center on the Trinity.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan Uh, but others, uh, center on, you know, they'll, they'll rattle off a list of things that make Mormonism not Christian, including a doctrine of deification. Study your history, Christians. Deification was a central part of, of ancient Christianity. Um-

Dan Beecher And by that, I ju- I just wanna clarify that what... There is a central Mormon theology that, uh, that humans, us, we, through a belief in, in the teachings of the gospel, can become gods ourselves.

Dan McClellan Well, through the principles and ordinances.

Dan Beecher And ordinances, that's right.

Dan McClellan 'Cause not just beliefs. That would be a, that would be a very Protestant way to approach it that, uh, a lot of Mormons would disagree with. However, again, this is something that's, uh, is actually in, uh, orth- a lot of orthodox traditions and we find in earlier Christianity. Now, that does not mean that that early Christian version is a proto-Mormon doctrine.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Uh, the first thing I ever published was a paper called Latter-day Saints and Patristics where I basically wagged my finger at Latter-day Saint apologists and said, "Stop identifying patristic ideas about deification and things like that as proto-Mormonism. It's not." Um, so, uh, but mostly people are focusing on concepts of deity, and particularly the Latter-day Saint rejection of the triune God- Yes ... or the Trinity. The Nicene Creed basically is, is supposed to be the essence, the very beating heart of what it means to be a Christian, which is bad news for everybody before Nicaea who is now no longer a Christian.

Dan Beecher Right, right. They've been de-

Dan McClellan All the way down to Peter, James, and John ...

Dan Beecher de-Christified, uh- Yes ... along with any- anyone who happens to, you know, follow the teachings of Jesus now- Yeah ... but happens to take a unitarian view of the Godhead or whatever.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Oh, and, and guess who got left right out of the, the list when it was l- whittled down to 31? Unitarian Universalists.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Yeah.

Dan McClellan So they, they were just, uh, they were just omitted. There were, there were other groups that were, like, combined into, uh, other groups.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan The, the UUs, Unitarian Universalists, just deleted. Just

Dan Beecher psht, out completely. Yeah. I was, I was eliminated. Uh-

Dan McClellan Atheists, yeah.

Dan Beecher Atheists are no longer on the group. They, they left agnostics, which just feels like they're j- they're, you know, they're, they're, they're just winking and then kicking. You know what I mean?

Dan McClellan Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no pagan category either. The, the- Yeah ... the pagans were, uh-

Dan Beecher Pagans, Wiccans, all of those sorts of people are, are out.

Dan McClellan Yeah. But, uh, but the biggest problem with this that I have, with this idea of, "Of course they're not Christian," even though, like, Jehovah's Witnesses are listed as Christians.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Um, and, and I don't... Yeah, I, I think people would have more of a... Informed Christians should have more of a problem with including Jehovah's Witnesses- ... uh, than, than with Mormons saying, "Yeah, we're Christian." Um- Yeah ... but the, here's the thing. There is nobody, and there is no combination of people, who is in charge of the boundaries of Christianity. No person has ever existed-

Dan Beecher I thought you said it was Doug Wilson. I thought you said he was in charge of it. Jo-

Dan McClellan Doug Wilson is in charge of Doug Wilson. And, and to the degree that he has actual ecclesiastical institutional authority over who belongs to his particular church, he has a say over whether or not someone is a member of his particular group, and that's true more broadly as well.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan You know, the, the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has the authority to decide whether or not I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Um-

Dan Beecher That's true, and, and if you decided that your belief system as a, as a member of that church differed far enough from what they've decided is their central belief system- Yeah ... he could make the decision to kick you out.

Dan McClellan Yes, and there are a lot of people who have wondered why on Earth that has not happened yet. But that, that is neither here nor there. Um-

Dan Beecher It's a little here and there.

Dan McClellan The issue is none of these people have the authority to declare who is or is not Christian. There's only one person who has ever existed who would hypothetically have that authority, and we ain't heard from him in 2,000 years. We keep leaving messages saying, "We've been trying to get in touch with you about your car's extended warranty," and he's... We've been ghosted, basically. Yeah. Ghosted by the Holy Ghost. Um- Yeah ... Jesus has not clarified regarding that.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And we can't look to the New Testament for any help because it doesn't really tell us where the boundaries sit. And so-

Dan Beecher Well, because the New Testament didn't imagine a sect called Christianity.

Dan McClellan Right. We don't-

Dan Beecher It d- ...

Dan McClellan see that until late in the Book of Acts.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Um, and, and the word Christian only occurs a ha- a couple of times. So yeah, it's just not considered. And so when it comes to who is or isn't a Christian, the, the folks who, who look into religious identity and look into membership and boundaries and all that kind of stuff, the folks who study this, myself included, would say that self-identification ought to be the, the most important factor. Not the only factor, but the most important factor. And, and then you, you know, it radiates out to, um, to other factors as well. But none of these people have, you know, rubbed a piece of paper on a Mormon and said, "Ha, it turned pink. Not a Christian." Right. Like- It doesn't work that way. None of them can dip a Mormon in acid and say, "See the reaction? That means not a Christian." It doesn't work that way. So really all they're doing is, uh, preaching to the choir. They're just saying-

Dan Beecher What if they weigh the same as a duck?

Dan McClellan Then they're a witch.

Dan Beecher Oh, okay. Oh, that's not a Mor- okay.

Dan McClellan Right. That-

Dan Beecher That's not a Christian thing, that's a witch thing, right?

Dan McClellan There's, there's overlap. Now, don't get me wrong, there's overlap. Um, but... And, uh, yeah, we won't go there. But, um, it's just, it's not how it works. You don't get to decide beyond yourself and whatever group you might happen to have any kind of institutional authority within. And, and so it's really just a person who's a part of a, a collection of social identities speaking to the other people who are part of the same identities saying, "We don't like them."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan "That's correct. We don't like them." They do not speak for all Christianity. They're just trying to use this as an identity marker to curate and advance their own standing and their own access to power and resources within those social identities, which is really what Twitter is doing, is gi- giving-

Dan Beecher Yeah

Dan McClellan ... people an opportunity to, to costly signal and, and engage in credibility-enhancing displays.

Dan Beecher Well, and it's so, it's always been so interesting to me that all of the, you know, they're, these people are sitting in their church, or sitting, you know, s- they're in the pews, and they're all just furiously saying, "Ha ha, we're the best. We're the only real Christians. All these other ones are fake," or, "All these other ones are doing it wrong," or whatever. And yeah, I get that you have, that they want to draw their own boundaries.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher They want to say the, the, you know, they want to delineate a series of necessary and sufficient conditions that may, that, you know, if this is met, and this is met, and this is met, but this is excluded and this, then no, you're not quite there. But as you say, when they do that drawing of a boundary, whether it's pointing at Nicaea or pointing at this, that, or the other political hot button issue and saying you have to believe this or that on that issue-

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm

Dan Beecher ... to qualify, what they're saying, in essence, is the opposite of what they think they're saying, which is that it's a thing that's decided after the fact. Like, like-

Dan McClellan Yeah

Dan Beecher ... Nicaea, if you, if you're pointing at Nicaea, you're admitting that a group of, a group of people who kind of all disagreed with each other got together, you know, struck out this word and that word and kind of shook hands on it and just, you know, nobody was fully comfortable with it, and that's sufficient to define your religion?

Dan McClellan And, and they had the re-

Dan Beecher Or to define this category?

Dan McClellan And imperial authority had to come in and, and be the one to enforce it as well.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Even though they, that imperial authority switched allegiances a bunch of times-

Dan Beecher Right

Dan McClellan ... uh, in- in the process. So, so yeah, it's, it's very clearly historically contingent, but they don't, they don't want to acknowledge that. And, and I, I wish they would, I wish they could see that they're, what they're arguing over is, is meaningless as well. Who cares-

Dan Beecher Right

Dan McClellan ... if Mormons are, are labeled Christians by the Pentagon? Like, it doesn't change anything about their life.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan It is only relevant to y- your identity politics, to, um, trying to curate your own standing. And 'cause does, does it hurt anybody to say, "Yeah, they're Christian. We still don't like 'em."

Dan Beecher You're right. We dis-

Dan McClellan "They're not our kind of Christian."

Dan Beecher We disagree with them.

Dan McClellan Yeah. We, we think they're dumb.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Uh, you know, we, we, we don't like that they've got those extra books of the canon. We don't like the polygamy. We don't like, uh, all this other stuff about 'em. You, you're still allowed to say those things if you acknowledge that, that Mormons are Christian. Um, it, it just, it demonstrates that this is just about playing in a social club-

Dan Beecher Yeah

Dan McClellan ... for you. That you're kind of-

Dan Beecher Yeah, and, and, and, and making sure that your, your social club is exclusive.

Dan McClellan Yeah. It's the no homers club- ... all over again.

Dan Beecher Yeah. I,

Dan McClellan 'cause, because as a... I don't know if you remember that episode- ... but it was like, "But you got that other homer." And he's like, "Well, it's no homers. We can have one." We can have one. Uh, it's like, "But, but you got the Jehovah's Witnesses." And-

Dan Beecher Yeah. It's no Reformation era-ers- ... or whatever. Yeah.

Dan McClellan Yeah, we can have one restorationist-

Dan Beecher Restorationist

Dan McClellan ... uh, branch-

Dan Beecher Yeah, yeah

Dan McClellan ... of Christianity. Um-

Dan Beecher Restoration. Yeah

Dan McClellan ... but it, it, to me, it shows how petty and, uh, really how petty this all is. This is-

Dan Beecher Yeah

Dan McClellan ... this is all just about, "Oh, we wanna, we wanna be the man. We're the, we're the real Christians, and everybody else is a, is a pretend Christian." Um, like, this is, this is playground behavior-

Dan Beecher Yeah

Dan McClellan ... uh, writ large, and, um, you know, playing out on, ugh, on Twitter of all places.

Dan Beecher I, I, I do think that-

Dan McClellan And in, and by, among senators.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Excuse me.

Dan Beecher Yeah. I do think that, uh, one of... You said, who cares whether, you know, whether this group or that group labels themselves as Christian. I think, though, that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints should care-

Dan McClellan Yeah

Dan Beecher ... that, th- because this was... I don't, I don't think there was anything accidental about this at all. This was a decision that was made purposefully to exclude them. And h- honestly, I, it shocks me that more LDS people aren't standing up and saying, "Hey, you don't respect us at all." Like, they're, they're one of the most reliable right-wing voting blocks in the country.

Dan McClellan Oh, yeah. I mean-

Dan Beecher And yet-

Dan McClellan I think, I think white evangelicals are the only group that, that voted for Trump, uh, in higher percentages.

Dan Beecher Yeah. And yet they're, uh, they're willing to just- ... stomp all o- They don't respect the LDS.

Dan McClellan No.

Dan Beecher They, you know what I mean? Like, the, the right wing of this country ha- doesn't, l- just sees it as a joke. Yeah,

Dan McClellan and th- it's just about structuring power.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan They'll, they'll accept the, uh, the votes of Latter-day Saints. They'll let them help them, uh, gain power.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan But yeah, they don't want them. They don't like them.

Dan Beecher No.

Dan McClellan And, and which is why I, I have said, you know, "MAGA Mormons, you made this bed. You sleep in it." Um, we, you've been told for years they don't want you. Yeah. You're trying to hitch your wagon to Evangelicalism to gain greater access to, to power and resources socially and politically, and they couldn't care less about you. They don't want you.

Dan Beecher S- More to the point, they hate you.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher They don't respect you. They do care because they want... They enjoy not liking you. So, all r- yeah, there you go. Uh-

Dan McClellan I, I, I think it's problem- I'll, I'll just fi- last thing to say.

Dan Beecher Yeah, yeah.

Dan McClellan I think it's problematic when the majority of the things that you're doing in exercising your religion is trying to clarify who you don't like and who doesn't belong.

Dan Beecher Right. Yeah.

Dan McClellan Like, that's not a productive-

Dan Beecher That's a terrible way to be religious.

Dan McClellan Yes. That's not, that's... You don't find that in the Sermon on the Mount. That's a, that's a-

Dan Beecher Right

Dan McClellan ... it's a terrible way to be religious, and it shows that really these folks are religious only because they see it as a social club that has value for them. And-

Dan Beecher Yeah

Dan McClellan ... and that's it.

Dan Beecher Especially, especially if you're calling yourself Christian. Because it seems to me that if you're calling yourself a Christian, then at very least one of the necessary conditions of that, if we were to say that there were any, would be, uh, being a follower of Jesus Christ.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher It feels like that is, that's gotta be in there somewhere.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, it seems to me that, like, he had a pretty strong thing to say about loving everybody and finding better ways to love people. And, uh, and, uh, he didn't, uh, I, I don't remember him saying Democrats are evil. I, I think he might have thrown it in somewhere, but I don't remember-

Dan McClellan Well, uh-

Dan Beecher ... Jesus saying that

Dan McClellan ... I'll, I'll do you one better. In Mark 9, uh, Jesus' disciples come up to him and say, "Hey, these other people were, um, were trying to, uh, say they follow you, but they don't, they're, we don't like them. They don't follow us, so we told them to, uh, to get out of here."

Dan Beecher Well-

Dan McClellan And Jesus says, "No, no. Anyone who gives you a cup of water to drink in my name, because you belong to Christ, will not lose their reward." Like, the New Testament says-

Dan Beecher Yeah

Dan McClellan ... that, that you shouldn't run people off, uh, just because they don't follow Jesus the exact same way that you do.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Um, and, and yeah, the whole, the whole, uh, different Christ thing that, that is also used to, to talk about this is so bafflingly stupid. Um-

Dan Beecher All right. So- ... uh, I believe that what you've just said is that it is the official policy of the Data Over Dogma podcast that a Christian is someone who will give you water.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Boom.

Dan McClellan That is, that is the essence, yes, of Chri-

Dan Beecher Are you willing to give water to these people? All right.

Dan McClellan Look, I'm-

Dan Beecher Good job.

Dan McClellan I, when, when I have... I have a no soliciting sign on my door.

Dan Beecher Uh-huh.

Dan McClellan And I still get solicitors almost every day.

Dan Beecher Oh, my gosh.

Dan McClellan And I, and without fail, when I say, um... And, and sometimes, like I know that a lot of people are, they're trained to not leave until they've, uh, they've had three nos.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Um, and so sometimes I'll be like, "I appreciate what, what you're doing. No, no, no." "Okay. You can satisfy the, the requirements of your job." I will always say, "Can I offer you a, a, a bottle of water or something?"

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Uh, so you can say, "Cool." Because I think that that is what Christianity is supposed to be about. Winning, uh, uh, arguments on the internet is, is a pretty silly brand of Christianity. Uh, do better.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Christians.

Dan Beecher All right. There you go. Well, if you would like to become a part of keeping this whole thing going, you can s- you can gi- offer us a glass of water in the form of becoming a patron of this show. Uh, the way you do that is you go over to patreon.com/dataoverdogma where you can choose what level you wanna be, and, uh, you can get, um, fun rewards like, uh, an early and ad-free version of every episode, or, uh, at a certain level you can get the after party, which is our bonus patrons only content that we do every week just for you guys. So, uh, head on over to patreon.com/dataoverdogma for that. Thanks so much to Roger Gowdy for editing the show. Thanks for Sam. Thanks for Sam? Thanks to Sam for helping us out on the YouTube, and we'll talk to you all again next time.

Dan McClellan Bye, everybody.