Let’s Stop Being Hysterical The New Church Names are Not That Hard

If you listen to the journalists and writers discuss the recent request by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to change how they are referred to, you would think someone had asked them to throw away their thesaurus.

And as a writer, I understand how precious even a single letter can be. So I sympathize. But it’s been three weeks now and the constant kvetching is starting to reveal that those who write about the Church must have a serious lack of imagination.

Before diving into some suggestions, let’s make it clear that writers have been spoiled by the “Mormon Church” “LDS Church” and “Mormonism.”

Those who write about “The culture of Jehovah’s Witnesses” or “Unitarian Universalism” have never had the instantaneous shorthand that those who write about Latter-day Saints take for granted.

In an op-ed last week Peggy Fletcher Stack listed her requirements for a name replacement.

  • One word stand in
  • Clear
  • Universally acceptable
  • Tie into Christianity
  • Tie into the Church’s history
  • Not confuse it with other denominations
  • Recognizable
  • Straightforward

Her long list of requirements is certainly a copywriter’s dream, but writers about Seventh Day Adventism seem to have managed fine.

So here is how I plan to approach writing about the Church of Jesus Christ, and perhaps some of my suggestions will help writers find their own solutions.

People?
Latter-day Saints. It’s twice as long as Mormons, but it’s certainly no “Congregationalists”.

Church?
I’ll use the full name on the first mention in the text of the article. This should prevent confusion with other similarly named off-shoots. If it’s clear that I’m still referring to the same church, I’ll go with the ultra-pithy “the Church.” If it’s not I’ll go with the nickname “The Church of Jesus Christ.”

While there is some concern about confusion between sects, the only religious group using this name today is the 22,000 member Bickertonites. If the full name was used in the first pass, there should be no need for confusion.

This distinction of using Latter-day Saints for the people and The Church of Jesus Christ for the church has the neat effect of following the revealed name of the Church for each of those groups.

Titles?
What about in headings, where “LDS Church” was super useful when letter counts are essential? I’ll mostly try to rewrite to avoid the problem.

But if forced, I’ll use an abbreviation. I’ll just abbreviate the preferred name of the church, rather than abbreviating a name they don’t care for. “The Church of JC” is only a single additional letter from “The LDS Church”.

While “The Church of JC” may not be instantly recognizable, the Church is asking us to call it something new, so an adjustment period is baked into the request.

Culture?
“Mormonism” may be the most difficult word to replace in this change. But not every religious movement has a convenient “ism” to describe it. If you were writing about “New Ageism” you certainly couldn’t write that. You’d have to write about “the New Age Movement” or “The culture of New Age spirituality.”

Even traditional religious movements like those of the Baptist church, need to be described as “Baptist culture” since “Baptistism” never really stuck.

So I intend to use either “Latter-day Saint culture” “Latter-day Saint movement” or “the culture of the Church of Jesus Christ” as appropriate.

And while I know those changes aren’t quite as easy as before, you won’t get much sympathy from me or the Schwarzenau Brethren.

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