Instead, they should use the church’s full name and refer to themselves as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Or, if they wanted a shorter version, Latter-day Saints was preferred. As he is revered as a living prophet, the announcement had divine weight.
For the church’s 16 million adherents, the shift has meant lighthearted screw-ups, logistical complications and reflections on an unexpected question: What do you do when a name that has been core to your identity suddenly changes?
The word Mormon has been with the church from the beginning. It comes from the Book of Mormon, the church’s signature text, which adherents believe was recorded on gold plates by the prophet Mormon and his son, Moroni.
The church has tried to stress its full name at various points in the past, and has discouraged phrases like “the Mormon Church.” But until Nelson’s announcement of the divine revelation, the push hadn’t stuck.
The church’s longtime website, LDS.org, now redirects to ChurchofJesusChrist.org, and Mormon.org will soon switch over, too.
The shift became impossible to ignore when the church’s iconic musical organization announced in October that it would no longer be known as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, but the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square.
Some members have felt relief and a new optimism about broader inclusion in American society. The move signals a top-down effort to ensure the faith is taken seriously as part of the Christian community, said Amanda Hendrix-Komoto, an assistant professor of history at Montana State University, who studies the church and is not a member.
Leaders at the Mormon History Association, whose members study the full spectrum of traditions connected to Joseph Smith — who published the Book of Mormon in 1830 — took just five minutes to decide to keep their name at a recent board meeting.
“You can’t scrub ‘Mormon’ out of Mormon history,” said W. Paul Reeves, the group’s president.