What is a Mormon?

I don’t get to choose how someone else describes their faith or spirituality. I can't define how they identify. I can't define their relationship to it. It’s the only way to be fair about how I get to determine and identify mine.

I’ve been told more than once that I’m not a Christian, that my faith isn’t Christian. 

“What, but you speak of Christ?” Is potentially what one of you may be thinking. But I’m a baptized and active (no matter nuanced) member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I’m a Mormon. I'm LDS. And to me in my personal opinion, I have faith in Jesus Christ and his atonement so I must be a Christian. 

Now to many people that's enough to be a Christian. To others not abiding by specific creeds means I'm not part of the umbrella as they would describe it. To others having added to the canon of scripture and following a prophet makes me heretical to Christianity. And we all get to feel the way that we do about that. It's part of the freedom of expression we get to have. 

Now it would personally be great if we could all just live and let live where faith and religion are concerned. But I'm not naïve enough to think that is actually possible in the here and now. We're tribal. And that comes to faith as much as anything else. 

We want to belong. And so we subdivide and subdivide. We like to act like we can pick certain members of religion out of a crowd. But sometimes we fly under the radar. Or we have identifiers that we look to that aid us in this sorting and identification. 

That's a normal part of humanity. Sadly or not. We had to determine where we should be and who we should exist with. 

I’m often picked out by members of my faith community even when others don’t. Our subconscious ability to recognize is so powerful. I don't always know what it is. And when you remove the majority of identifiers it still happens. It was uncanny even during military service. We were all wearing the same uniforms, some of us had tattoos, and many of us used language that was in line with our current position. Now we still picked each other out. Almost every time. 

But I've often flown under the radar with people outside of my faith. Been assumed to be a part of different groups that my spiritual heritage. I find that really interesting. 

We can find each other but are sometimes invisible to others. 

I wonder how much we would include people in our in group though. Recently this has been a hot topic in my faith. And it's becoming even public of a discussion. 

What does it mean to be Mormon? Should be simple right. But is it? How we view other members, other sects that share a common origin of faith. Makes it messy. 

Our church defines membership by baptism. And further baby blessings can leave you as a child of record even if not baptized. That's a huge pool of people. It includes everyone active and inactive. It includes people who would consider themselves a member and those who wouldn't.

We can't ignore that the term Mormon now contains cultural and religious identities. It includes members of my church, it includes members of other churches, and it includes people who have ancestors of Mormon heritage (especially pioneer heritage).  The settlement and concentration of the largest groups of Mormons in the mountain west caused this. Yes there are members of the church who have joined around the world but the highest concentration is in specific places. There are places where the majority of people and the majority of institutions are Mormon. It's more than just a religion. It's a cultural identity. 

That's what why need to talk about ex-mos. In a time of continuing deconstruction we see more and more ex-members. People who's families are entirely members of the church. People who's childhood and cultural identity are entirely in the Mormon faith. 

That's the part where have to examine this question more carefully. And hold judgement. Just like I can determine if I'm a Christian and what that means to me, the same for someone else. So does the Mormon moniker. It's not the title the Church even wants to use anymore. But it's going to be part of the conversation. And that's the way it is. 

And with all of this I don't have an answer for anyone else right now.