President Donald Trump didn’t intend to spark a theological debate in his message following a brutal attack against a Michigan Latter-day Saint congregation in what he called “yet another targeted attack on Christians in the United States of America.”
But during a week of great sorrow, some online commentators couldn’t help but weigh in and try to correct the president — asserting he was indeed mistaken in labeling this body of grieving believers “Christian.”
At the same time, many Latter-day Saints expressed appreciation for the president using an identifier they themselves embraced.
“I’m so thankful my president will recognize me as a Christian,” wrote Ashley Condie in response to the White House post. She described the week as one of the hardest of her life, compounded by seeing so many of “those I thought were my friends in Christ” unable to offer a similar gesture of unity.
The long-standing debate about what constitutes a “true Christian” may never have been more visible and viral in American culture than this last month. For a meaningful question of such importance, that may be a good thing, especially if it prompts followers of Jesus Christ from different traditions to learn more from each other.
Yet, there have always been versions of this debate that are overly cynical and hurtful — especially those relying on hyperbolic and darkly dismissive language such as “demonic” and “cult.”
As clergy and religious scholars from different Christian persuasions attest, however, at the heart of this long-standing, oft-impassioned debate over what constitutes a “true Christian” are honest disagreements over how to define and interpret Christianity itself.
So, do you believe in and follow Jesus Christ?
An average person would probably define a “Christian” as one who trusts in the words of Christ in the New Testament, enough to seek to follow what these teachings encourage. My neighbor, Jim Morris, is a transplant to Utah who identifies as a lifelong “follower of Christ.” He says a Christian is “whoever is truly seeking and in pursuit of Jesus Christ.”
That’s, more or less, how Merriam-Webster’s defines Christian too: “one who professes belief in the teachings of Jesus Christ” — a plain-spoken clarity that’s reflected in other dictionary definitions of the term:
- “Someone who believes in and follows the teachings of Jesus Christ” (Cambridge Dictionary)
- “A person who follows the teachings of Jesus Christ” (Collins Dictionary)
The adjective “Christian” is likewise defined as “of or relating to Jesus Christ or the religion based on his teachings” or “treating other people in a kind and generous way” (Britannica Dictionary).
No mystery there. But when we step away from these straight-forward definitions into the realm of “historical” or “theological” definitions of Christian, new complexity begins to crop up.
Are you a ‘creedal Christian’?
For many, “Christian” isn’t defined by a belief in the words and life of Christ as reflected in the New Testament. Instead, the meaning of that word depends on particular interpretations of Biblical teachings that were determined to be “orthodox” by church councils convened in the centuries following the death of Christ.
That includes certain interpretations instantiated in the Nicene Creed from an ancient 325 AD council held in what is now modern day Turkey, which describes Jesus as “being of one substance with the Father.” Another celebrated interpretation is the Athanasian Creed from the late 5th or 6th century in southern Gaul (France) that says, in part, “we worship one God in Trinity.”
If specific ideas, like the trinitarian conception, become the standard of a “true Christian,” Latter-day Saints openly acknowledge they don’t fit the definition.
“We are not fourth century Christians, we are not Athanasian Christians, we are not creedal Christians of the brand that arose hundreds of years after Christ,” President Jeffrey R. Holland, president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, stated in a talk at Harvard University.
But as a people, Latter-day Saints do look to Jesus Christ sincerely, even if their own interpretations differ from others. Ever since Joseph Smith first reported seeing “two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air,” Latter-day Saints have attested to a Father and Son with separate and distinct physical natures.
Even so, President Holland continued, “we declare unequivocally that (the Father and Son) are one in every other conceivable way: in mind and deed and will and wish and hope and faith and purpose and intent and love.”
“They are most assuredly much more alike than they are different,” he concluded, “but they are separate and distinct beings as all fathers and sons are.”
While this certainly differs from creedal Christianity, President Holland reiterated at Harvard, and in parallel remarks at the faith’s 2007 general conference, how much Latter-day Saints see this as in harmony with the plain reading of New Testament scripture, including verses such as: “I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me,” and “My Father is greater than I.”
The debate about Christian identity goes beyond the nature of God, of course, to include other meaningful questions, such as whether the scriptural canon is open or closed, and whether priesthood authority continued unabated from Peter, or is even still needed today.
These are important conversations that diverse believers see as having literally eternal implications. And so it perhaps shouldn’t surprise us that ongoing differences on these and other questions have divided people with diverse Christian convictions for a long time.
A long history of debating ‘real Christians’
As professor Spencer Fluhman, chair of the BYU history department, wrote in a recent Deseret News commentary, the question of “who is Christian” stretches back to Christianity’s first communities: “Could non-Jews become real Christians?”
America’s tradition of religious pluralism generally discouraged attacks on religious conviction in the country’s history according to Terryl Givens, senior research fellow at BYU’s Maxwell Institute. But there were two exceptions, he tells Deseret News: anti-Catholic and anti-Latter-day Saint fervor among U.S. protestants.
Emeritus Dean of Religious Education at BYU Robert Millet notes an intensification of this ‘real Christian’ debate following darkly cynical material was published and produced attacking the Church of Jesus Christ starting in the 1960s, and then again in the 1980s.
But Givens emphasizes: “This is not a new phenomenon. It goes all the way back. We’ve been excluded from the body of Christianity from the beginning.”
President Russell M. Nelson said early in his tenure that “terms such as Mormon Church and Mormons were often used as epithets — as cruel terms, abusive terms” — highlighting how “so many of the nicknames people use for the Church, including the ‘LDS Church,’ the ‘Mormon Church,’ or the ‘Church of the Latter-day Saints,’” share one thing in common: “the absence of the Savior’s name.”
Givens also highlighted a period of months in 2000–2001 where different Christian denominations issued a string of official pronouncements, simultaneously declaring they wouldn’t accept Latter-day Saint baptisms.
What kind of Christian are you?
This divide among those looking to Christ is real and can feel impassable. The “Yes, we are! No, you’re not!” debate is also mostly exhausting, as any Latter-day Saint missionary can attest with stories about tough “Bible bashing” debates.
My companion and I were followed to our appointments by other Christians who would then visit families we had taught, telling them all sorts of scary things about us.
I’m not alone in pondering why so much hostility exists on these questions. After contributing to the fundraiser for the grieving family of the man who attacked a Latter-day Saint church, one anonymous Latter-day Saint donor wrote: “I don’t understand the anger toward my community. We are trying to follow Jesus’ teachings, but we aren’t perfect.” The donor added, “I’m hoping this small donation will help heal my sorrow of this tragedy.”
Should it really be that hard to acknowledge that two people can sincerely look to Jesus but have honest differences about who he is and what exactly he wants us to do?
Since my Brazilian mission, I’ve been inspired by the many examples of open-hearted conversations between believers focused on deeper understanding and mutual learning – including scholarly dialogues such as Craig Blomberg and Stephen Robinson’s “How Wide the Divide” (1997) and Robert Millet and Gregory Johnson’s “Bridging the Divide” (2007).
I’ve been touched by the many similar interfaith friendships witnessed among presiding leaders of our faith, from President Holland’s long friendship with the Rev. Andrew Teal over the years, to Elder Quentin L. Cook’s and Sister Emily Belle Freeman’s recent participation in a forum on faith in New York City.
Fluhman emphasizes to the Deseret News “what different kinds of Christians can learn from each other if they have the patience and dedication to build friendships strong enough to ask the hard questions and put in the work to learn from each other.”
Fluhman himself has done this for years in dialogue with other Christians, currently working on an in-depth book on “Christology” with Catholic, Anglican and Methodist colleagues.
“This goes beyond the category maintenance,” he explains, “to be able to say, for those who claim to follow Jesus, what can we learn from each other? What does your set of convictions, practices and beliefs — what questions does that inspire for me when I go back to my own tradition?”
Unity despite theological differences?
Is it possible to find unity as people looking to Christ, despite meaningful theological differences?
I’ll never forget graduating from BYU two decades ago, excited to potentially attend graduate school among others who saw faith as relevant to human psychology. When I reached out to Fuller Theological Seminary, I was told as a Latter-day Saint I couldn’t attend graduate school unless I signed something saying I agreed with the aforementioned creeds.
However crestfallen I was then, I understand more today why people feel so strongly about their convictions. Yet perhaps especially because of how dear these convictions are, reaching toward each other in friendship for deeper understanding is critical.
The Rev. Andrew Teal once described his vision as to “bring the churches of Christ — divided and dispersed and often antagonistic to one another" and more specifically “to bring … The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints together with other churches, so that we, through understanding and friendship, grow to a unity which is yet to be revealed.”
However elusive it can feel, there’s real joy in reaching for this higher unity, as I’ve learned in my own life. Pastor Wayne Wager, an Illinois pastor who befriended me during graduate school, told me once, “I’d like to believe that Jesus visited the Indians, Jacob” — admitting he’s not there. But then he added, “there’s such goodness in your people. One day, who knows, maybe God will pull off a merger between our peoples.”
Another pastor, Gary Grogan, has been one of my dearest friends and mentors for years — someone I’ve been able to confide in and seek strength from. He and my friend Jim up the road, who also attends another church, have lifted my heart over and over, in calls and notes after our daughter’s passing and in prayers together when the weight of the world feels a little too heavy.
Jim attends mission farewells in support of families, and stops the car anytime I’m out playing basketball with my boys to chat and say hello.
Like Gary and Wayne, he’s strengthened my faith and made me a better father and Christian. But in our busy and full lives, we’ve never found the energy to debate our differing theology.
“What are you writing these days,” Jim asked me this week while driving by our house. When I told him the topic, he grinned a broad smile and told me again that he loved me, while insisting he gained as much from our friendship as I did.
“Jacob, what matters most is that you and I are both in hot pursuit of Jesus Christ — and trying to be more like him a little every day.”