Saints

There was a recent controversy where the Department of War reduced the number of recognized religions from hundreds down to 31, giving certain religions a "Christian" designation, excluding LDS from that definition of Christianity. As an LDS who grew up with various so-called Christians attacking my beliefs, I have come to recognize the ideological inferiority of Protestantism to LDS, by way of frequent comparison. Beyond this I have become uncomfortable with being accused of being in the same religion as other people who attack my religion. As an LDS, I am uncomfortable being labeled "Christian," because I an not one of THOSE jerks. 

I respect and enjoy studying with numerous non-protestant Christians such as Unity Church, Eastern Orthodox, etc. We have our disagreements, but we do not attack each other's faith. We often learn more about Jesus by discussing our ideological differences. But Protestants (root word Protest) since the 1980's seem to be uniquely hostile towards other faith traditions, and this does not seem "Christlike" to anyone who isn't a Protestant; their behavior reveals their hand of being distinctly distant from Jesus.

Protestants are insecure in their beliefs because they have written off divine authority all together. They want the scriptures to be true independently of weather or not the people who wrote those scriptures were called by God to write them. However for those scriptures to be God's word, they must be written by people called of God, and it then raises the question, where is your God's word being revealed today?

Unity Church says everyone needs to embrace God's spirit for continued revelation. Eastern Orthodox has authority to interpret scripture tracing back historically to Jesus. LDS claim a restoration of the authority Easter Orthodox claim to have, and otherwise agree with Unity Church. Protestants? Nope, they excuse themselves from direct connection with God, abdicating responsibility to words written thousands of years ago by people who knew a lot less about the world than we do.

The reason why LDS want to be called Christians is because we like truth, which means we like words to be used properly. Beyond this we have a responsibility to proclaim Jesus's message, so if we stand by and let other people say we are not Christians, then that could be a failure to spread Jesus's word effectively. Many LDS like to think of our religion as "The Church of the Prophets of Latter-Day Christians."

But the name of our religion is "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints."  Saints are MORE than Christians, they are personal associates of Jesus Christ. As the Book of Mormon says (Mosiah 5:7) "And now, because of the covenant which ye have made ye shall be called the children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters; for behold, this day he hath spiritually begotten you; for ye say that your hearts are changed through faith on his name; therefore, ye are born of him and have become his sons and his daughters."

Jesus made it clear what he wanted LDS people to be called, and he did not say "Christians." In Doctrine & Covenants 115:4, "For thus shall my church be called in the last days, even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." The word Jesus had for us is "Saints."

In the Bible, the word Christian is used by people outside Jesus's religion to describe people inside of Jesus's religion. Internally people within Jesus's religion called each other Saints (Romans 1:7, Ephesians 1:1, Philippians 1:1.) LDS believe we are practicing primitive Christianity from before the martyrdom of the Apostles. In primitive Christianity they did not call themselves "Christians" so much as they called themselves "Saints."

As Saints we understand Jesus is bigger than The Bible. The word Christians is used in The Book of Mormon, BUT according to that same book, those Christians were eventually corrupted and destroyed. As LDS, Jesus is asking us to be better than the "Christians" in The Book of Mormon, he's asking us to be Saints.