There's A Growing Christian Divide Inside MAGA — And Pete Hegseth Just Exposed It

On Friday, the Pentagon released an updated, simplified list of religious "codes" that military chaplains could draw on when providing services to service members.

While denominations like Lutheran, Baptist and Presbyterian were categorized as "Christian," one group was notably excluded from that designation: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

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MAGA Republicans who are Mormon were furious at the omission, most notably President Donald Trump ally Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah).

"I find this offensive, not just because that happens to be my faith, not just because it happens to the faith of tens of thousands of U.S. military personnel, but it's also just repugnant to any sense of decency, any sense of our common heritage and our common belief that the government needs to not weigh in on doctrinal disputes between various religious denominations," Lee said in a video posted to X before directly addressing Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. 

"I'm imploring people at the Pentagon to reconsider this, not just reconsider it but undo it," he said. "Secretary Hegseth, tear down that wall. This is not cool. Get rid of it. Get rid of it now!"

Lee said he raised the issue directly with President Trump, and by Monday, the Pentagon had released a revised list, saying the "mistake has been fixed." Interestingly, though, instead of affixing "Christian" to the Mormon faith, the agency removed the "Christian" label from all other denominations. 

Mormon scholars told HuffPost they weren't surprised by the initial oversight. 

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"This seemed inevitable once evangelicals took control of the Department of Defense and immediately began to reconfigure policies based on their religious beliefs," said Loyd Isao Ericson, managing editor of Greg Kofford Books, an independent publisher focused on the scholarly study of Mormonism.

In a March video previewing the changes, Hegseth said the changes were part of the Trump administration's broader effort to combat "secular humanism" and elevate religion's role in public life.

Hegseth argued that streamlining the list — including removing identities the Pentagon deemed objectionable, like Deist and Wiccan — would make it easier to assign chaplains to military units.

Because the reclassification was driven by such ideological considerations, the failure to identify Mormons as Christian felt like a slight to the Mormons we spoke to — though not an entirely surprising one.

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"For decades, and especially in the later 20th century, American evangelicals have pushed their 'Mormons aren't Christian' agenda due to some significant theological differences between Mormonism and traditional Christianity," Ericson told HuffPost.

Because of their roots in evangelicalism, the religious right and MAGA leaders have viewed Latter-day Saints as "useful idiots for political gain, knowing well that Mormons are heavily unwavering Republicans," Ericson said. 

And until recently, the political arm of the religious right has circumvented any outward judgment to maintain that reliable Mormon Republican vote.

While the Republican senators who objected to the omission appeared content with the Pentagon's correction, the episode exposes a growing fault line within the religious right coalition: For Mormons, it's a reminder that not all Christians are equal in the party. 

Mormons have been 'othered' by Republicans and the Christian right from the start.

Mormons are one of the most heavily Republican-leaning religious groups in the U.S., but the relationship between the party and Mormon believers was fraught from the beginning. 

The 1856 Republican platform famously condemned slavery and Mormon polygamy as the "twin relics of barbarism," placing the Latter-day Saint practice of plural marriage alongside slavery as institutions that should be eradicated, said Cheryl L. Bruno, a historian and founder of the Journal of Mormon Polygamy.

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"While the issue was polygamy rather than Christianity per se, it demonstrates that many Americans viewed Mormonism as fundamentally outside the moral and religious mainstream," Bruno said. 

The current sidelining of Mormons from the Christian right began during the counter-cult movement of the mid-to-late 20th century, where evangelicals labeled certain denominations ― including the LDS church ― as "non-Christian cult" to protect traditional beliefs and reinforce the boundaries of evangelical Christianity.

"The primary reasons for this have been the Latter-day Saint beliefs in extra-biblical scripture, especially the Book of Mormon, the rejection of the traditional doctrine of the Trinity, the belief that participating in LDS temple rites is essential for ultimate salvation," Ericson said. 

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Mormons' views on the Trinity were particularly bothersome to evangelicals, said Matthew Bowman, a professor of history and religion at Claremont Graduate University, 

"Most western Christian churches subscribe to a series of creeds enunciated by several councils held in the 300s and 400s AD that state that God is a being of spirit, and that Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are in some mystical way eternally consubstantial with God," he explained. "That means they share the same nature, essence or substance."

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The LDS church rejects this theology, claiming instead that God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit are three distinct beings united in purpose. The LDS church also teaches that God the Father has a body, Bowman explained.

To Christians who subscribe to the creeds, these differences are glaring.

"Some of these differences were papered over in the late 20th century as all of these religious movements found common cause in opposing the ****** revolution and second wave feminism," Bowman said.

The old questions about Mormonism's place within Christianity resurfaced with new force when Mitt Romney won the Republican nomination in 2012.

It was evident in the words of outspoken and influential Baptist pastor Robert Jeffress, who argued that while Romney was a "good moral person" he is "not a Christian" because "Mormonism is not Christianity" but a "cult." (When Romney became the Republican nominee, Jeffress, now a key Trump ally, endorsed him.) 

Because many evangelical voters remained uncomfortable with Mormonism, Romney felt compelled to deliver his famous "Faith in America" speech, Bruno said. In the speech, Romney pledged that if elected, he would serve "no one religion, no one group, no one cause." 

Romney eventually lost to Democrat (and Christian Protestant) Barack Obama. Pew Research documented widespread concern among evangelical voters about Romney's faith and noted that his religion became one of the central religious stories of the campaign. Surveys at the time found that roughly one-quarter of Americans said they would be unwilling to vote for a Mormon president.

Mormons have a complicated relationship with President Trump.

While evangelicals may view Mormons with suspicion, that wariness runs both ways, Bowman said: Many evangelical leaders threw their weight behind Trump's first bid for the presidency in 2016, calculating that supporting a winner would enable them to wield power, but LDS followers supported Trump in much lower numbers.

According to Ericson, the top leadership of the LDS Church is unhappy with the MAGA movement and its total takeover of the religious right, but chose to remain quiet about it because Trump is useful in some key ways.

"Most notably, they see their highest priority to be 'protecting' the notion of a traditional family led by heterosexual parents, and so whatever negatives they might view of the MAGA movement, many in leadership likely see the MAGA-led GOP as incredibly important to that cause," he said. 

One of the few areas where church leaders have taken positions that could be seen as opposing MAGA is immigration. While some leaders may be motivated by empathy and compassion, Ericson said that the church's stance is also influenced by the large number of Latinos and undocumented immigrants within its membership, which saw a decline for the first time ever in the U.S. this year.

Despite efforts by Latter-day Saints to place greater emphasis on Jesus Christ in their messaging, branding and imagery — as well as their alignment with many conservative Christian political causes — Ericson said that the reality is that most evangelicals do not consider the LDS Church to be Christian. Aside from a relatively small share of more moderate or liberal evangelicals, that view is unlikely to change.

The rising public skepticism of MAGA-aligned Christian nationalism could ultimately work in Mormons' favor, if they embrace it.

"With the Christian far-right now increasingly defining what Christianity is in America, the LDS Church has the opportunity to provide a counter example of what Christianity should be by emphasizing teachings of the Book of Mormon, such as compassion for the poor and immigrants, critiques of wealth disparity, service, empathy."

Still, he said, "it's more likely that the church will instead simply shift ever more to the right in a doomed effort to be accepted by the religious right."

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