In a class at church one of the fellow parishioners mentioned this August 20th show by Albert Mohler where he discusses the official doctrinal change of the Mormon Church. MORMONISM RESEARCH MINISTRY (MRM) notes the difficulty in the change:
….The next morning’s edition of the Deseret News, a daily paper owned by this religious organization, made an interesting point in the front page article with the banner headline reading “A Seismic Shift from Salt Lake City.” It reads:
- The announcement and style guide raised questions about the future of the names of famous church institutions like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, LDS Business College and the Mormon Channel…. What will happen to the names of mormon.org, LDS Charities, Mormon Messages, the “Meet the Mormons” movies or LDS Philanthropies? (August 17, 2018, A1).
The journalist reported that church leaders “declined to comment on specifics, pointing to its statement, which added, ‘In the coming months, Church websites and materials will be updated to reflect this direction from President Nelson.’”
As of August 29, 2018, the church’s two main websites (lds.org and mormon.org) as well as “mormonnewsroom.org” have not had their domains changed, an obvious contradiction to the edict. (One would have thought the leaders would have made these format changes before making the big announcement.) At this time, the choir’s name is the same as well as the college and TV channel. Apparently, though, changes will be coming soon. It seems strange that the church would mess with such a recognizable brand name (“Mormon”) that is obviously more familiar to outsiders than the church’s official title. (Can anyone imagine a prospective convert searching on the Internet for “missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?” Obviously, not.) Could the leaders have made a terrible mistake similar to what the Coca-Cola leadership did in the mid-1980s when it created “New Coke” and abandoned the traditional formula? The similarities are very similar……