Subscribe Feed (RSS)Mormon or LDS?
February 9th, 2007 by Richard K Miller | Filed under Ideas, Mormon, The Church.If you're new here, read more about the More Good Foundation. We help members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormon church) share their beliefs on the Internet. Learn more about what Mormons believe or talk with Mormons at LDS.net.
This morning I received an email about one of our sites, referring me to the Church’s style guide:
I was surprised to find numerous references to “the Mormon Church” on your website, seeing as the Church discourages the use of that term.
This is a fair question. Why wouldn’t we more closely follow the Church’s media style guide in referring to the Church?
We see it like the story of Ammon with King Lamoni. The missionary Ammon asked King Lamoni if he believed in God. When Lamoni didn’t understand, Ammon changed his vocabulary to “Great Spirit,” a term that he would understand.
24 And Ammon began to speak unto him with boldness, and said unto him: Believest thou that there is a God?
25 And he answered, and said unto him: I do not know what that meaneth.
26 And then Ammon said: Believest thou that there is a Great Spirit?
27 And he said, Yea.
28 And Ammon said: This is God. …
Alma 18:24-28
If the King Lamonis of today are typing “Great Spirit” into Google, we need to create websites and blog posts that mention the “Great Spirit”. Later we can explain that “this is God.”
Instead of requiring the handcart companies to arrive in the Salt Lake valley alone, Brigham Young said “go and bring in those people now on the plains.”
For an interesting comparison, search “Mormon church” and “LDS church” on Google. You’re certain to get better results for “LDS church”, but Overture stats suggest that “Mormon church” is searched almost 3 times more than “LDS church”. Are we doing what we can to “bring in those people”?
Interesting point, I’d never really thought of that reason before. Makes perfect sense.
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while this is true, the term saints out-performed both lds and mormon, thanks to the NFL…
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I’m pleased to see this realistic approach and response from Church communications staff.
Although I fully understand the reasoning behind the current guidelines, I think the better battle to win would be if we could get reporters to the very least use the full name of the Church on first reference and then use LDS Church in the rest of the article (rather than the Church of Jesus Christ). Or in other words at the minimum get them to use AP style. And if editors and copy editors cut the first reference down, at least it would be nice if they would cut it down to LDS Church.
I only pitched one LDS-related story during my time as a ward public affairs representative. I didn’t have as much contact with the reporter as I would have liked, but if I recall correctly the copy editor on the piece (it appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle) used Mormon Church instead of LDS Church.
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I understand the reference to Ammon and King Lamoni about communicating to people in terms they identify with. But surely there could be a mention of the official name of the Church at least once on the homepage of http://www.mormon-polygamy.org
In this instance the domain name itself will lead itself to high ranking searches. Then once they find the site yours is the opportunity is to “assist others in understanding”
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@William Morris
I agree that it would be ideal to use the full name of the Church in first references, then to use “LDS Church”. I also think “commonly known as the Mormon Church” would be helpful as well. Usage in the media may be a different issue from the usage on the Internet, but as those converge it will be increasingly important to use the language that the people are using.
@Steve
You’re right, the mormon-polygamy.org site probably ought to use the full name of the Church at least once. Good article link.
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While I can understand your approach, I would still like to see a bit more use of the full name of the Church along with the “Lamoni-friendly-ish” use of “Mormon.” I don’t think it’s necessary to swing as far as I feel you have here in trying to reach out to those unfamiliar with us. The use of the name of the Church teaches something significant about who we are and can help dispel misconceptions that we somehow worship Mormon or aren’t Christian. I’d like to see a balance, and what I have seen doesn’t have much of that balance.
Thank you for what you are trying to do here, though!
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[...] The page goes on to explain that “Jew” is often used in an anti-Semitic context, while Jewish organization are more likely to use the term “Jewish,” so search results for the former are generally more negative than search results for the latter. Sound familiar? [...]
[...] Mormon or LDS? If the King Lamonis of today are typing “Great Spirit” into Google, we need to create [...]
[...] His explanations use terminology that persons of other faith will understand. [...]