On June 5, Assistant Secretary of War Sean Parnell officially released on X (Twitter) the full text of a May 20 Memo streamlining the Religious Affiliation Codes used by the military to collect religious preferences of military personnel. The official announcement comes after the Memo was first publicly reported by Military.com. The new list reduces the number of religions listed from 211 to 31. However, service members are not limited to these 31 faiths for listing on their identification tags (dog tags). The new list labelled 21 of the 31 faiths as Christian denominations. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, including Utah Senator Mike Lee, criticized the list because while LDS was listed as a religion, it was not designated as a Christian denomination. A theological debate exists over whether to classify the LDS church as Christian. On June 8, the Department of War announced on X (Twitter) that the new list of Religious Affiliation Codes had again been revised. While all the same denominations are now listed, none of them are labelled “Christian”. The X post said: “The Pentagon’s job is not to adjudicate theological debates, but instead to ensure sincerely-held faith is respected and encouraged in our ranks.”
[Thanks to Scott Mange and Thomas Rutledge for the lead.]