on (re)claiming the name Mormon

Over the weekend, Nancy Ross published an interview with Kerry Pray about her new book The Book of Queer Mormon Joy on the Exponent II blog. One thing that stood out to me about the interview is the way that Pray’s feelings about the word “Mormon” echo my own:

“Ex-Mormon” never felt quite right because you don’t actually stop feeling Mormon when you have been one your entire life! It’s your culture and your heritage and where you come from. I tried post-Mormon for a while. But after Nelson made “Mormon” a forbidden word it got a whole lot easier because Mormon no longer necessarily referred to membership in the institutional church, which I no longer consider myself a part of.

In fact, there’s a similar footnote in a manuscript I’m currently putting together for submission, where my co-author and I specifically explain the different ways we use the terms “Latter-day Saint” and “Mormon” in the article:

Latter-day Saints have long had an ambivalent relationship with the nickname “Mormon,” and in 2018, their church began distancing itself from the term with unprecedented insistence. Out of respect, we refer to official church institutions, leaders, members, or teachings with the preferred adjective “Latter-day Saint.” However, if the nickname is no longer an officially embraced term, that makes it all the more useful for drawing attention to cultural beliefs and grassroots movements that are not necessarily approved of by church leadership; as Bunt (2018) notes, some religious views expressed online are undeniably tied to a particular religion even if not universally (or, we might add, officially) held within that religion. We therefore continue to use the terms “Mormon” and “Mormonism” when describing the more nebulous religious culture and history that surround official church structure and teachings.

Even independent of the Christian symbolism in the name (which I think is tragically overlooked), I think I’ll always think of myself as a “Mormon.” I agree with Pray that Russell Nelson gave many of us a gift in his denouncing of the term—so long as the word remains verboten in official circles, it neatly captures historical and cultural connections to the faith while also communicating a separation from official teachings.

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