Are we still Latter-Day Saints?

[Dusty52]

The new URL doesn't include "Latter Day Saints", does that mean that the church is distancing themselves from the term as its doing with the word "Mormon"?

[Robin Hood]

Interesting point.
At one time there were two church centres, Kirtland and Independence. In one of the them the church went by "The Church of Jesus Christ" and in the other "The Church of the Latter Day Saints".
When they came together the name "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" was adopted by revelation.

Note that it isn't simply the church that belongs to Jesus Christ. The name suggests a joint venture because it is also "of" the Latter Day Saints, ie. "of" Jesus Christ and "of" the Latter Day Saints. So it is both His church and our church. This point is often overlooked.

The Strangites took the name so Bro. Brigham added the British hyphen (-) and subsequently dropped the capital "D" is favour of the lower case "d", in order to differentiate the two. So we became "Latter-day Saints".

With the emphasis now on the "Church of Jesus Christ", are we witnessing a more profound change to the nature of the church? Is it no longer a joint venture?

[Dusty52]

Valuable insight
Thanks for post

[Durzan]

An interesting question dusty.

Yes, we are still Latter-day Saints or LDS, because we live in the latter days before Christ's second coming. Thats what that half of the church's name means.

[Thinker]

There are so many churches with similar names as “The Church of Jesus Christ”... “the 2016 Directory of the Ministry documents some 5000 congregations in the USA and Canada; some estimate the number to be over 6,000.” You’d think that our church would want to keep it distinguished by keeping the last part, “of latter day saints.”

Latter-day-saint suggests something contrary to what Christ taught in Luke 17:20-21...

• “And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.”

Also, maybe due to the internet and people becoming more aware, more are realizing that “heaven’s reward fallacy” is a cognitive distortion.

[gkearney]

The term Latter Day Saints refers to all groups that have their origins in the restoration.

Latter-day Saints refers to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Note the use of the British hyphen and the lower case “day”