The Danger and Dysfunction of the Pentagon’s Religions List
In a purported effort to simplify and clarify the work of its chaplain corps, the U. S. Department of Defense on May 20, 2026 issued a memo[1] reducing the number of religious classifications recognized by the U. S. military from 211 to 31. So, will the Pentagon now refuse to recognize as actual religions the 180 religions that are no longer specifically identified on its list? Or will it simply include them in its catch-all category “Other religions (OR)”? If the latter, then it seems a bit disrespectful but maybe not seriously problematic. If the former, then I find the decision to be seriously problematic. What makes our government competent to or even justified in deciding what a real religion is? But as we’ll see below, that is the real problem with this whole project and the Trump government’s approach to religion.
Scarcely an hour after I began writing this piece, I came across a news article that reported that the Pentagon had revised its list. It’s clear that the reason for the revision was an aspect of the Pentagon’s new categorization system that had been drawing a lot of heat. The system labeled twenty-one religions as “Christian” with a further subcategory added. For example, the original list included such labels as “Christian—Assemblies of God (AG)” and “Christian—Lutheran (LU)” and “Christian—Non Denominational (ND)” and so on. My first impression of the list of sub-categories of Christian religious groups is that it was, at best, quirky. It’s the kind of list you would expect from someone who didn’t know much of anything about Christian theology and church history.
The list distinguished between “Presbyterian Christians” and “Reformed Christian” even though all Presbyterian pastors consider themselves to be part of the “Reformed tradition.” Episcopalians and Anglicans are lumped together under one category despite the fact that in America the two groups have been engaged in an often acrimonious separation for the past couple of decades. Then there is the category “Christian—Evangelical.” Who is this group supposed to include? Most Baptists in America consider themselves to be Evangelicals. So do all Anglicans, many Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, and all members of the Assemblies of God. So, if, for example, you’re an Evangelical Baptist, Presbyterian, or Methodist, which category are you supposed to be part of?
The real weirdness comes with the way Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Christian Scientists were categorized. The Church of Latter Day Saints was given a standalone listing. It was not placed under the broader category of “Christian” religions. That fact generated a lot of heated pushback from Mormons. I can understand why Mormons might be offended that they are excluded from the list of “Christian” religions, while Jehovah’s Witnesses and Christian Scientists were included as “Christian” religions.
Now, there is a theological and church history case that can be made for why Mormonism should not be classified as “Christian.” The problem with the Pentagon’s list is that the same case can be made against including the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Christian Scientists under the classification of “Christian.” The argument is that all three—Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Christian Scientists—reject the doctrines of the Trinity and the deity of Christ. For some 1,700 years, Christian churches have held a firm line that any theology that does not affirm the doctrine of the Triune nature of God and the doctrine that Jesus Christ is God incarnate is not Christian theology.
I think the case can be made and has been made for more than a millennium and a half that if you take away the belief that Jesus Christ is God incarnate, then all Christian theology collapses in a heap. It is the cornerstone, the lynch pin. Without it, everything that Christians claim to believe falls apart. Said the other way around, any theology that you try to build without the doctrine that Jesus Christ is God will always be something other than classic, historic Christian theology. Neither Mormon theology nor Jehovah’s Witness theology nor Christian Science theology includes the belief that Jesus Christ is God. Therefore, from a theological perspective, none of them is Christian theology.
These kinds of statements tend to be very irritating to Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses and possibly also to adherents to the Christian Science church, though they are so rare these days that I’m not certain I’ve ever met one, much less talked theology with them. Now, on the one hand, I’m not sure why Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses care what I and other Trinitarian Christians think about all this. What difference does it make to them whether I consider their theology to be Christian? I certainly don’t care much about the fact that Mormons think I’m profoundly deceived in my beliefs about Jesus and am outside salvation.
A few weeks ago, a couple of Jehovah’s Witnesses came to my door and tried to convince me that I was wrong to believe that Jesus Christ is God. I’m sure they’re convinced that I’m some sort of heretic or idolator and that I’m headed for hell. Just the same, our conversation, though a little uncomfortable at points, was entirely civil. We parted on cordial terms. I consider them my neighbors, and I don’t in any way wish them ill. I had no reason to believe they didn’t feel the same toward me. But I don’t believe they are Christians.
Here’s something I do believe about the matter of whether Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Christian Scientists are Christians: the government of the United States has absolutely no business weighing in on the question. As soon as the U. S. government or any of its entities begins to presume to decide what is and what is not truly Christian, at that point, all Christians of all sorts have a knife to their throats, and none of us will be safe from government interference and government pressure.
When a government determines that it can and should decide what is true Christianity and what is not, all Christians potentially become at risk of government coercion. That’s how Hitler’s Nazi government operated. Those pastors and theologians who accepted and supported the Nazi project were allowed to preach and teach, were celebrated by the Nazi government, and were given high government positions. Those pastors and theologians who rejected and resisted the Nazi project ended up in prison or deported or dead—think Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Niemoller, Karl Barth, among many others.
“But,” you might be thinking, “that sort of thing could never happen in America.” Well, maybe not. We’ll see. But there are clear hints of it. The current Trump government welcomes supportive preachers into the halls of government, gives them open access to the White House, places some in official positions, and encourages right-wing, that is “acceptable,” Christian leaders such as Franklin Graham, Doug Wilson, and Paula White to speak out on political issues. But when “unacceptable” Christian leaders such as Pope Leo, American Catholic bishops, Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde, and Beth Moore speak out in opposition to the actions of the Trump government, they are told by government spokespersons to stick to religion and stay out of politics. They’re told by such people as the vice president of the United States that he knows theology better than they do. At the National Prayer Breakfast in February of this year, Donald Trump “joked” about maybe revoking the tax-exempt status of religious organizations that say bad things about him.[2] Maybe he really was just joking, but if so, it was a very dangerous sort of joke. Again, I suppose we’ll see.
In any case, apparently, the Pentagon realized that deciding what is and what isn’t true Christianity was not something they in the government should be doing. Or maybe they simply realized that they had offended the wrong religious group, one that has tended to be more friendly to the Trump government’s agenda, and so they decided to backtrack on the decision. What if the Pentagon list had instead decided that the generally left-leaning Episcopal Church or the very left-leaning United Church of Christ should not be included among truly “Christian” churches in their official list? Would the Trump Defense Department have cared about the complaints of those “libs”? Would the Pentagon have backed down and changed its list? Who knows?
What is certain is that all Christians should be very wary of any government that attempts to decide what constitutes true Christianity. As soon as it does, all Christians are in trouble.
© Gary A. Chorpenning 2026
Appendix:
I reproduce here the original Pentagon list from before the revision in the event that it might be hard to find now that the Pentagon has revised it. I took the list from the site in footnote #1 above.
- Agnostic (AN)
- Baha’i faith (BH)
- Buddhism (BU)
- Christian – Assemblies of God (AG)
- Christian – Baptist (BA)
- Christian – Brethren (BR)
- Christian – Catholic (CA)
- Christian – Church of Christ (CC)
- Christian – Church of God (CG)
- Christian – Church of the Nazarene (CN)
- Christian – Episcopal/Anglican (EA)
- Christian – Evangelical (EV)
- Christian – Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW)
- Christian – Lutheran (LU)
- Christian – Methodist (ME)
- Christian – Non Denominational (ND)
- Christian – Orthodox (OX)
- Christian – Other (CO)
- Christian – Pentecostal (PE)
- Christian – Presbyterian (PR)
- Christian – Quaker (QU)
- Christian – Reformed (RE)
- Christian – Scientist (SC)
- Christian – Seventh Day Adventist (SA)
- Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (CJ)
- Hindu (HI)
- Islam (Muslim) (IS)
- Judaism (Jewish) (JU)
- No Religion (NR)
- Other Religions (OR)
- Sikh (SI)
[1] DOD Officially Drops 180 Faiths From Military’s Recognized Religion List accessed 6/9/2026.
[2] WATCH: Trump says he will revoke church tax exempt status if leaders ‘say something bad about’ him | PBS News accessed 6/10/2026.
Related posts:
Pastor Note #93: Religious Liberty, Privileged Christianity, and the Art of the Deal
Pastor Note #129: How Would Christian Nationalist Government Work?
Pastor Note #114: Michael Flynn and One National Religion
Pastor Note #70: True National Greatness
Pastor Note #112: America in Theological Perspective–a July 4th Sermon
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