It’s been two weeks now since Russell M. Nelson, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, devoted an entire General Conference talk to the now-verboten word “Mormon,” emphasizing the importance of using the full name of the church.
This has been tried before. In fact, it was a bête noire of Nelson’s long before he assumed the religion’s top post in January.
In the April 1990 General Conference talk “Thus Shall My Church Be Called,” then-Elder Nelson made many of the same points he reiterated more forcefully at this recent conference.