I would answer this as such: I think labels play an important role in our society. If we can label something as "different than me", for example, than it is only a small step towards saying "unimportant", or even "bad". These types of concepts are evident in recent wars. You can see that in ethnic labels in particular: "kraut", "slant-eyes", "spic", "nigger", etc. I can imagine this played a role in the Crusades as well: "heathen", etc.

If instead, you try to look for similar labels, much more good can be done: I believe the term "American" (coined by Benjamin Franklin, I believe) for those of us in the USA, for example, has gone a long way to unifying country largely made up of immigrants.

Also, take a look at the effect of these two statements: (1) "There are 1,000,000 Ethiopians starving." (2) There are 1,000,000 people starving in Ethiopia. The first I would say, tends to say "it's not my problem", the second says "it is my problem, because I'm a 'people' too".

That's one reason why I will always protest when someone classifies me as "non-Christian".

Besides, some of my personal feelings is that it is intellectually dishonest to call Mormons other than Christian. I've never seen a good explanation (and I've seen many!!) of why people would classify me, who believes that Jesus Christ is my Savior, as a non-Christian.

John