And now here at New York Times, "Prominent Pastor Calls Romney’s Church a Cult." (At Memeorandum.)
WASHINGTON — A Texas pastor introduced Rick Perry at a major conference of Christian conservatives here on Friday as “a genuine follower of Jesus Christ” and then walked outside and attacked Mitt Romney’s religion, calling the Mormon Church a cult and stating that Mr. Romney “is not a Christian.”Someone is making a big mistake. Attacks like this are radioactive and will end up hurting the Perry camp more so than Romney.
The comments by the pastor, Robert Jeffress of Dallas, injected a potentially explosive issue into the presidential campaign: the belief held by many evangelicals that Mormons are not Christians.
And it raised immediate suspicions that the attack might have been a way for surrogates or supporters of Mr. Perry, the Texas governor, who has stumbled in recent weeks, to gain ground by raising religious concerns about Mr. Romney. Mr. Jeffress similarly attacked Mr. Romney and his faith during the 2008 campaign.
The Perry campaign sought to put some distance between Mr. Perry and Mr. Jeffress, stating that the governor “does not believe Mormonism is a cult” and that Mr. Jeffress was chosen to speak by the organizers of the event, the Values Voter Summit, which was put on by the Family Research Council, the American Family Association and other evangelical Christian groups.
But in a statement, the Family Research Council president, Tony Perkins, said the Perry campaign had approved using Mr. Jeffress to introduce the governor. “Pastor Jeffress was suggested to us as a possible introductory speaker because he serves as pastor of one of the largest churches in Texas,” Mr. Perkins said. “We sent the request to the Perry campaign which then signed off on the request.”
Why is this so controversial? Do some research, folks. The odds are pretty high that if you're reading this and you're a member of a mainstream Christian denomination your church does not recognize Mormons as Christian.
ReplyDeleteThe Roman Catholic Church, the Lutheran Church, the Methodist Church and even the Episcopal Church do not accept baptism in the LDS as Christian baptism and do not accept Mormons as Christians. This is not some radical right-wing Evangelical Christian perspective - it's mainstream Christian belief.
Here's the Vatican's offical ruling on the matter, and here and here are details on the matter.
Ron is correct, but had this not occurred, something else would have triggered a general purpose media ignorance spasm derived their own heresy.
ReplyDeleteThe point should be the character of the candidate, which doesn't always march with the declared faith of that individual, see Slick Willie. The pastor may have reason to criticize Mr Romney on being/not being a Christian, but he should refrain from postulating such as a necessity in the political realm. There is a reason Jesus delineated a separation twixt faith and the evil politics.
Cheers