Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY -- A Dallas pastor's weekend comments have pushed talk about Mitt Romney's LDS faith back into the spotlight.
Pastor Robert Jeffress of the First Baptist Church of Dallas is defending his Friday statements. He told reporters after introducing Texas governor and GOP hopeful Rick Perry at a forum of the annual Values Voters Summit that Romney was "not a Christian."
Jeffress, who made similar comments in 2008, also told reporters that Mormonism is a "cult."
Perry said Friday that he did not agree that Mormonism is a cult; on Saturday, he declined to discuss the matter further or to denounce Jeffress' statement.
On Sunday talk shows, most of the other GOP rivals distanced themselves from the controversy. Michelle Bachmann and Herman Cain declined to answer questions about Romney's faith but said religion is a non-issue.
"He's a Mormon, that much I know," Cain said. "I am not going to do an analysis of Mormonism versus Christianity for the sake of answering that."
Bachmann called the issue a distraction.
"I think what the real focus is here, is on religious tolerance. That's really what this is about," Bachmann said. "To make this a big issue is ridiculous right now, because every day I'm on the street talking to people. This is not what people are talking about."
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum was more direct, saying that he didn't consider Mormonism a cult. "I'm not an expert on Mormonism. All I know is that every Mormon I know is a good and decent person, has great moral values," Santorum said.
More reaction
- On Saturday, Rev. Myke Crowder, senior pastor of the Christian Life Center in Layton, Utah, and spokesman for the National Clergy Council, released a statement condemning Jeffress' words. It called his comments "unhelpful, impolite, and out of place."
- Richard J. Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary in California, wrote in a CNN blog that he "begs to differ" with those evangelicals who call the LDS religion a cult.
- In The American Conservative, Rod Dreher called it "patently absurd to claim that Mormons don't love Jesus Christ, or are, because of their religion, to be treated with suspicion."
- A poll of pastors released Saturday afternoon says three out of four pastors agree that Mormons are not Christians. The poll, which was part of a larger survey of 1,000 pastors conducted by Nashville-based Lifeway Research a year ago, was originally scheduled to be released in the coming weeks. It was released early because reporters requested data following the weekend remarks.
Event organizers called the pastor's use of the word cult ["unfortunate"](<http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2011/10/09/perkins-calls-jeffress-cult-comment >) and said the summit's purpose is not to discuss theological matters, but rather to unite faith-based voters. Romney didn't address the comments directly. He talked about another speaker who attacked gays and Muslims. He called it "poisonous language" that hurts conservatives.
----
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
