Recently, a story broke in which a Dallas pastor, who after introducing Gov. Rick Perry at a fund raiser for his presidential campaign, slammed Mitt Romney for being in a “cult” – Mormonism. Admirably enough, the official response from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was that it would not respond to comments made at a political gathering, appropriately separating religion from politics. Later, Anderson Cooper interviewed Pastor Robert Jeffress. He defended Romney and later Barack Obama on the question of their religion. The video of the interview is here. Just for disclosure, I am not an admirer of either Romney, Obama, or even Anderson Cooper.

One of the interesting statements made by Jeffress is that Mormonism is a non-biblical theological cult, but not a sociological one. In this, I can only assume that he means that Mormonism was started by a man and not of the Jim Jones variety that practices mind control and communal kool-aid parties. In the past, however, members of the Association to which Jeffress belongs have accused of Mormons of said activities, perhaps unaware that green jello, not kool-aid, is the prefered [warning: insensitive joke ahead] poison of choice. Also, the last time I checked, the denomination that he preaches for were also started by a group of guys called the English Separatists, under John Smyth, stemming from the Anabaptists. Hmm.

As for the definition of un-biblical, Baptists were part of a movement to split from the dead traditions of the Catholic church, as they saw it, and rediscover “simple Christianity.” I have always found this interesting as early Christianity certainly was never simple. Even now, trying to find something in common between the many denominations that exist is difficult, up to and including the nature of Christ. Two thousand years of “historical Christianity,” as Jeffress describes it, have not allowed us to reach consensus on a great many topics. Perhaps the most amusing part of the interview was when Jeffress describes as Christian any person who has faith in Jesus Christ as their only Lord & Savior. Mormons certainly believe this, but are denied the title of Christian by these stout defenders of the “orthodox” faith.

Fine. I know and Christ knows that I joined the community of His Saints. On religion, I do not care what Jeffress thinks of my faith. Politically, it makes him look very narrow-minded by stating that he would prefer Perry to Romney based on faith, but would vote for Romney against Obama, even after accepting Obama’s Christian-ness. If he had answered otherwise, however, it would mean that he is not just narrow-minded, but an idiot. So good for him on that score.

Update: Jonah Goldberg articulates this argument much better than I in his Oct. 12th National Review Online piece here.