A prominent Baptist minister scheduled to lead a prayer at the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem on Monday should not be doing so because he is a religious bigot who says Jews will go to hell, former Republican presidential nominee and current Senate candidate for Utah Mitt Romney said on Sunday.
In a tweet Sunday night, the former Massachusetts governor criticized Robert Jeffress, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Dallas, for his remarks about Jews, Mormons and Islam.
"Robert Jeffress says 'you can't be saved by being a Jew,' and 'Mormonism is a heresy from the pit of hell.' He's said the same about Islam. Such a religious bigot should not be giving the prayer that opens the United States Embassy in Jerusalem," Romney tweeted.
In a 2008 sermon at the First Baptist Church, Jeffress said, "Not only do religions like Mormonism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism – not only do they lead people away from God, they lead people to an eternity of separation from God in hell. … Hell is not only going to be populated by murderers, and drug dealers, and child dealers; hell is going to be filled with good religious people who have rejected the truth of Christ."
In 2011, at the Value Voters Summit, Jeffress said that the "three greatest Jews in the New Testament" – Jesus, Peter and Paul – had all said that Judaism was not the path to salvation.
"They all said Judaism won't do it, it's faith in Jesus Christ," Jeffress said then.
Jeffress has also made blatantly Islamophobic comments.
"And here is the deep, dark, dirty secret of Islam: It is a religion that promotes pedophilia," he said at his church in 2010.
And at the 2011 Value Voters Summit, he said, "Islam is wrong! It is a heresy from the pit of hell."
In response to media reports about his remarks, Jeffress tweeted, "Historic Christianity has taught for 2,000 years that salvation is through faith in Christ alone. The fact that I, along with tens of millions of evangelical Christians around the world, continue to espouse that belief, is neither bigoted nor newsworthy."
His role in Monday's ceremony underlines the significance of the event to Christian conservatives, part of U.S. President Donald Trump's base of supporters.
