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The Rev. Bryant Wright ... president of the 16 million-member Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest Protestant denomination.
Denis O'Hayer of WABE (90.1FM) has posted this interview with Wright. Some excerpts:
"It is a cult, in the sense that it does not adhere to what would be traditional or orthodox biblical teaching. It's really been kind of comical at the outrage of some folks when it's called a cult….... And why not just call Latter Day Saints part of a larger Christian tent?
"But the fact is, if a guy from Exxon said Apple was not in the energy business, everybody would understand what they were talking about. The only thing Apple and Exxon have in common is that they're both corporations.
"Mormon and Christianity have in common that they're two of the world's religions, but the teaching from biblical or traditional Christianity is so different – that's why it would be classified as a cult."
"They're not a part of the big tent if you look at the founders. When you look at the life of Joseph Smith, he really had more in common with Mohammad than he did with Jesus Christ. Both men saw themselves as bringing a purification to what had been distorted in Judaism and Christianity [--a heretical position, Wright later declared]….
"Both of them were polygamists and taught polygamy and practiced polygamy. There's some really radical differences. Both brought into existence new books of authority – the Book of Mormon, the Koran, versus the Bible being our authority."
