A Southern Baptist pastor who once called Mormonism ‘a cult,’ said Jews were ‘going to hell,’ and that Catholicism was ‘the genius of Satan’ has been picked by the Trump administration to lead the prayer for the new US embassy in Jerusalem.
Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who is himself a Mormon, is leading the chorus of criticism against 'religious bigot' Robert Jeffress, who will speak in front of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner on Monday.
In a tweet Sunday night, the former Massachusetts governor who is now running for a Senate seat from Utah criticized Jeffress for his remarks about Jews, Mormons and Islam.
Romney said, ‘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.’
The liberal group Media Matters reports on its website that Jeffress made the remarks cited by Romney in a 2011 speech at the conservative Values Voter Summit.
Jeffress responded in a tweet of his own by defending his view that ‘salvation is through faith in Christ alone.’
‘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,’ Jeffress said in the tweet.
The role of Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, a Southern Baptist megachurch, underlines the significance of the Jerusalem event as an appeal to Christian conservatives, part of President Donald Trump's base of supporters.
The outrage over Jeffress comes amidst a backlash against the Trump adminstration's embrace of an Israeli cleric who also made racist remarks about black people.
Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump received a blessing in Jerusalem on Sunday from Israel's Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, who once compared black people to monkeys.
Yosef was condemned by the Anti-Defamation League earlier this year for making the crude remarks.
During a sermon in March, the rabbi discussed how to properly say a blessing The Forward reports.
Yosef used the Hebrew word 'kushi,' which although it was used in the Bible is now considered a derogatory term for black people.
'You can't make the blessing on every 'kushi' you see — in America you see one every five minutes, so you make it only on a person with a white father and mother,' he said, according to the Times of Israel. 'How do would you know? Let's say you know! So they had a monkey as a son, a son like this, so you say the blessing on him.'
The Anti-Defamation League said that the remarks were 'utterly unacceptable', but Yosef's office defended the remarks by stating he was 'merely citing the Talmud', which is a set of Jewish laws which states that the same blessing is recited upon seeing an elephant, a monkey or an ape.
It's not the first time that Yosef has attracted criticism for his comments with a history of questionable remarks.
In the past few years he implied that secular women behave like animals because of their immodest dress and claimed 2016 that according to Jewish law, non-Jews were forbidden from living in Israel.
Kushner and Trump, who both act as senior advisers to President Trump, are in Israel as part of the American delegation celebrating the moving of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
They landed in Israel Sunday morning ahead of the US Embassy opening in the capital.
The White House advisers will attend the embassy inauguration ceremony scheduled for Monday along with other Washington delegates, including US Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan and US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.
President Trump will not be in attendance.
Both Ivanka and Jared were seen embracing Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu shortly after their arrival.
Ivanka posted several photos of her and Jared after touching down sharing a video of her waving at at camera after they landed.
'Great to join the friends of Zion for an amazing evening commemorating the dedication of the US Embassy in Jerusalem, Israel,' she wrote.
Israel launched celebrations on Sunday for the US Embassy's relocation to Jerusalem, a move whose break with world consensus was underscored by the absence of most envoys to the country from a reception hosted by Netanyahu.
Monday's slated opening of the new embassy follows Trump's recognition in December of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, a decision he said fulfilled decades of policy pledges in Washington and formalized realities on the ground.
The embassy move will take place on the 70th anniversary of Israel's founding.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
