The issue on religious freedom and Muslims in the United States has stirred much debate and division among politicians. This division, however, has also affected even some Christian denominations, including the Southern Baptist Convention.
During an annual meeting in St. Louis last week, John Wofford of Armorel Baptist Church in Blytheville put forward a motion for the removal from office of all Southern Baptist leaders who supported Muslims' rights to build mosques in the US.
To defend his motion, Wofford said believers of Islam should not be allowed to put up their places of worship "when these people threaten our very way of existence as Christians and Americans."
"They (Muslims) are murdering Christians, beheading Christians, imprisoning Christians all over the world," Wofford said, as quoted by Religion News.
Russell Moore, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, however rejected Wofford's motion and defended the religious freedom of Muslims.
"The answer to Islam is not government power," Moore said. "The answer is the gospel of Jesus Christ and the new birth that comes from that."
Moore, who was among the Southern Baptist leaders who joined a legal document supporting a New Jersey group's fight to build a mosque, added that suppressing religious freedom of Muslims may have an effect on their congregation too.
"What it means to be a Baptist is to support soul freedom for everybody," he said. "And, brothers and sisters, when you have a government that says we can decide whether or not a house of worship can be constructed based upon the theological beliefs of that house of worship, then there are going to be Southern Baptist churches in San Francisco and New York and throughout this country who are not going to be able to build."
