LAS VEGAS (AP) - The longtime pastor of U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle denounced Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's faith, calling the Mormon Church a cult that pretends to embrace Christianity.
Sonrise Church Pastor John Reed told The Associated Press on Thursday that the Nevada Democrat has devoted his political career to advancing the business and religious interests of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
"His allegiance is to Salt Lake City," Reed said. "It should be to the American people."
Reed said the Mormon Church is a cult because it has a robust real estate portfolio, swears its members to secrecy and pretends to be Christian, but does not accept Jesus Christ as its one savior. The Reno News & Review first reported the pastor's anti-Mormon stance in a story about Angle's faith.
"The classic definition of a cult for Christians is a religion that claims to be Christian but is not," Reed told the AP. "They have other books besides the Bible. A cult will also have another leader besides Jesus, so the Mormons have Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. What I am saying is what most Christians believe and know."
Angle's campaign quickly distanced themselves from Reed on Thursday.
"As a Christian, Sharron shares the same values with other active Christians, including those of the Latter Day Saints community. Sharron has the utmost respect for followers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and she strongly disavows any disparaging remarks against them," spokesman Jarrod Agen said. "Sharron has not been a member of this other church for over six years, and her former pastor in no way speaks for Sharron. Sharron believes that all citizens have a right to worship freely and practice their faith without persecution, discrimination and ridicule."
But Reed said Angle sang in a contemporary Christian band and taught Sunday school for more than a decade at his Reno church until her husband urged her to switch to a different house of worship earlier this year where he could hold a more prominent volunteer position.
"She asked if she could come back and visit," Reed said. "She was very sad to leave us."
Angle, a former state representative, listed Sonrise as her church on her official state profile. The Sonrise website notes the church is "a blend of various Christians from all denominations who emphasize Jesus first."
The pastor's comments are striking not only because Angle has branded her Christian faith as an asset in a tight race against Reid, a Mormon who rarely evokes his faith, but also because roughly 7 percent of Nevadans are Mormon.
Reid's campaign said they would not accept a "canned non-responsive statement" and demanded that Angle directly respond to her former pastor's comments.
"These disturbing and hateful expressions of extreme religious bigotry from Sharron Angle's spiritual adviser should alarm any Nevadan that believes in religious freedom and the separation of church and state," said Reid campaign spokesman Kelly Steele.
Joseph Smith founded the Mormon church in 1830. With about 5.7 million members in the United States, it is the nation's fourth-largest faith.
Many evangelicals say Mormon doctrine is outside mainstream Christian faith. Mormons believe God has a female partner and that the afterlife consists of a three-level heavenly kingdom. They wear religious undergarments that some say possess protective powers and bar non-Mormons from entering their temples.
Mormons also disavow the Trinity - the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit as one - instead believing the three to be individuals united in a single purpose.
Angle's former pastor said Reid must explain his "weird" faith to voters.
"Why doesn't somebody go up to Harry Reid and say, 'tell me about your special garments that protect you from evil?' That is cultish," Reed said. "They make them take a special oath that they should never reveal the secrets of the Mormon church, that you should never reveal what goes on in the temple. So, it is all very cultish."
Of Angle, Reed said, "she's Snow White. There's no dirt."