Baptist preacher says Book of Mormon was written by the Devil

A Baptist preacher from South Carolina

emphasizes the difficulty Mitt Romney

will experience in the south

he says Book of Mormon is the Devil’s book

Pastor Stan Craig, a fundamentalist Baptist preacher in Greenville, South Carolina, apparently does not like the idea of a female president.

Yet he hesitated when he was asked recently to make a hypothetical choice between Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

“I probably would cast my vote for Michele,” Craig said.

His thinking: Romney is Mormon. Mormons, in Craig’s view, are not Christian.

“The devil wrote only one Bible,” Craig said, “and Joseph Smith found it under a rock.”

So as Romney and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. start to think about advancing their campaigns in the southern states, the inevitable question comes up: Will their religion deter voters, particularly conservative evangelicals who form a key voting bloc of the Republican primary base?

The Book of Mormon, translated from golden plates that Joseph Smith said he found by divine guidance on a hill in upstate New York, is the foundation for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Mormons consider the book another gospel of Christ. Many conservative evangelicals consider it incompatible with the Bible, and Mormonism a “false religion.”

This charming Pastor preaches at the Choice Hills Baptist Church in South Carolina. An example of the rhetoric of Stan Craig below: