An official of the Baptist Church is facing sharp criticism even from his own denomination after he contended that Muslims do not deserve to enjoy religious freedom since "Islam may be more of a geopolitical movement than a religion."

Gerald Harris, the editor of the Christian Index, the official newspaper of the Georgia Baptist Mission Board, wrote in a June 6 editorial that "while Muslims around the world and in our own country are shouting 'Death to America,' should we be defending their rights to build mosques, which often promote Sharia Law and become training grounds for radicalizing Muslims?"

He asked why the leading agencies of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) were joining other groups in defending Muslims in New Jersey who faced opposition in building a mosque, Religion News Service reports.

Harris said that even if Islam is a religion, "religious freedom for Muslims means allowing them the right to establish Islam as the state religion, subjugating infidels, even murdering those who are critics of Islam and those who oppose their brutal religion."

"Americans kept Communism in check during the Cold War, guarding our borders against those who wished to dismantle our way of life," he said. "Will we do the same when another political ideology endangers our future?"

Russell Moore, head of the SBC's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, immediately came out with a rebuttal, saying that Harris' views "would represent a direct contradiction of our confessional document and all of its predecessors."

In a column on Wednesday, Moore noted that Roger Williams, the Colonial forebear of the Baptists, "stood up for the right of an unpopular minority in early New England, the Baptists, not to christen their babies."

He said Williams "explicitly said such freedom ought to extend to 'the most paganish, Jewish, Turkish' consciences as well since we are not to extend God's kingdom by the sword of steel but by the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God."

"When we say — as Baptists and many other Christians always have — that freedom of religion applies to all people, whether Christian or not, we are not suggesting that there are many paths to God, or that truth claims are relative," Moore wrote. "We are fighting for the opposite. We are saying that religion should be free from state control because we believe that every person must give an account before the Judgment Seat of Christ."

Harris, however, refused to back down on his claims about Islam. He said though that he could still change his mind and regard Islam as deserving of religious liberty if Muslim leaders "would be willing to have a Christian church built in Mecca," the centre of the Islamic faith.

"That would be a demonstration of religious liberty, I think," he said.