A story following the event in Baptist Press, which writes about the Southern Baptist Convention, quoted three local ministers — Mike Gray, pastor of Southeast Baptist Church; Roger Russell of Holladay Baptist Church; and Tim Clark of the Utah-Idaho Baptist Convention — saying Mouw unfairly impugned their ministries and activities by making a blanket apology to Latter-day Saints.

"(Mouw) was wrong," the story quoted the Rev. Gray as saying. "He had no business. And it will hurt.

"He doesn't live here and he doesn't know what we do," the Rev. Gray said. "We haven't been ugly to our Mormon neighbors. We love them and care about them."

The article said Mouw had responded to such criticism with an e-mail to Baptist Press saying he "certainly did not mean to imply that every evangelical has sinned in this regard," Mouw wrote. "Suppose I were to address an African-American gathering and say that we whites have sinned against you blacks. Who would deny that this is a correct assessment? But who would think that I was speaking about and on behalf of all white people?"

Another Utahn troubled by Mouw's remarks, Ronald V. Huggins, assistant professor of theological and historical studies at Salt Lake Theological Seminary, posted a text of his own in response at a Web site of the Institute for Religious Research, www.irr.org/mit/authentic-dialogue.html, under a section titled, "Mormons in Transition."

Huggins said he and other faculty at the Salt Lake Theological Seminary asked Mouw in August 2004 to "avoid following the pattern he had established in writing and public events during the past few years of disparaging earlier Christian efforts to reach Mormons for Christ. Regrettably, Dr. Mouw ignored the SLTS faculty's concern."

Several faculty at Fuller Theological Seminary have met in recent years with several religion faculty at Brigham Young University to discuss topics of faith, and the seminary has hosted a couple of scholarly forums focusing on beliefs and doctrine of the LDS Church.

"Evangelicals present at the (Tabernacle) event, even some of those sitting on the stage, went away with the clear impression that Mouw was aiming his criticism at them," Huggins wrote.

While he said he agrees that some Evangelicals "have certainly been unkind to Mormons and have been guilty of inaccurately portraying Mormon beliefs," the approach "does not characterize the attitudes and actions of most evangelical churches and ministries, which is what made Mouw's blanket apology inappropriate."