Washington -- Liberty University reacted over the weekend to a brewing controversy over the fact that the evangelical school has selected Mitt Romney, a Mormon, to speak at the school's graduation.
In a statement from Chancellor Jerry Falwell, Jr., the school says that the complaints have significantly died down and that many of those complaining "had no affiliation with the university."
"We have also noticed over the last few days that students with reservations about Romney's appearance at Liberty basically fit into one of two categories," Falwell, Jr. wrote. "They were either strong supporters of other candidates who were seeking the Republican nomination or they were online students who were not as familiar with Liberty University's traditions."
After last week's announcement, hundreds of comments were registered under the announcement on Liberty's Facebook page. While some were supportive of the decision to invite Romney, a number of respondents were angered and posted their frustration to Facebook.
As of Monday morning, the announcement was deleted from the page, along with all the comments.
"Complaints died down because they took the ability to complain down from the website," said Janet Loeffler, a 53-year old freshman at Liberty who takes classes online. Loeffler was a frequent poster to the Facebook page.
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According Johnnie Moore, vice president of executive projects and spiritual programs, the post was removed because "people who had no affiliation with the university were using our Facebook page to air their grievances and to engage in conversations that violated our policies with regard to social media etiquette."
"We just decided to eliminate the post all together rather than let our page be the place where these arguments were taking place," Moore wrote in an e-mail to CNN. "With regard to our students, the university has a number of channels for our students and constituents to express feedback, and that feedback is attended to by Liberty staff who have input in, and understanding of, the university's operations and decision making."
Though the deletion of the post bothered Loeffler, it was the statement about online students familiarity with Liberty's traditions that she says deeply offended her.
"It is just a complete lie. You cannot get through your first semester at Liberty Online without taking their Theology 101 and Apologetics 101," Loeffler said.
Loeffler provided CNN with a copy of the page in the freshman textbook "The Popular Encyclopedia of Apologetics" which includes a number of passages on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly called Mormons. "Mormon doctrine stands in stark contrast to Jewish and Christian monotheism," reads the passage, "which teaches that there is only one true God and that every other 'God' is a false god."
Liberty's handling of the situation "has very much altered my thinking of Liberty," Loeffler said. "I haven't registered for my fall classes yet because of it. I am offended that they would talk to us like that, telling us that we just don't understand."
Many of the anti-Liberty comments, including Loeffler's charged that Mormonism goes against the teachings of the school and claimed that the religion is a cult. The charge of Mormonism as a cult is not a new one for the church, however. In a 2011 column, Michael Otterson, head of public affairs for the LDS Church described the word as a, "a neat, shorthand and rather lazy way of putting a whole group into a box."
The nation's largest evangelical denomination, the Southern Baptist Conference, lists the LDS Church as a cult. They specifically cite differences in theology surrounding salvation, baptism, belief in the Trinity, and marriage. A major sticking point between other Christian traditions and Mormons is the Book of Mormon, which Mormons believe is divinely inspired scripture and on par with the Bible. Other Christians do not recognize the Book of Mormon as scripture.
Oyindamola Bankole, a 22-year old online psychology major at Liberty, said she was disappointed that the comments had been deleted from the website.
"I thought it was very cowardly," Bankole said in an interview with CNN. "There were a lot of good conversations and debates and people were arguing both sides and I was shocked when they took it down."
Bankole will be graduating this year from Liberty but has opted to walk in 2013. Though the school differs between online and on-campus students, all walk in the same graduation. This year, 14,000 students will walk and 35,000 are expected to attend as guests.
"Even though we're online students, it's still our graduation," Bankole said. "The Liberty University Online students are going to be flying in, renting rooms in hotels, and going to the same graduation, so why does our opinion not matter as much? There are 70,000 online students compared to the 12,500 residential students, according to Liberty's website. Glad to know we're just numbers and income in their eyes."
Liberty University was founded as Lynchburg Baptist College in 1971 by the influential pastor and Moral Majority co-founder Jerry Falwell. He founded the school to be a Christian university for evangelical believers, according to Liberty's website. Today, Liberty brands itself as the largest evangelical university in the world, with 82,500 students enrolled either on campus or online.
This debate over Romney's selection further tests the relationship between Mormons and evangelicals. With Romney as the presumptive nominee for the Republican Party, many political commentators are asking whether the evangelical base, an important voting bloc to the GOP, will come out for Romney.
Tony Perkins, a Liberty graduate and the president of the Family Research Council, said he sees the Romney speech as an opportunity.
"As Christians we can disagree strongly but we show respect and I think they will show respect for Mitt Romney," Perkins said on CNN's Starting Point Monday morning.
"They may not warmly applaud him and may continue to express differences and clearly there are differences theologically between Mormons and Christians, but here's an opportunity for Mitt Romney to talk about what he has in common with evangelicals and that is on the value issues," Perkins said.
But if the evangelical vote hinges on how evangelicals see Mormonism, Romney may need further outreach to the evangelical community. A recent Pew Research Center survey finds 47% of white evangelicals say that Mormonism is not a Christian religion, while 66% say Mormonism and their religion are "very or somewhat different."
Loeffler and Bankole both look at this as a way for Liberty to help Romney with evangelical voters.
"This is nothing more than a political rally, at a time when graduates are having their lives dedicated to the work they were trained to do at Liberty," Loeffler said.
In their statement, though, Falwell Jr. said over the past 25 years, many people have been invited to speak at graduation and "most of them did not share Liberty's doctrinal beliefs."
Graduation at Liberty, like at most colleges and universities, features a baccalaureate event before the final graduation. This year, Liberty has invited Luis Palau, a preacher that Liberty bills as "among the most influential Christian leaders of all time."
Mark DeMoss, a Liberty graduate, member of the Board of Trustees and a senior adviser to the Romney campaign, when reached on Monday made mention of Glenn Beck being the first Mormon to address Liberty graduates at commencement and added some background to how the decisions have been made.
"I remember the first time Falwell, Sr. decided to use a commencement speaker that was not evangelical because it was controversial to some at the time," Demoss said of Liberty's founder Jerry Falwell Sr. "And he explained, or justified it, by virtue of us having a baccalaureate service that was a decidedly Christian service. And commencement could feature a prominent figure from politics or business – evangelical or not evangelical."
"Liberty has never held a commencement that did not include a strong gospel message from a evangelical leader at baccalaureate," Falwell Jr. wrote.
-- CNN's Eric Marrapodi contributed to this report.
