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(CNN) -- Bob Jones III, chancellor of the fundamentalist South Carolina university that bears his family's name, has become the latest conservative Christian leader to publicly cast doubt on President Barack Obama's stated Christian commitment.
"I've no reason to think he's a Christian," Jones told National Journal in an interview published Saturday. "Anyone can say he's a Christian.
"Some people will say whatever they think the politically helpful thing would be," Jones said. "I say, 'Where is the evidence that he is a Christian?' ''
Jones is an influential conservative leader in South Carolina, home to one of the nation's key Republican primaries next year. Bob Jones University, where Jones served as president from 1971 to 2005, is a popular stop for GOP candidates courting Christian votes.
This year, evangelical leader Franklin Graham questioned Obama's Christian commitment, telling ABC News that for Obama, "going to church means he's a Christian," while for Graham, "the definition of a Christian is whether we have given our life to Christ."
Last year, Graham insisted that Obama was born a Muslim, though the president hasn't said that.
"I think the president's problem is that he was born a Muslim; his father was a Muslim," Graham told CNN's John King in August 2010. "The seed of Islam is passed through the father like the seed of Judaism is passed through the mother.
"Now, it's obvious that the president has renounced the prophet Mohammed, and he has renounced Islam, and he has accepted Jesus Christ," Graham, son of famed evangelist Billy Graham, continued. "That is what he says he has done. I cannot say that he hasn't. So I just have to believe that the president is what he has said."
Polls show that a minority of Americans can correctly identify Obama's Christian faith. Obama writes about accepting Jesus in his book "Dreams from My Father," and he regularly prays with a handful of Christian pastors.
In the interview with National Journal, Jones said that he hasn't endorsed Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, as he did in the 2008 cycle, partly because he believes that a Mormon candidate won't face as many obstacles among Christian voters in next year's primaries.
