LACK OF TOLERANCE BY MORMONS WHEN CONFRONTED BY THE TRUTH.
anti-cult
Baptist Press
Posted on Feb 28, 2008
by Jerry Higgins
NAUVOO, Ill. (BP)--Nestled along the banks of the Mississippi River
about 270 miles southwest of Chicago, the Illinois town of Nauvoo is
just a dot on the map for most people.
Nauvoo had seen better days as a thriving producer of cheese and wine
until the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints built a $30
million temple in the community that was founded by Mormon patriarch
Joseph Smith in 1839.
Now an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 visitors come to Nauvoo each year.
Many of them pass the stucco storefront of the Christian Visitors
Center, where Rocky Hulse and his wife Helen stand ready to tell
anyone who will listen the differences between Mormonism and authentic
Christian faith.
Hulse, 52, is a former Mormon and a retired U.S. Navy chief warrant
officer who served in the Persian Gulf. Instead of using his Navy
skills to land a high-paying job in San Diego or Dallas, however, the
Hulses settled in Nauvoo to focus on sharing the truth about Jesus
Christ with the town's 1,000 residents and the influx of tourists
visiting the Mormon "mecca."
According to Mormon history, Joseph Smith received his last
revelations in Nauvoo, where he served as mayor and built a temple. He
was murdered in 1844 by a mob while awaiting trial on charges of
destroying an opposition Mormon newspaper. The Mormon migration to
Utah came a couple of years later.
Hulse has a weekly television show called "Truth Proclaimed" and is
the author of a new book, "When Salt Lake City Calls: Is There a
Conflict Between Mormonism and the Public Trust?" dealing largely with
Mormon temple ceremonies. He says all he is doing is comparing Mormon
teachings to the Bible and exposing the true history of Mormonism.
Not everyone welcomes his message.
Bishop David Wright, a Mormon leader in Nauvoo, described Hulse's
ministry to The Chicago Tribune as "a non-Christian center or anti-
Mormon center," saying, "I don't see anything Christian about it."
Hulse said his home office above the visitors center has been trashed
and he has received several threatening e-mails. One e-mail, received
a couple of days before Christmas 2006, read: "I'd love to watch you
all die, then witness the looks on your faces when you realize how
stupid and counterproductive your fight really was."
Hulse reported that threat to police in Nauvoo, who passed it on to
Illinois and Utah authorities. The e-mail was traced to the computer
of Phil Rogers, a Mormon who works as a court officer in Farmington,
Utah, near Salt Lake City. An April 15, 2007, article in The Chicago
Tribune quoted Rogers as saying that someone hacked into his Internet
account while he was using an open router. The Tribune interviewed
Internet security experts who said such tampering could have easily
occurred.
Nauvoo Chief of Police Don Faulkner said Utah authorities refused to
prosecute because they didn't have enough evidence. Faulkner, who is
not a Mormon, said, "It's up to the state, the county and the attorney
in the jurisdiction. It's up to the attorney whether he thinks the
case is winnable. Opinions bear no weight. He won't take a case to
court if he doesn't have enough evidence regardless of what anyone
thinks."
Hulse said he wasn't surprised at the decision not to prosecute.
"In the Mormon world, the absolute worst thing you can be is an
apostate [someone who left the church]," Hulse said. "In their
doctrine, on Judgment Day Hitler will go to a better place than
someone who leaves the Mormon Church."
After the death threat, the Hulses increased security around the
visitors center and were much more careful in their daily routines.
Faulkner said he believes they have nothing to worry about from the
locals. Police investigations have not come up with any suspects in
the ransacking of his office.
"He [Hulse] spent time in the Navy protecting everyone's rights,"
Faulkner said. "He protected Mormons' religious beliefs, whether he
agrees or not, along with Islam, Catholic, Baptist, Jewish … whatever
religious beliefs."
But, Faulkner said, "When you have radio and TV programs and a
storefront establishment preaching against a religion, people of that
faith look at you and will make comments about you."
Hulse's straightforward evangelistic technique obviously rubs people
the wrong way, said Jane Langford, editor of the local weekly
newspaper, The Nauvoo New Independent. She said Hulse's expertise
gives him credibility and rankles the Mormons.
"Rocky has done his research," said Langford, a Catholic who has
published several of Hulse's articles. "I've given him a platform and
he took it. At times maybe he took it too far. I've had a backlash,
but I've tried to keep the tradition of the newspaper. I'm sure if I
folded up, the Mormon Church would finance and start a newspaper which
would have their slant to it."
Hulse was a Mormon for 31 years before he heard a "cowboy preacher" at
a rodeo on Jan. 1, 1986. He was saved on the spot and felt God leading
him to evangelize Mormons and tell Christians about Mormonism. In
1999, while stationed at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in
Chicago, Hulse and his wife started an outreach to Mormons. Their
first taste of Nauvoo, according to the Tribune news story, came in
2002 when Hulse was barred from an open house at the new Mormon temple
because he was deemed "disruptive."
The Nauvoo Christian Visitors Center is one of three visitors centers
in the community. One is operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints and the other by the reorganized Community of
Christ, an offshoot of the main Mormon body. The other visitors
centers, Hulse said, claim the only true church is the one started by
Joseph Smith.
The visitors center the Hulses operate existed before they arrived in
Nauvoo in 2005.
"No one ever challenges the Mormon Church at the level we do it,"
Hulse said. "Our TV show has us in many markets. They [Mormon leaders]
have rewritten doctrines that they don't tell anyone.
"If we are being untruthful, they have every right to expose us. No
one has come forth because there is nothing to expose."
The Nauvoo Christian Visitors Center may be found on the Internet at
nauvoochristian.org.