They stood together last month to criticize a street preacher who desecrated sacred LDS clothing outside general conference.

The show of support wasn't an isolated incident. The group of nearly two dozen local evangelical pastors is working to actively address the state's religious divide.

This week, they gathered to talk strategy with a man who has helped transform his own church from what many considered to be a "cult" into an accepted, if fledgling, evangelical Christian faith.

The Rev. Greg Johnson, founder of the evangelical clergy group "Standing Together," brought J. Michael Feazell with the Worldwide Church of God to Salt Lake City this week to rally the pastors in their stated desire to get along with members and leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Feazell has been a part of the transformation of the Worldwide Church of God from what he called a faith "immersed in legalism and conforming to the rules" to one that embraces the wider Christian teaching on the saving grace of Jesus Christ. The Rev. Johnson said that puts Feazell in a good position to help local evangelicals understand the mind-set of LDS Church members and leaders, who believe that works are required, along with Christ's grace, in order to live with God in eternity.

The Worldwide Church of God, founded in 1933 by Herbert W. Armstrong, began as a one-station radio ministry and blossomed into a full-fledged media machine until Armstrong's death in 1986. Its magazine, dubbed "The Plain Truth," was published as a response to questions posed by radio listeners and later, television audiences. As one of the original televangelists, Armstrong's "World Tomorrow" helped him spread his belief in strict Saturday Sabbath observance and his advocacy of the same "holy days" as existed among OId Testament peoples.

His preaching resonated with those who believed Christ's return was imminent, and he dubbed himself as God's chosen "end-time apostle" with exclusive authority to determine church doctrine. He periodically told believers Christ's return would come within a specified period of time. When the event failed to materialize, it was attributed to believers' lack of faith or God's grace in giving his children a "little more time to prepare," Feazell said.

Armstrong taught that his was the "one and only true church" and that its followers were to become "children of God in a literal sense," according to Feazell. While the church had some vague similarities with both LDS doctrine and that of Jehovah's Witnesses, he maintains Armstrong was not influenced by either faith.

The Rev. Johnson, who grew up in Utah as a Latter-day Saint until he was "persuaded away" by Protestant Christianity at age 14, said his late teens were filled with admiration for people "who said they love Mormons enough to tell them that they were going to hell" if they didn't reject their faith and embrace biblical Christianity. But the continual antagonism in anti-Mormon publications and venues eventually convinced him there was a better way, and he began a personal quest for spiritual truth.