Anti-LDS evangelists rile Nauvoo faithful

NAUVOO, Ill. — Towering over a Mississippi River bluff, the recently built Mormon temple symbolizes the central role this town played in Mormon history.

And the arrival of two Christian evangelists from the Chicago area, proclaiming an anti-Mormonism message to the world, recalls the troubled history of those early Mormons with neighbors of other faiths.

Operating from a white stucco storefront called the Nauvoo Christian Visitors Center, Rocky Hulse, a former member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and his wife, Helen, are bent on portraying Mormonism as a false religion with fabricated histories.

And though the Christian Visitors Center predates their arrival, the Hulses have taken its confrontational message to a new level, with an active public presence and a weekly television show broadcast internationally on a Christian network.

It's no wonder, locals say, the Hulses are facing blowback.

The couple reported they had received two veiled written threats late last year. Then, two days before Christmas, the couple received an e-mail that was traced to an address in Utah.

"id love to watch you all die," it read, "then witness the looks on your faces when you realize how stupid and counterproductive your fight really was."

Shaken, the Hulses installed deadbolts on their doors and floodlights around their storefront. They began checking their car's gas cap for any sign of tampering. And they called police, triggering an investigation from Nauvoo to Utah.

"This town is to the Mormons what Mecca is for the Muslims," Helen Hulse said. "Of course they don't want us here."

Mormon leaders scoff at any suggestion of conspiracy. Still, they have a dim view of the Hulses' work.

"It ought to be called a non-Christian center or anti-Mormon center," said Bishop David Wright, a top LDS Church leader in Nauvoo. "I don't see anything Christian about it."

Nauvoo is a hallowed place for Mormons, who settled the town in 1839. Their prophet, Joseph Smith, received his last revelations here, where the first great temple was built and temple rituals were instituted. Smith was killed by locals nearby in 1844, and within two years, the main body of believers had begun heading west in search of a home beyond the reach of their persecutors.

The largest descendant church, the LDS Church, has spent millions in recent years on the temple and shrines to Smith. It created a budding Mormon renaissance in this town of 1,100 residents, 270 miles southwest of Chicago, that rankles some locals.