Posted on 03/01/2008 2:39:29 AM PST by Zakeet
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 1939.
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 ," 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 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 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 http://www.nauvoochristian.org/.
MANY are standing by to see what the future now portends as well...
Isn't that a line from a Glen Campbell song?
I've been walkin' these threads so long ................ Singin' the same old Mormon song
I know every crack in these dirty sidewalks of FReeperway.......................... Where hustle's the name of the game
And nice guys get washed away like Wasatch snow & rain.......................... There's been a load of compromisin'
On the road to my divine horizon................. But I'm gonna be where Kolobian lights are shinin' on me!
Like a gallstone cowboy............................. Ridin' the wave of bile like a horse in a Heber City rodeo
Like a gallstone cowboy............................. Getting posts and comments from people I don't even know
And exit offers comin' over the moderators' tone
Well, I really don't mind the rain................. And a smile can hide all the pain
But you're down when you're ridin' the works train that's takin' the wrong way............... And I dream of the things I'll do
With a jupiter talisman & a $3 bill tucked inside my shoe.......... There'll be a load of compromisin'
On the road to my divine horizon.................... But I'm gonna be where Kolobian lights are shinin' on me
Like a gallstone cowboy............................. Ridin' the wave of bile like a horse in a Heber City rodeo
Gallstone cowboy.................................... Gettin' posts and comments from people I don't even know
And exit offers comin' over the moderators' tone
Like a gallstone cowboy............................. Ridin' the wave of bile like a horse in a Heber City rodeo
FADE INTO EXIT
Like a gallstone cowboy........................ Gettin' posts and comments from people I don't even know
It’s been so long I had to check how the tune went...
LOL
I wonder if that poster is the dolt who called in to a recent talk radio program and pined for the days of the Danites as he tried to throw his ‘melchizadek’ weight around rebuking the host? ... Mmmm, could be!
The poster and the caller have much in common it seems.
And now a word from our sponsor:
ROFL! I wonder who is in charge of the Gallstone ping list?
Ping to 128
Thanks for the link. I listend to it twice just to make sure I was hearing the caller correctly. His ignorance and bile are stunning.
Bigotry!!!!! What about us without gallbladders.
Oooooooooooooooooooooooo
No comment...
radical moslems
radical mormons
both groups wanting me dead...
what’s a Christian to do ????????
I have something to say to you.
I am an active member of the church of SkyPilot, and a High Priest thereof. By the power, of my SkyPilotism Bishopric, I rebuke thee - son of Perdition! What are you going to do when you are in Outer Darkness, and look up and see the face of SkyPilot shining brighter than the new day sun? How are you going to feel then?
About the Danites and the Islamics and the end times...
Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. Matthew 24:9-11
They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. John 16:2
And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me. But these things have I told you, that when the time shall come, ye may remember that I told you of them. And these things I said not unto you at the beginning, because I was with you. John 16:3, 4
The radio host, Sean, accurately described them.
"A bunch of thugs."
Funny how Mormon historians try and say they Danites were not associated with the LDS church, and that caller "High Priest" John O'Fallon wished they could come and "visit" the radio host.
I see they had other interests as well.
UNLESS...he believes his "Melchizadek priesthood". qualifies him as EQUAL to Jesus Christ. Remember, Joseph Smith claims he will be a "judge of this dispensation" of allowing entrance to anyone seeking to enter the "kingdom" where God and Christ reside.
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