The idea that Christianity in Mormonism is a recent trend is false. Joseph Smith taught that Jesus Christ was the only way whereby man can be saved, and the God of the Old Testament. It has been the central theme of the LDS Church from the beginning. The Book of Mormon mentions Jesus Christ as many times as the New Testament, and is even more forceful in saying that nobody can be saved without Him. There is no "cloaking in claims"

The focus on Kolob and Eternal Progression and other Doctrines harped on in this article is tantamount to zeroing in on the "hard sayings" of Jesus Christ; wherein He spoke of eating His flesh or compared a non-Hebrew woman seeking a blessing to a dog stealing children's meat (You'll find both stories in ST John); and excluding the overall message of His divinity and capacity to save, of doing good to all men, and loving God above all else. Such it is when you speak of LDS minute doctrines, while not focusing on the central message of the Church, which is the fall of man, the atonement of Jesus Christ, the Resurrection and His Second Coming accompanied by modern and continuous revelation. This has always been the central theme.

The reason mormons were persecuted in Missouri was not because of Kolob or Polygamy. Polygamy wasn't practiced until Nauvoo, and Kolob was relatively unknown and is today. Mormons were persecuted because a bunch of "Christians" decided that instead of trying to help an indigent 14 year old "crack-pot boy" with "vain imaginings" they persecuted and demagogued him as well as his family. If you think he was crazy, think whether Christ healed "lunatics (look it up in your Bible KJV)" instead of shooting them and their followers down in cold blood? In short, he was persecuted, along with his brothers and sisters in the faith, and murdered for claiming to have seen the Father and the Risen LORD, just as the martyr Stephen (Look in Acts 7:55-56, your KJV Bible. It's the same as mine. There is no "Mormon Bible"). The Mormons' neighbors thought that revelations and visions had ceased with the Apostles, and there could be no more word from the heavens. The Saducees also thought this was true after Moses, the Pharisees thought this true after Malachi, and Muslims think it is true after Mohammed. Many sincere people believe this and do good works in this belief. I have no quarell with them. But it can also be a convenient way for academians, scholars and potentates (like the Sanhedran) to take control of God's word when it rightfully belongs to humble prophets like Abraham the nomad, Moses the outcast, Peter the fisherman and John the Baptist who lived off of locus and honey, who did not learn about God from College, but from GOD Himself. When they take over is when we get Jihads and Crusades.

Furthermore, the idea that we worship a "different Christ" ("Oh, you mean the other Jesus of Nazareth, step son of a carpenter and a Jew named Mary, who was murdered by Roman occupiers at the behest of a local Israelite mob for claiming that He was (and in fact is) the Son of God, as documented by the New Testament.") is the type of hair-spliting to make even the slickest politician cringe.

The idea that Joseph Smith was an anti-Christ is laughable by your own admission that he was and is so unexplicably unpopular among the "fundamentalist" religious leaders, as well as the fact he was so often betrayed and oppressed by his own friends, to whom he gave no retribution, much like...well.. the prophets of old and the apostles of Jesus Christ, who were also hated, mocked and murdered one-by-one. AntiChrists, by the accounts in Daniel and Revelations will be respected, prosperous, popular and largely triumphant (like Herod, and Jezabel, Pharoh, Annanias and others were) until Christ comes again.

The claim that the Bible can be the only canon is not advocated by the Bible. I am well aware of the scripture in the last chapter of Revelations. You'll find essentially the same scripture in Deuteronomy 4:2, hence the Saducees. It was a seal on the Book of Revelations, not all divine revelations. John himself wrote his epistles, and perhaps the gospel of John, after the Book of Revelations. They were not compiled thusly until the Roman Emperor and Pagan Constantine assembled the Nicean crew to edit the canon. It makes the Bible no less true. The Books of the Bible are the word of God, but it can hardly be said that the post new-testament assembly was inspired, at least not to the point of forbidding any further enlightenment from God. All of the apostles were already dead. It was at least two hundred years after Christ was born.

I would invite everybody to read the Bible free of anyone's influence, except God's. You will find that anti-Mormon ideas do not come from the Bible, but, in fact, from the same source which spread hatred in the hearts of pharisees, saducees and politicians, and convinced Cain to murder his brother out of enmity toward his religious sacrifice. It was the same source that told the Muslims to conquer and kill in the Iberian peninsula and the Crusaders to retaliate in likely cruel and depraved fashion. When the young Man who would claim to be the Son of God and the Great Jehovah, (and in fact was), was brought to stand trial before a corrupt politician, it was the same source that put it into the hearts of the people, who He loved, to cry "Crucify Him!"

Let Jesus worry about sending me to Hell, if that's what I deserve. I have proclaimed His Divinity to Muslims, and others who don't believe we need a saviour, in Portugal in buses and in their homes, but if I was doing it for that scurulous imposter you mentioned that claimed to be Him, the real Jesus can stand up and send me to hell . No one will save me by spreading falsehoods. If your religion has something good to offer, tell me, but don't tell me what I believe.

And if I am hellbound, perhaps I might make life better for someone while I am here. Evangelicals and Mormons can work together to fight poverty, and give poor people educational opportunities. We can work together with devout Catholics to save human life from abortion and euthanesea, and defend the sanctity of marriage. (I'm not talking politics, I'm not even a Romney fan). I know Mormon soldiers who fight alongside Evangelicals, Catholics, Jews, Muslims and Budhists against radical Islamists in Iraq and Afghanistan, so we don't have a perverse caliphate dictating our life from the middle east who believes conversion must be gained at the point of a sword. If we focus on what is right, it will take us from that which is wrong.