PHOENIX -- An anti-Mormon group distributed in Arizona 18,000 copies of a film designed to sway church members to quit.

About 15,000 DVDs of the film "Jesus Christ/Joseph Smith" were dropped off at homes in Mesa, Gilbert and Tempe over the weekend, said Jim Robertson, executive director of Concerned Christians, an organization largely made up of former Mormons. Another 2,000 copies were handed out in Snowflake and Taylor and 1,000 in Tucson.

The film, which contrasts the teachings of Jesus Christ and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints founder Joseph Smith, was given away as part of effort to persuade members to leave the church.

"We've found this works very well. We need to step out in faith to do it," said Robertson, a former Mormon who founded the organization 35 years ago. "We're not against the Mormon people. If we hated the Mormons, we'd let them stew in their own juices."

Don Evans, an LDS spokesman in Arizona, said Robertson is on a lifetime crusade to attack the church.

"It won't faze members of our church one iota," Evans said. "They're strong enough in their own beliefs. It's water off their backs."

Former church spokesman Dave Udall said Concerned Christians was denounced in the early 1980s by the National Conference of Christians and Jews and by the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai Brith after showing the film The God Makers at the Mesa Convention Center.

"I'm disappointed. We need tolerance in our community, and religious tolerance is one of those things we need to do," said Udall, a Mesa lawyer.

The DVD distribution was timed for the weekend before the LDS church holds its general conference in Salt Lake City.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A1.