A date for the "Great Apostasy"

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kimg901 said:
Listen guy or gal, I was once a mormon so I understand your screwed up way of thinking. . . You can think im being rude or whatever, but i can care less if you or any other mormons feelings are hurt.
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It’s guy, and, like you, I was once a Mormon, so I know that they honor Christ even if their views as to His person and work are not orthodox. No, you don’t hurt my feelings, but I am concerned for you that you don’t care if you come across as rude or hurtful. I had a very amicable parting from the Mormon church, but I’ve heard of others who had a more difficult, bitter experience. I wish you “a harvest of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, forbearance, [and] gentleness.” (Knox Bible, and a list of Spiritual fruit I am often in short supply of myself)
 
batman1973 said:
Mr Madison proffers that starting in 411 AD, until the fall of the Donatists in 570 AD, in which the Pope of Rome finally dominated the entire Christian Church. Mr. Madion quotes from The Times and Seasons( A Mormon magazine) "The Power and Priesthood after the Son of God… was taken from her in the year 570, and the church fell into the hands of the Pope of Rome (Times and Seasons, 1845)
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That’s an interesting time to put to it. Current Mormon thinking seems to be that “the night of apostasy” came upon the church when the last of the Apostles, John, “was taken from among men.” (lds.org/ensign/1984/12/early-signs-of-the-apostasy)

Talmage, in his book The Great Apostasy, establishes that other faiths than Mormons also believe in an apostasy. He refers to the Church of England’s “Homily on Perils of Idolatry” to show that that church believes an apostasy occurred at least as early as the middle of the 8th century, quoting, “Laity and clergy, learned and unlearned, all ages, sects, and degrees, have been drowned in abominable idolatry most detested by God and damnable to man for eight hundred years and more.”

Talmage also mentions John Wesley, saying that he saw an “early decline of spiritual power and the cessation of the gifts and graces of the Spirit of God within the Church” within two or three centuries of its founding. Talmage quoted, “We seldom hear of them after that fatal period when the Emperor Constantine called himself a Christian, and from a vain imagination of promoting the Christian cause thereby heaped riches and power and honor upon Christians in general, but in particular upon the Christian clergy. From this time they [spiritual gifts] almost totally ceased . . . the love of many, almost all Christians, so-called, was waxed cold. The Christians had no more of the spirit of Christ than the other heathens.”

Loraine Boettner in the Introduction chapter of his book Roman Catholicism also cites Constantine’s backing and support of the Christian Church as occasioning great numbers of pagans to enter the church “to gain the special advantages and favors that went with such membership.” He said that gradually the church became more and more heathen and that it “ceased to be the apostolic Christian church.”

Will Durant, in his book Caesar and Christ, alludes to the beginning of decline even earlier than Constantine, saying, “In the interval between the Decian and the Diocletian persecution the Church had become the richest religious organization in the Empire, and had moderated its attacks upon wealth. Cyprian complained that his parishioners were mad about offices of state, made fortunes, lent money at usurious interest, and denied their faith at the first sign of danger. Eusebius mourned that priests quarreled violently in ttheir competition for ecclesiastical preferment. While Christianity converted the world, the world converted Christianity, and displayed the natural paganism of mankind.”

I spent 14 years in the Mormon church, but didn’t join til I was 18. Their teaching about a great apostasy was no surprise to me because I had already heard similar ideas in the Protestant churches I had attended earlier in childhood.
 
the world converted Christianity, and displayed the natural paganism of mankind."
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Do you really think that worldly influence on the church is unique to Catholicism? Especially with the illiteracy and lack of books in the Middle Ages, it can only be Providence which allowed the church to survive-- that and the convents and monasteries.
 
Jerusha said:
Do you really think that worldly influence on the church is unique to Catholicism?
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Absolutely not. I’m not even saying I believe that a “great apostasy” occurred. I simply offered information that Mormons are not unique in their belief in an apostasy and that there are dates other than the one pointed out by the OP for when that may have occurred, or started to occur.
 
:cool:
started to occur.
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But never completed.

Just like, incredible as it may seem to Catholics, there are true Christians within Mormonism. However, the radical right might condemn them as heretics.
 
jrtrent said:
Absolutely not. I’m not even saying I believe that a “great apostasy” occurred. I simply offered information that Mormons are not unique in their belief in an apostasy and that there are dates other than the one pointed out by the OP for when that may have occurred, or started to occur.
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JR,

Do you believe that a great apostasy occurred? :confused:
 
lax16 said:
Pepband Mom -

Interesting - I just read this about Saint Thomas in the book “The Twelve: The Lives of the Apostles after Calvary” after reading your post:

The earliest source for knowledge of Thomas’s ministry in India is a Syriac document, probably written in Edessa around A.D. 200, known as The Acts of Thomas. Described as a historical novel, a piece of fiction written for entertainment, it is based on historical fact. Thomas was a national hero for the Christians of Osroene and they enjoyed reading about the founder of their national Church. In addition to The Acts of Thomas, a document attributed to the third-centry author Hippolystus also located Thomas’s ministry in India as well as Iran…

Obviously, there was not a great apostasy when we see how Christianity spread throughout the world, thanks to the Apostles. 👍

I have never had a Mormon explain this to me. They always ignore my question about Christianity in other parts of the world outside the realm of Rome.

I had two LDS missionaries in our home for several visits and I asked them when the Great Apostasy happened. They said it happened “somewhere in the 200’s A.D.” I then asked how could it be when all of my relatives have been Catholic as far back as Saint Patrick. They looked at each other with big eyes, shrugged their shoulders, and said they have no idea how that could have happened.😛
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Very Nice! I first shockingly heard that particular quote 1980’s when my LDS boss/Dr. threw that whizzer at me. For my 14 years there, he never came off his mission! Well meaning teenaged missionaries, who have studied nothing of substance at an academic level & have no college credit for it, no degrees, no expertise in history, ancient languages, archeology, Bible related fields repeat a well crafted speech in sincerity & it is sometimes successful. Most people are, as far as digging up theological facts goes, uneducated & tuned out & careless with such bogus claims. Missionaries spoon feed people this drivel & take their high friends to dances to pull them in an an emotional level basically.

One day my boss said there are only 2 true churches: the RCC & LDS & the RCC went into “apostasy”. I looked at him like he grew a third eye :hypno:

My reply: Truth exists in only 1 form (knowing @ that point how many LDS claims are 180’s from RCC claims). He certainly never offered not a shred of proof in all the years I was there, just held on to the old wives tail or whatever you want to call it so from then on his argument fell flatter than a pancake! Was I supposed to take his word for it & take a daring & dangerous switch into this American, man-made new “theology” cleverly invented by a pied piper who died in a shootout with a gun in his hand? At that point, I had been studying informally with a Jesuit run group for young adults, so had the info to reply with. Dr’s responses were weak to none for a man with 20+ years of schooling. We had many lively debates in surgery!

Wonder if your 2 missionaries ever researched into your info?
 
Porknpie said:
JR,

Do you believe that a great apostasy occurred? :confused:
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You’re not the only one confused. I had formerly listed my religion as “confused protestant,” and maybe I’ll go back to that. I find questions such as the apostasy, the perpetual virginity of Mary, and many other topics in this forum to be interesting, to spur me to research a bit, to use my morning coffee-sipping time in a way that’s possibly more productive than some other ways to pass the time, but I don’t necessarily have strong convictions on many of these issues. I like hearing what others have to say and how they defend their positions. I always learn something from visiting here.

The things I do have convictions about are my need for greater love for God and mankind, my need to be more earnest and consistent in living my life in a way pleasing to our Maker, my constant need to be more charitable and patient when interacting with others.

As with the boy’s father in Mark 9:24, I find myself constantly in the position of saying, I believe; help my unbelief.

A hymn I think of often is the following:

J. Newton
Breathing after Love to Christ (John 21:16)

1 ‘Tis a point I long to know,
(Oft it causes anxious thought,)
Do I love the Lord or no?
Am I his, or am I not?

2 If I love, why am I thus?
Why this dull and lifeless frame?
Hardly, sure, can they be worse
Who have never heard his name.

3 Could my heart so hard remain,
Prayer a task and burden prove,
Every trifle give me pain,
If I knew a Saviour’s love?

4 [When I turn my eyes within,
All is dark, and vain, and wild;
Fill’d with unbelief and sin,
Can I deem myself a child?

5 If I pray, or hear, or read,
Sin is mix’d with all I do:
You that love the Lord indeed,
Tell me, is it thus with you ?

6 Yet I mourn my stubborn will,
Find my sin a grief and thrall:
Should I grieve for what I feel,
If I did not love at all?]

7 Could I joy his saints to meet,
Choose the ways I once abhorr’d,
Find, at times, the promise sweet,
If I did not love the Lord?

8 Lord, decide the doubtful case;
Thou who art thy people’s Sun,
Shine upon thy work of grace,
If it be indeed begun.

9 Let me love thee more and more,
If I love at all, I pray:
If I have not loved before,
Help me to begin to-day.
 
jrtrent said:
Loraine Boettner in the Introduction chapter of his book Roman Catholicism also cites Constantine’s backing and support of the Christian Church as occasioning great numbers of pagans to enter the church “to gain the special advantages and favors that went with such membership.” He said that gradually the church became more and more heathen and that it “ceased to be the apostolic Christian church.”

.
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Boettner is equivalent to to Ed Decker and Talmage comes close.
Loraine Boettner was an American theologian and author. He is the author of an influential anti-Catholic book, which has been criticized for its anti-Catholic bias and “lack of scholarly rigor”
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zaffiroborant said:
Boettner is equivalent to to Ed Decker and Talmage comes close.
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I own The Essential Catholic Survival Guide, and have read its chapter on “The Anti-Catholic Bible,” so I’m aware of the criticisms of Boettner’s book. However, I do believe his views on the decline of the church following Constantine are representative of many Protestants in the Reformed tradition.
 
I would suggest that you read Mosheim, published before Joseph Smith and the post-Anabaptist Restorationists. He is ambivalent on the Constantine issue. Constantine only decreed non-opposition to the monotheistic religions, mostly because the Greek and Roman philosophers had pretty well destroyed belief in the Greek and Roman pantheon. Mosheim’s attitude, from a Lutheran perspective, was that the deterioration of Catholicism happened very slowly. But his history of Christianity, in the last volume, mainly covers Lutheranism, with side exploration of the other Protestant sects.

He entirely neglects the role of literacy and the printing press, allowing previously illiterate people to read the Bible in their own languages, without previous access to a sophisticated understanding of Catholic Tradition.
 
Mormonism and “The Great Apostasy” Refuted from Scripture

2 Thessalonians 2:1-11
1Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers, 2not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by some prophecy, report or letter supposed to have come from us, saying that the day of the Lord has already come. 3Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for (that day will not come) until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessnessa] is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. 4He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.
5Don’t you remember that when I was with you I used to tell you these things? 6And now you know what is holding him back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time. 7For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way. 8And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming. 9The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, 10and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie

Mormon missionaries will suggest that “The Great Apostasy” must come before the return of Christ, which is mentioned in 2 Thessalonians 2:8. However, verse 8 doesn’t suggest that the apostasy will occur before the return of Christ, but that the return of Christ will actually end that apostasy, destroying it with the “splendor of his coming”. This seems to paint Mormons into a corner because there are only three possible conclusions:

a) the “great apostasy” has occurred and has ended, which means that the second coming of Christ has already occurred (Mormon missionaries, like Catholics, will reject that this is possible);

b) the “great apostasy” has occurred, and is still going on (rather than ending with Joseph Smith) because 2 Thessalonians says that the coming of Christ would end it, not a “modern day prophet”. (Mormon missionaries will reject this because it would mean their Church, the supposed instrument of the restoration, is an apostate church, as well);

c) the “great apostasy” has not yet occurred.
 
jrtrent said:
You’re not the only one confused. I had formerly listed my religion as “confused protestant,” and maybe I’ll go back to that. I find questions such as the apostasy, the perpetual virginity of Mary, and many other topics in this forum to be interesting, to spur me to research a bit, to use my morning coffee-sipping time in a way that’s possibly more productive than some other ways to pass the time, but I don’t necessarily have strong convictions on many of these issues. I like hearing what others have to say and how they defend their positions. I always learn something from visiting here.

The things I do have convictions about are my need for greater love for God and mankind, my need to be more earnest and consistent in living my life in a way pleasing to our Maker, my constant need to be more charitable and patient when interacting with others.
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JR…I am often confused but can figure most things out with time. Please state your agreement with the following. Which letter best reflects your opinion?

“There was a great apostasy in the early church”
a) High agree
b) Agree
c) Not sure
d) Disagree
e) Strongly Disagree

“Coffee is best made with a”
a) drip coffeemaker
b) french press

:coffeeread:
 
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