For what it is worth here is an excerpt from a letter I wrote to my lds parents trying to explain why I left the mormon faith. For me, the whole ‘great apostasy’ thing is very important. (long post I apologize!)
"The fundamental issue is actually quite simple. No need for complicated arguments or deep spiritual insights. Here it is in a nutshell: Since Jesus is God, since he is the good shepherd and faithful, he would never abandon his church. The church Christ established while on earth could not be destroyed and was not destroyed, since it was built on a rock. That church is the Catholic Church.
God’s covenant with the church is just as binding and eternal as his covenant with Israel, because the church is the fulfillment of Israel. The church could no more be taken from the earth than the Jews could be entirely exterminated as a people: as Paul said, the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. The Holy Spirit testifies of the true Christ, a Christ who loves the church as his bride, who is with us until the end of the world, who would never leave us orphans. If I don’t believe that then how can I have faith in Christ? What am I supposed to make of his promises? Is the good shepherd really the one who deserted his sheep right when they needed him most, when they were being tortured and killed because they would not deny him, when they were being assailed by false teachers and false doctrines? Did he build his church on rock or sand? If there was a great apostasy then Jesus must have built on a sandy foundation because when the storms of persecution and heresy came the church rapidly fell apart. Or perhaps Joseph Smith was just better than Jesus Christ at church building?
‘I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam. A large majority of the whole have stood by me. Neither Paul, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from him, but the Latter Day Saints never ran away from me yet’ – Joseph Smith, History of the Church
How can I risk my soul and knowingly follow someone who would say such a thing, who would dare compare himself with the great ‘I AM’? However, to be honest, for me the main issue is not with Joseph Smith or LDS church history. Now I do believe that God has given us clear signs (like the book of Abraham) that Joseph was a false prophet, if we are humble enough to accept correction and to acknowledge that we have been deceived, but it is really beside the point. If there was no great apostasy then there can be no restoration. I do not need to evaluate the claims of every person who comes along with a new message from God, whether it be Muhammad, Joseph Smith, or David Koresh. So I don’t need to be convinced that there are no problems with Joseph Smith and his revelations, I need to be convinced that the early Christian church collapsed into total apostasy.
I have read more or less everything written by LDS authors on the subject, talked with various religion professors at BYU, read many of the writings of the early Christians themselves, and still find no reason not to take Jesus’ promises to his church at face value (‘the gates of hell shall not prevail’, etc.). I have often heard the argument that the apostasy occurred because people used their free agency to reject the gospel. First of all there is also no evidence that all of the early Christians were unfaithful. To the contrary we know that there were many saints who were willing to undergo the most horrific tortures and deaths rather than deny their faith and their Lord. Who are we to question their faithfulness by saying that everyone turned against the true gospel after the death of the apostles? Would we have endured the trials that those saints endured? Would we, like them, have praised Jesus as the red hot iron was pressed against our flesh, as the lions ripped us apart limb from limb? One day the believers in a great apostasy will have to stand face to face with those early saints and martyrs and beg forgiveness for the slander against their names. They suffered far worse and for far longer than anything the early Mormons experienced. And let’s not forget that those early saints never gave in and changed their beliefs or practices in response to those persecutions. They conquered. They converted the Roman Empire to Christianity. In contrast it was the LDS church, in response to much more mild persecutions that caved in and abandoned the most critical practice of the restored church: polygamy (the original ‘celestial marriage’). I also believe that people misunderstand what free agency is and how it fits into God’s plan. The fact the we have free will does not mean that God is powerless, that God is not a God of miracles, or that God does not intervene (sometimes forcefully) in human history. It means that at the end of the day we, individually, are free to accept God’s gift of salvation or reject it. He will force none of us to Heaven. But God is never, at any time in history, without the means to accomplish his will. To deny that is to deny the foreknowledge and power of God. With regards to an alleged apostasy, individual church members could very well reject the true faith but God would still have the power to influence events and people to keep the church alive for the next generation. He who knows all things from the beginning can accomplish all his designs, not excepting sustaining his church until the end of the world. Even Mormons believe that God would remove a modern prophet who would try to lead the church astray and that it is not the work of God that is frustrated but the work of men."
continued…
I guess all Jews who become Christians fake it. (Sarcastic reference to the Inquisition)