For the LDS - Please Define the Great Apostacy

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mfbukowski said:
You know the answer. Because God himself told me it was true.
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You didn’t answer the question I asked.

Polyandry, you know wife swapping? That alone should be enough to get the hell out.

For all the faults of the leaders of the Catholic Church, none ever taught adultery as commanded by God.
 
mfbukowski said:
Polygamy not polyandry
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You need to do some reading. He married 11 women who were already married.

Lucinda Morgan Harris
Zina Huntington Jacobs
Presendia Huntington Buell
Sylvia Sessions Lyon
Mary Rollins Lightner
Patty Bartlett Sessions
Marinda Johnson Hyde
Elizabeth Davis Durfee
Sarah Kingsley Cleveland
Ruth Vose Sayers
Elvira Cowles Holmes

Pick up “In Sacred Loneliness” by Todd Compton. Deseret Book used to carry it.
 
RebeccaJ said:
You need to do some reading. He married 11 women who were already married.

Lucinda Morgan Harris
Zina Huntington Jacobs
Presendia Huntington Buell
Sylvia Sessions Lyon
Mary Rollins Lightner
Patty Bartlett Sessions
Marinda Johnson Hyde
Elizabeth Davis Durfee
Sarah Kingsley Cleveland
Ruth Vose Sayers
Elvira Cowles Holmes

Pick up “In Sacred Loneliness” by Todd Compton. Deseret Book used to carry it.
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I was aware of that and there are two sides to that one. I will check it out further. I genuinely thank you for your concern for me, I know you are trying to help. You are a good person.
 
mfbukowski said:
I was aware of that and there are two sides to that one. I will check it out further. I genuinely thank you for your concern for me, I know you are trying to help. You are a good person.
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Tell me, how can there be two sides to another man marrying your wife?!?!?!
 
mfbukowski said:
He did it at gunpoint? And she was kicking and screaming the whole time?
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Consenting to adultery doesn’t indicate it is not a sin.

And you know the position Smith had put himself in. One of power. He abused this power, tremendously, telling married women that God commanded them to marry him. And more than once claiming an angel brought this news.

**Do you believe God commands adultery? Do you believe an angel would threaten you physically for not committing a grave sin?
**
 
From www.wivesofjosephsmith.com

Zina later wrote, that within months of her marriage to Henry, “[Joseph] sent word to me by my brother, saying, ‘Tell Zina, I put it off and put it off till an angel with a drawn sword stood by me and told me if I did not establish that principle upon the earth I would lose my position and my life’”. Joseph further explained that, *“the Lord had made it known to him she was to be his celestial wife.”
*Sylvia married Joseph Smith on February 8, 1842, when she was 23 years old. It is uncertain if her husband, Windsor, was aware of the marriage, but she did continue to live with him. Brigham Young taught that “if the woman preferred a man higher in authority, and he is willing to take her and her husband gives her up-there is no Bill of divorce required…it is right in the sight of God”. Brigham also explained that the woman, “…would be in a higher glory”.

Do you believe this bukowski? Would you be all okee dokee with your wife marrying your stake president because he is in higher authority and “it is right in the sight of God” and your wife has no problem with it either?

Which law is higher? Thou shalt not commit adultery, or this latter day “revelation”?

or

Have you convinced yourself that this sort of thing is not really adultery? If so, how?
 
RebeccaJ said:
Brigham Young taught that “if the woman preferred a man higher in authority, and he is willing to take her and her husband gives her up-there is no Bill of divorce required…it is right in the sight of God”

. Brigham also explained that the woman, “…would be in a higher glory”.

Please give me the original ref: re the above quote

Thanks
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Snow said:
Modern scholarship tends to think of the decades soon after the death of Christ and the 2nd century, not so much of the 4th when the major “falling away” had already happened.
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This is a fascinating comment–do you have the references for this modern scholarship?

One modern scholar, Bart Ehrman–whatever you may think of him–indicates that perhaps there never even was such a thing as pure Christianity from which to fall. That it was a mixed bag even in the apostles’ day. (Which would fit in with ‘decades soon after the death of Christ.’)

So, given this idea, how can anybody posit an “apostasy” when there was no core Christianity to be apostate from?

By the way, Snow–that is a time-honored Mormon name. I have some friends named Snow, who are descended from Erastus Snow. But these Snow friends of mine are apostate, as they are now Catholic.
 
mackbrislawn said:
This is a fascinating comment–do you have the references for this modern scholarship?

One modern scholar, Bart Ehrman–whatever you may think of him–indicates that perhaps there never even was such a thing as pure Christianity from which to fall. That it was a mixed bag even in the apostles’ day. (Which would fit in with ‘decades soon after the death of Christ.’)

So, given this idea, how can anybody posit an “apostasy” when there was no core Christianity to be apostate from?.
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Hi Mack,

People like Ehrman can put together historical evidence that Christianity was a mixed bag even during the Apostles’ time–the New Testament indicates as much. But the idea that there never was any core Christianity is strictly speculation, since the New Testament clearly indicates that Jesus ordained Apostles, and they were, in the main, united in their message.

So if we take the NT at face value, we have the Apostles and their followers, along with a number of groups (Judaizers, proto-gnostics, antinomians, etc.) that resisted their authority. Looks like an apostasy in the making to me.

During the NT period, more apostles than the original 12, like Matthias, Paul, and Barnabas, were called, and they exercised authority over the churches in various localities. (Just read Paul’s letters.)

After around 110 A.D., somehow there were no Apostles left, and only local leaders like bishops and presbyters in place. There is no indication that any of these bishops exercised any authority outside of their own areas. Clement of Rome is the probable author of a letter to the Corinthian church, in which he exhorts them not to kick out their local leaders, but he doesn’t claim any sort of apostolic authority over them.

In the mid-second century, about 155 A.D., Polycarp of Smyrna traveled to Rome to clear up a question of when to celebrate Easter. Polycarp supposedly had been a disciple of John, and the Eastern Christians felt they had it on apostolic authority that they should celebrate Easter at one time, but the Romans, led by bishop Anicetus, felt they had it on apostolic authority that it should be celebrated at another time. This caused problems because many Eastern Christians were always staying in Rome. Polycarp and Anicetus couldn’t come to any agreement, so they dropped the matter.

The first example of a Roman bishop trying to exert authority over other localities comes around 190 A.D, when Victor of Rome tried to bully the Eastern churches into following the Roman Easter tradition by threatening to excommunicate them. Guess what? The Eastern churches ignored him.

Why did they ignore him? Because nobody at the time seemed to realize that the Roman bishop inherited Peter’s primacy. Nobody started saying that until the mid-third century. In fact, the Roman Easter tradition was not enforced until the Council of Nicea in the fourth century.

So the sequence of events the historical documents give us is this:
  1. A centralized leadership with the Apostles.
  2. More Apostles were ordained from time to time.
  3. Lots of dissenting groups within Christianity opposed the Apostles.
  4. Somehow, new apostles stop being ordained, and eventually only local leaders are left.
  5. There is a power vacuum, with no centralized leadership for at least a century or two.
  6. The Roman church starts making claims of primacy 1-2 centuries after the fact.
Personally, I think the Mormon interpretation of this historical progression makes a lot of sense.
 
Tsuzuki said:
The Great Apostasy was the force that fractured the Christian world, and continually seeks to divide it, while the Restoration is the force that seeks reunion.

“Christians should cease wrangling and contending with each other, and cultivate the principles of union and friendship in their midst; and they will do it before the millennium can be ushered in and Christ takes possession of His kingdom.”

- Joseph Smith, Jr., History of the Church, Vol. 5, p. 498​
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if is seeks to unite it why are there 95 mormon denomination
while there is 1 catholic church?
 
kevangreen said:
if is seeks to unite it why are there 95 mormon denomination
while there is 1 catholic church?
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I have a question?
mormons have it in there articles of faith( kinda like there 10 commandments) that you are suppose to follow all laws in a country.
Why then why did smith practice polygamy which was always illegal in america? funny contridiction i think
 
BDawg said:
Hi Mack,

People like Ehrman can put together historical evidence that Christianity was a mixed bag even during the Apostles’ time–the New Testament indicates as much. But the idea that there never was any core Christianity is strictly speculation, since the New Testament clearly indicates that Jesus ordained Apostles, and they were, in the main, united in their message.

So if we take the NT at face value, we have the Apostles and their followers, along with a number of groups (Judaizers, proto-gnostics, antinomians, etc.) that resisted their authority. Looks like an apostasy in the making to me.

During the NT period, more apostles than the original 12, like Matthias, Paul, and Barnabas, were called, and they exercised authority over the churches in various localities. (Just read Paul’s letters.)

After around 110 A.D., somehow there were no Apostles left, and only local leaders like bishops and presbyters in place. There is no indication that any of these bishops exercised any authority outside of their own areas. Clement of Rome is the probable author of a letter to the Corinthian church, in which he exhorts them not to kick out their local leaders, but he doesn’t claim any sort of apostolic authority over them.

In the mid-second century, about 155 A.D., Polycarp of Smyrna traveled to Rome to clear up a question of when to celebrate Easter. Polycarp supposedly had been a disciple of John, and the Eastern Christians felt they had it on apostolic authority that they should celebrate Easter at one time, but the Romans, led by bishop Anicetus, felt they had it on apostolic authority that it should be celebrated at another time. This caused problems because many Eastern Christians were always staying in Rome. Polycarp and Anicetus couldn’t come to any agreement, so they dropped the matter.

The first example of a Roman bishop trying to exert authority over other localities comes around 190 A.D, when Victor of Rome tried to bully the Eastern churches into following the Roman Easter tradition by threatening to excommunicate them. Guess what? The Eastern churches ignored him.

Why did they ignore him? Because nobody at the time seemed to realize that the Roman bishop inherited Peter’s primacy. Nobody started saying that until the mid-third century. In fact, the Roman Easter tradition was not enforced until the Council of Nicea in the fourth century.

So the sequence of events the historical documents give us is this:
  1. A centralized leadership with the Apostles.
  2. More Apostles were ordained from time to time.
  3. Lots of dissenting groups within Christianity opposed the Apostles.
  4. Somehow, new apostles stop being ordained, and eventually only local leaders are left.
  5. There is a power vacuum, with no centralized leadership for at least a century or two.
  6. The Roman church starts making claims of primacy 1-2 centuries after the fact.
Personally, I think the Mormon interpretation of this historical progression makes a lot of sense.
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A centralized leadership with the Apostles–yes, undoubtedly we can assume the original apostles themselves were united, so this can be considered pure Christianity. Whatever that was! The problem is recovering that Christianity, knowing what it was. Various groups of course have their opinions about it, and as a result we have various churches today. As was the case even back then.

And again, it does seem that new apostles were ordained; so, how was that done? Did it require an original apostle to ordain the new one, or could a second generation apostle ordain a new apostle, a third generation one? For instance, could Polycarp, ordained most likely by John, in turn ordain new apostles, even after the original apostles had died?

As you say, it does appear that an apostasy in the making was there in view of the Judaizers, docetists, etc.
 
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