For the LDS - Please Define the Great Apostacy

[mfbukowski]

The “payment on account” only ceases when the person has repented. However, if the person commits the same sin again, the previous sin is still in the “account” and remembered by God. Thus, the unworthiness is greater by the repeated sin than it was before.

Hogwash!

Show me a quote for that one!

 

[Robert_in_SD]

Catholics: God honors the priesthood of evil men.

No. Priesthood authority is bestowed on a sinner, because no person is without sin. But for the good of all of us, God keeps protects His Church by maintaining it in spite of the fact that some priests betray their vows and commit evil acts.

Mormons: The A and M. priesthood authorities are bestowed on the same type of flawed and sinfull men that are ordained to the Catholic priesthood. Mormon “priests” commit evil acts too. Are you suggesting that Mormon men who commit evil acts automatically lose their priesthood authority because God withdraws it? If so, who does that harm more - the person who loses the authority, or the innocent person who relies on that authority. If you think the validity of the priest’s actions depends on the purity of the priest, can you ever really be sure that an LDS priest’s actions are valid and true. After all, you can never really know another man’s heart. What you are suggesting was rejected early on by the Church when it confronted the Donatist heresy.

mfbukowski:

Simple enough for you?

It’s not that simple, friend.

Peace,
-Robert

 

[RebeccaJ]

Hogwash!

Show me a quote for that one!

Here you go.

“Likewise, repentance must be consistent and continuous. To repent of a sin and then to tamper with it again or permit it to invade, even slightly, is to lose the repentance and its beneficent effects, and “the former sins return, saith the Lord God.” (D&C 82:7.)”

D&C 82:7

7 And now, verily I say unto you, I, the Lord, will not lay any sin to your charge; go your ways and sin no more; but unto that soul who sinneth shall the former sins return, saith the Lord your God.

 

[RebeccaJ]

Partially. Apostasy terminates authority. If you are evil also, your priesthood goes away.

So now you will bring up all the perceived transgressions of Mormon leaders. Fergetaboutit. Those are your perceptions, not ours.

Then you will debate “what?!!! polygammy/polyandry is only a perceived transgression?”

And the wheel will go round and round. This thread is a waste of time. You are only to about a third of the length we had it going a few months ago before we got closed down for lack of charity.

You guys have a long way to go! See if you can get closed down in only 700 posts! Go for it!

Or better yet, let’s pretend we are Irish and start shooting eachother! That will be fun!

And those fascist protesters out there who are after all of us can have a field day.

We need unity, not this silliness. Crucifixes trampled, temples defaced and here we argue about silliness.

This is real, people. The forces of evil are marshalled against us both. Let’s get it together and quit wasting time.

Dude, what the hell?

Irish and shooting each other?

Silliness? We’re talking about SALVATION. Which is not silliness.

This is discussion not shooting.

If you are going to focus on sticking up in unity for Christianity, trampled crucifixes and defaced temples is same old same old.

Let’s talk about the Christians being murdered in India and Asia.

 

[Robert_in_SD]

No, by sin we withdraw from God’s promise. It doesn’t affect Him in the least.

There is a distinction between saying we - by our sins - destroy our relationship with God, and saying that if we fail to live up to God’s expectations He withdraws His grace. There is a difference that, from a practical perspective may seem small, but from a theological and implicational perspective is large and hairy.

mfbukowski:

He loves us, but if we go out and get drunk, daddy doesn’t give us the car until we repent.

In my case, my dad kept the car from me until I earned His trust back. But there is a distinction between your analogy and the relationship between God and man in Christ. God never “takes” the keys away. He lets us throw them away. When we repent the relationship is restored, but we still have an obligation to deal with the effects of our sin. These are two different issues. My concern was that LDS members seem to believe that their actions (apart from our acts in Christ) will keep God from withdrawing. Maybe I’m reading too much into the language I see, but it appears more like a contractual relationship rather than a covenantal one.

mfbukowski:

Doesn’t that just make sense? Daddy is still daddy. We are the ones who have broken the contract.

God never signed a contract with me. I am in a relationship with Him. Part of that relationship is a pledge of fidelity. Breach of that fidelity gives rise to consequences, even the destruction of the relationship in some instances, but it’s not a breach of contract situation, wherein I forfeit damages to God… nor can I compel God to “pay” me what he “owes” me for my good behavior.

mfbukowski:

So you believe that if you are in mortal sin, God continues to shower grace on you ??

No.

No. There’s a distinction here that you are missing. I do not believe that I can “accumulate grace” by simply “being good.” Any grace I receive is the result of my first being in a right relationship with God in Jesus Christ. If I destroy that relationship, no amount of my individually “being good” will re-establish that relationship. You seem to be taking Jesus out of the equation here, and/or making the relationship between God and man one of bargained for exchange. That is not the road to salvation. The road to salvation is Christ and the cross, not hard work and personal sacrifice.

Peace,
-Robert

 

[Snow]

Let me help you get started:

The ‘Great Apostasy’ was invented by 19th century Protestant ‘scholarship‘ as part of the Restoration Movement. Joseph Smith accepted it, as the rest of the Restoration Churches did, as a fact of history.

Okay then. He who asserts bears the burden of of proof. Can you prove your claim?

This event was to have happened around the time of Constantine.

Not in my opinion.

As we became more aware of early Christian writing and history it became clear there was no ‘Great Apostasy’ around the time of Constantine, so the date was pushed back closer to the beginning.

I believe the apostasy to be a matter of loss of authority to properly act in God’s name. Could you please post the evidence that if there were an apostasy, it would have been recored in Christian writing?

Even this finally gave way to the realization that the ‘Great Apostasy’ was not an historical event.

Proof please.

“Given the Mormon religion is only based on faith, let’s just add this to the mix.” “We will just believe it happened.” “We will believe that God withdrew his authority.” “Now we can just declare it so and no one can prove otherwise.” “Let it be so.”

For that matter, the RCC is only based on faith. You cannot even prove God exists let alone prove He approves of your Church.

Of can you?

 

[Stephen168]

Let me defer this question until later. I’ll make a post that gives an overview of current LDS scholarly thinking. The reason I say “current scholarly thinking” is that we believe by way of modern revelation that there was an apostasy. Early LDS authors and scholars then tried to frame how, when and why. There understanding was derived from 19th century Protestant scholarship. New understanding is now available.

I haven’t had the time to spend 45 minutes in one setting writing.

“Given the Mormon religion is only based on faith, let’s just add this to the mix.” “We will just believe it happened.” “We will believe that God withdrew his authority.” “Now we can just declare it so and no one can prove otherwise.” “Let it be so.”

Robert, I think this is the definition you were looking for:

I believe the apostasy to be a matter of loss of authority to properly act in God’s name.

S/he seems to be too busy for the complete answer we were hoping for.

 

[mfbukowski]

There is a distinction between saying we - by our sins - destroy our relationship with God, and saying that if we fail to live up to God’s expectations He withdraws His grace. There is a difference that, from a practical perspective may seem small, but from a theological and implicational perspective is large and hairy.

In my case, my dad kept the car from me until I earned His trust back. But there is a distinction between your analogy and the relationship between God and man in Christ. God never “takes” the keys away. He lets us throw them away. When we repent the relationship is restored, but we still have an obligation to deal with the effects of our sin. These are two different issues. My concern was that LDS members seem to believe that their actions (apart from our acts in Christ) will keep God from withdrawing. Maybe I’m reading too much into the language I see, but it appears more like a contractual relationship rather than a covenantal one.

God never signed a contract with me. I am in a relationship with Him. Part of that relationship is a pledge of fidelity. Breach of that fidelity gives rise to consequences, even the destruction of the relationship in some instances, but it’s not a breach of contract situation, wherein I forfeit damages to God… nor can I compel God to “pay” me what he “owes” me for my good behavior.

No.

No. There’s a distinction here that you are missing. I do not believe that I can “accumulate grace” by simply “being good.” Any grace I receive is the result of my first being in a right relationship with God in Jesus Christ. If I destroy that relationship, no amount of my individually “being good” will re-establish that relationship. You seem to be taking Jesus out of the equation here, and/or making the relationship between God and man one of bargained for exchange. That is not the road to salvation. The road to salvation is Christ and the cross, not hard work and personal sacrifice.

Peace,
-Robert

Frankly, I understand your distinctions, but I think they are not worth arguing about.

It’s not that they are valid distinctions, it’s just not clear to me that Mormon doctrine is on one side of the distinction and Catholic doctrine on the other side. At least what Mormons generally believe includes ambiguities which flow over onto both sides of the “fence” you are defining.

I think most run of the mill Catholics would not see the distinction either. “Be a good boy, and you will go to heaven- be bad and you go to hell”.

One of the reasons we baptize past the age of reason is that we believe that by that age, one is able to at least to some degree, understand the covenants made. I think this distinction would be lost on an 8 year old, but an 8 year old can understand that “if your’re good , God will bless you, and if you’re bad, God will not bless you”. It is similar to why catholics have “first communion” and actually confession around the same age.

I think what might give outsiders the impression that your distinction is valid is that we have literature designed to explain the principle to 8 year olds.

 

[mfbukowski]

Maybe I’m reading too much into the language I see, but it appears more like a contractual relationship rather than a covenantal one.

Long story short, I think it’s the language

 

[Robert_in_SD]

snow:

I believe the apostasy to be a matter of loss of authority to properly act in God’s name.

Thanks for the non-authoritative personal opinion. But do you have some LDS authority that supports your personal opinion? Was this something you were taught? Are there any more specific authoritative written claims or teachings by LDS teaching authority that tell LDS members the “who, what, when, where and/or how” about this alleged loss of authority?

Peace,
-Robert

 

[mackbrislawn]

Not necessarily.

We believe that one characteristic of God’s relationship with his people is that of covenants. “A covenant is a sacred agreement between God and a person or group of people. God sets specific conditions, and He promises to bless us as we obey those conditions. When we choose not to keep covenants, we cannot receive the blessings, and in some instances we suffer a penalty as a consequence of our disobedience.”

It’s not a simple matter of God withdrawing authority but rather a more complex situation of covenant and mutual fulfillment of a contractual relationship.

Gee. Since, then, we’re always falling and not keeping our part, and hence not receiving blessings, it’s no wonder.

“All have sinned and fallen short…”

 

[mfbukowski]

Gee. Since, then, we’re always falling and not keeping our part, and hence not receiving blessings, it’s no wonder.

“All have sinned and fallen short…”

See, we HAVE taught you something!

 

[guanophore]

Yeah - saw em. I haven’t had the time to spend 45 minutes in one setting writing. What’s the rush - you don’t/won’t buy it anyway.

You are right, I am sure I won’t, but I do want to see them. It baffles me that one could assert that there was a “Great Apostasy”, and I don’t believe this is the case, but I would sure like to understand why others think so. I read a lot of things here I don’t agree with.

You might want to consider writing in a word/text file, that way you can save it till it is done, and paste. You can also have it ready when the next ignorant Catholic happens along.

 

[guanophore]

No, you got it right the first time. God didn’t withdraw anything. You are the ones that insist that no unclean thing can enter God’s presence. When the church became unclean, it withdrew itself from God.

When was the Church “clean”?

When and how did the church become unclean?

 

[guanophore]

1. I think that there were individuals or maybe groups of people during the long hiatus that did repent and did exercise faith and did follow God

You have yet to establish that there is such a think as “the long hiatus”.

but it seems as if you are talking about the institutional church.

I am curious about what you mean by “institutional church”.

I’d offer that I see the the 1700 years or so as an evolution, moving forward, progressing for an eventual Restoration, with the Reformation a key step along the way. I also see the rise of democracies and freedom as a key development.

You are absolutely right about secular politics. In Judaism, it was a theocracy. The Kingdom of Heaven is also a Theocracy. Modern man, especially Americans, whose politics are based upon rugged individualism, easily reject the notion of Theocracy, and have re-created their notion of the “kingdom of heaven” disconnected from the authority established by Christ.

I notice that you merely claim it rather than demonstrate it.

You claiming, even over and over, don’t make it so.

You are right, of course. However, the demonstration has been given in this thread from the scriptures, and the Fathers. If this is not pursuasive for you, then I think only the HS can open your mind and heart.

 

[guanophore]

Partially. Apostasy terminates authority. If you are evil also, your priesthood goes away.

So now you will bring up all the perceived transgressions of Mormon leaders. Fergetaboutit. Those are your perceptions, not ours.

I think I see how this works. One must have LDS “perceptions”. When this happens, one knows that “evil” makes the priesthood go away. But this does not apply to any "perceived transgressions of Mormon leaders’ because they are not really “evil”. The fact that they appear “evil” to outsiders is a simple problem of “misperception”.

Then you will debate “what?!!! polygammy/polyandry is only a perceived transgression?”

And the wheel will go round and round. This thread is a waste of time. You are only to about a third of the length we had it going a few months ago before we got closed down for lack of charity.

I agree that it may be a waste of time.

You guys have a long way to go! See if you can get closed down in only 700 posts! Go for it!

Or better yet, let’s pretend we are Irish and start shooting eachother! That will be fun!

Sounds to me like you are unable to address the topic.

And those fascist protesters out there who are after all of us can have a field day.

feeling a little paranoid, aren’t we?

We need unity, not this silliness. Crucifixes trampled, temples defaced and here we argue about silliness.

Are you purporting that the LDS has respect for Catholicism?

This is real, people. The forces of evil are marshalled against us both. Let’s get it together and quit wasting time.

Unity is centered in the Truth.

 

[mfbukowski]

When was the Church “clean”?

When and how did the church become unclean?

Go back to the original post. I was talking about how apostasy occurs-- it was an analogy

 

[mfbukowski]

I

Are you purporting that the LDS has respect for Catholicism?

Purporting nothing. it’s a fact. If you’d get over the chip on your shoulder and try to be civil you’d be surprised how much we could talk about.

Take a lesson from the charitable catholics on this forum and you might actually learn something

 

[Gabriel_of_12]

Honesty is a good thing Gabriel. Try it.

You certainly did mean it as an insult and we both know it. It is pejorative to characterize jumping out of window to evade armed murderers as breaking out of jail.

So I am insulting you when I state a fact that your founder was “killed breaking out of jail”? How you state it above applies a justification to breaking out of jail. Peter, I can give no justice or reason to why he denied Jesus Christ 3x’s. Peter was incarcerated also, but Peter went willing to his martrydom for his faith and Jesus, he only refused not to be crucified as Our dear Lord was, so they crucified him upside down.

Now this may be an insult on the page, but not intended, to have such an education as you displayed, how can you follow a man made religion and founder who was killed breaking out of Jail?

Something has you convinced in your higher learning that you yourself will become god from your religious teachings. Jesus never taught such a gospel. This is another gospel of Jesus as your faith proclaims, but the apostles teach in direct conflict to it.

So again I ask, do Mormons seek Jesus to follow him and his teachings? or themselves in higher learning for when they become gods themselves?

Again I apologized if you were offended from my statement. Truth does not hide, Truth reveals.