LDS account of the "Great Apostasy"

[bzkoss236]

I was searching Google for something in particular, but in the number of things not related to it, I happened to stumble across this: salvation.scottsworld.info/which.htm

An LDS man’s views on the so called “Great Apostasy”.

And while I can see some misinterpretations and misinformation on my own, I was curious as to how some of you think of it. It might be a bit long and boring for some of you, but you can change the background color at the top of the screen! Lol…

Anyways. I was curious to see what others though of it.

 

[KathleenGee]

To be upfront, I didn’t look at Scott’s site for this topic. But I have participated in a number of LDS Great Apostasy threads.

First of all, conversion is the action of an individual. It is not about two or three or more people converting to Christ at the same time in the same way and form.

Conversion is an individual process.

The universal Christian Church has held its same beliefs for 2,000 years, – consistency of thought.

LDS and other 1800 restorationists still have not been able to find out when, speaking truthfully, the Catholic/Orthodox universal Christian Church apostasized. It never did. Individual members did.

So if the LDS is implying, as it has held in its past teachings that the Roman Church is apostate, and the protestants are her apostate daughters, – apostasy coming to an established church – then the Mormon Church is just as vulnerable to apostasizing.

It has changed its beliefs to the point it now publicly denies them. There is a new branch of Mormonism that is now discovering the writings of the early church fathers, but misinterpreting their teachings to support Mormonism’s belief we progress to the day we become gods.

We are creatures, we are made in the image and likeness of God, we have free will and intellect, but we are creatures and always will be. In Christ, we are made heirs and partakers of divine life…but in experiencing the life of God in His Word and His sustenance through the Eucharist, and we live the gospel by being servants, and our hope is to be reunited to Christ in heaven…where then we enter the lives of the saints.

By 100 AD, the Church was already formally founded with practically all books of Sacred Scripture except the Book of Hebrews that took more time to discern, the foundation, spirit and tone of liturgy that is the same today, the episcopal model of church administration, and finally the foundation of doctrine and profession of shared faith: the Apostles Creed.

Furthermore, they will tell you that Constantine founded the Catholic Church, when there has been only one church. Constantine signed the Edict of Milan simply to make Christianity legal and make Sunday a day of rest for all his subjects in the empire. Constantine won the battles against two Roman emperors who were the worst who almost decimated Christianity, killed many bishops, and destroyed many church buildings.

Constantine had a dream or vision to put the emblem of the cross on his soldiers’ shields. They won the battle and out of gratitude, he assisted in re-building many church buildings, assisted in discerning strong leadership in believers who were good candidates for the bishopry. Otherwise, he was a typical ruthless emperor like the rest, and they use his exploits to show what a bad Christian he was. They were wrong on that as Constantine did not be come a Christian until a few days before his death. The Christian side of his family was actually his mother, St. Helen who discovered the ancient cross upon which Christ had died.

It is good to spend more time on objective and documented early church history than to be bogged down by spin and cherry picking.

 

[SteveVH]

I was searching Google for something in particular, but in the number of things not related to it, I happened to stumble across this: salvation.scottsworld.info/which.htm

An LDS man’s views on the so called “Great Apostasy”.

And while I can see some misinterpretations and misinformation on my own, I was curious as to how some of you think of it. It might be a bit long and boring for some of you, but you can change the background color at the top of the screen! Lol…

Anyways. I was curious to see what others though of it.

Yeah, I cannot even force myself to read this stuff anymore, nor do I need to in order to refute what it says. It all boils down to one thing. Did Jesus keep his word or did he not? He promised to remain with his Church until the end of time. He promised that the Holy Spirit would lead it into all truth (not apostasy). He gave the Church the keys to the kingdom and the power to bind and loose; unimaginable authority.

And then we are suppose to believe that he spaced out just one thing. What the heck was he going to do when the last Apostle died? We are to believe that in order for priesthood authority to continue that new “Apostles” had to be elected and believing this we are to further believe that they somehow, inexplicably, forgot to do it. The one thing, apparently, that had to be done in order for the Church to contiunue and they forgot to do it. I can just imagine the V-8 moment at the bedside of the last Apostle as he closed his eyes for the last time. "Dang it, you know what we forgot to do? We forgot to elect another Apostle. Now what are we going to do? :doh2:

The entire proposition is ridiculous, has no basis in history and is nothing more than a premise upon which Joseph Smith had to invent in order to justify the existence of his own organization.

 

[batman1973]

I was searching Google for something in particular, but in the number of things not related to it, I happened to stumble across this: salvation.scottsworld.info/which.htm

An LDS man’s views on the so called “Great Apostasy”.

And while I can see some misinterpretations and misinformation on my own, I was curious as to how some of you think of it. It might be a bit long and boring for some of you, but you can change the background color at the top of the screen! Lol…

Anyways. I was curious to see what others though of it.

Did this one already: forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=736220

 

[RebeccaJ]

I was searching Google for something in particular, but in the number of things not related to it, I happened to stumble across this: salvation.scottsworld.info/which.htm

An LDS man’s views on the so called “Great Apostasy”.

And while I can see some misinterpretations and misinformation on my own, I was curious as to how some of you think of it. It might be a bit long and boring for some of you, but you can change the background color at the top of the screen! Lol…

Anyways. I was curious to see what others though of it.

Yes the Mormon great apostasy has been done to death here.

I always recommend “The Continuity of the Catholic Church” by Bishop Duane G. Hunt D.D. (Bishop of the Salt Lake diocese, 1937-1960)

 

[TexanKnight]

It is a simple thing…really.

If Jesus is an honest, all-powerful God, then there was no apostasy.

If Jesus is a dishonest, weak God, then an apostasy is a possibility.

That is the an alleged apostasy in a nutshell.

 

[bzkoss236]

Did this one already: forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=736220

Yes the Mormon great apostasy has been done to death here.

I always recommend “The Continuity of the Catholic Church” by Bishop Duane G. Hunt D.D. (Bishop of the Salt Lake diocese, 1937-1960)

I wasn’t necessarily talking about the “Great Apostasy” in general, but more the guy’s take on it in the link I posted. I understand that talking about the “Great Apostasy” is like beating a dead horse, but I was just talking about this guy’s take specifically.

 

[Matt_Guitar_Man]

The big problem with the view in the link given is the same problem that I encounter with simmlar views expressed by new religions that emerged during the mid to late 19th century, and attempt to use the so called “Great Apostasy” theory to legitamise their particular view.
And that is that they portray early christianity as totaly isolationist or in other words as not being capable of understanding and even appreciating the great minds of antiquaty, nor being sufficently subtle in wisdom and reasoning to empathise and discourse with non christian peers of their time.
To me this view often reflects the view of the founder of the new religion that is trying to use this particular theory to gain leverage. Take for example Charles Taze Russell the founder of the Jehovah Witnesses who also drew heavily on the great apostay theory in an attempt to legitamise his view. According to his point of view every learned christian from St paul to the present day and this includes all of those devoute and holy doctors of the church got it wrong, i.e they completly missed the message of Christ and the gospels.
According to this view the founder of the new religion is the only one who has got it right, and is correctly following the teachings of Christ since the time of the appostels.
Buying into these accounts of the great apostosy, and being drawn into the teachings of these new religions takes the new recruite into a world where history and language no longer have any meaning, they are manipulated and morphed into new forms and become tools to serve the agenda of the particular movement instead of remaining as reliable guide posts which can be used to assess the often outlandish claims of the charletons and confidence tricksters, claiming to be some one great (Acts 8:9), that have exsisted side by side with the one true church since the time of Simone the Magus.
All of these so called accounts of the the “Great Apostasy” read the same, on the surface they appear well researched and even credible however upon closer examination they completly fall apart. The main problem, that they all seem to have in common, is that the author takes a short space of history for example in the above link 313 to about 325, this period is removed from all context, as if this space of 20 years or so exsisted in a vaccume removed from all other social, poltical, cultural, historical, philosophical, economic and geographical influences of it’s time, and once placed in this rareified atmosphere the author then procedes to builed up his or her argument seemingly using any means available, jumping backwards and forwards through history without any regard for context or events, selectivly quating from any obscure source that can be used to support their views, dissmissing all other credible sources that are in contradiction to their views, and on and on it goes.
Come on “Give me a break”. This sort of crank so called “research” belongs in the same catagory as the “They never landed on the moon” conspiracy theorists.

 

[RebeccaJ]

I wasn’t necessarily talking about the “Great Apostasy” in general, but more the guy’s take on it in the link I posted. I understand that talking about the “Great Apostasy” is like beating a dead horse, but I was just talking about this guy’s take specifically.

That article has multiple topics, all based on LDS belief of a great apostasy. Largely, it is based on Protestant ideas, the main one being, Christ is not present in the Church He founded on His Apostles. Mormonism is Christian primitivism taken further than any mainline Protestant would accept or believe.

All the points raised in this article are a rehash of LDS teaching, most notably put together in Talmages, “The Great Apostasy”. Bishop Hunt led the church in Salt Lake at a time when Mormonism was still outspoken in its anti-Catholicism. He refutes, and defends, against the claims in the article I linked, as they are the same as they were in his time.

 

[RebeccaJ]

The big problem with the view in the link given is the same problem that I encounter with simmlar views expressed by new religions that emerged during the mid to late 19th century, and attempt to use the so called “Great Apostasy” theory to legitamise their particular view.
And that is that they portray early christianity as totaly isolationist or in other words as not being capable of understanding and even appreciating the great minds of antiquaty, nor being sufficently subtle in wisdom and reasoning to empathise and discourse with non christian peers of their time.
To me this view often reflects the view of the founder of the new religion that is trying to use this particular theory to gain leverage. Take for example Charles Taze Russell the founder of the Jehovah Witnesses who also drew heavily on the great apostay theory in an attempt to legitamise his view. According to his point of view every learned christian from St paul to the present day and this includes all of those devoute and holy doctors of the church got it wrong, i.e they completly missed the message of Christ and the gospels.
According to this view the founder of the new religion is the only one who has got it right, and is correctly following the teachings of Christ since the time of the appostels.
Buying into these accounts of the great apostosy, and being drawn into the teachings of these new religions takes the new recruite into a world where history and language no longer have any meaning, they are manipulated and morphed into new forms and become tools to serve the agenda of the particular movement instead of remaining as reliable guide posts which can be used to assess the often outlandish claims of the charletons and confidence tricksters, claiming to be some one great (Acts 8:9), that have exsisted side by side with the one true church since the time of Simone the Magus.
All of these so called accounts of the the “Great Apostasy” read the same, on the surface they appear well researched and even credible however upon closer examination they completly fall apart. The main problem, that they all seem to have in common, is that the author takes a short space of history for example in the above link 313 to about 325, this period is removed from all context, as if this space of 20 years or so exsisted in a vaccume removed from all other social, poltical, cultural, historical, philosophical, economic and geographical influences of it’s time, and once placed in this rareified atmosphere the author then procedes to builed up his or her argument seemingly using any means available, jumping backwards and forwards through history without any regard for context or events, selectivly quating from any obscure source that can be used to support their views, dissmissing all other credible sources that are in contradiction to their views, and on and on it goes.
Come on “Give me a break”. This sort of crank so called “research” belongs in the same catagory as the “They never landed on the moon” conspiracy theorists.