Mormon "Apostasy & Restoration"

[TheosisM]

Dianaiad, nevermind about my question about how a bishop can still be a bishop even after being released. I assume it is the same as how a Catholic deacon, priest or bishop remains so even after they stop functioning as one.

 

[dianaiad]

Obviously I did not know that he meant it in the way you are interpreting it (otherwise I wouldn’t have asked him the question in the first place, before you commented!), especially when he said “the absence of explaining that bishops will then be ordaining bishops answers your question” adds to how I interpreted it. Catholics and Mormons agree that people can’t just go around ordaining people just because they can.

This is what I was getting at originally. What does that mean “a bishop remains a bishop even after he is released from the job”? If being a bishop is a calling, and one is released from their calling as a bishop, what does it mean that he remains a bishop after being released?

And ultimately, what I am getting at is this: okay, so a Stake President has “almost always” been a bishop before he was stake president. When he ordains a bishop, is it through his office of bishop, or office of stake president? Can a regular bishop (with no higher calling of stake president, general authority, etc) be given the authority or permission to ordain another bishop? The Handbook of Instructions says that for the office of Bishop, the person is called and set apart by “A General Authority or Area Seventy, or the stake president with written approval from the First Presidency”. It seems as if bishops are not included in this.

Ok, I see now what you are getting at.

whew…Ok, a Bishop is a High Priest. Or rather, only High Priests can be Bishops. One must be a High Priest in order to be a Stake President, too…or serve in a Bishopric or Stake Presidency. The OFFICE of Bishop is an office–a job, not a level of the priesthood, except that once having been a Bishop, the respect stays with you; you are entitled to be referred to as 'Bishop" for the rest of your life. Stake presidents, referred to as “President” during their term, will, when they are released from that calling, be referred to again as “Bishop” more times than not. When they become General Authorities (Apostles) the title is 'Elder." …It’s an interesting progress–the title of most respect is “Elder…” the first one a young man is given when he becomes a missionary at 19, and the last one he holds if he becomes an apostle. “Elder,” Bishop," “President…” “Elder…”

I have never known a Stake President who did not serve in a Bishopric before he became a Stake President. He may not have been THE Bishop, but he was first or second counselor. So, even though the authority of the job doesn’t stick, the title does—and so we have the Stake President, who was also at one time a Bishop, and who is always a High Priest, ordaining (with permission from the General Authorities…) a new Bishop.

I hope we have cleared up that bit of communication confusion.

cont. on next post…

 

[dianaiad]

cont. from last post…

And that is the question I was asking ParkerD: in Catholicism, bishops ordain other bishops. In Mormonism, from what I have read, a bishop cannot ordain another bishop by virtue of his office of bishop.

No, he can’t. That would be doing it on his own authority, and all priesthood ordinations have to be done with the correct authority. For us that wouldn’t be an automatic excommunication, but it would mean an inevitable, and very definite, one.

I still haven’t seen otherwise from official documents, but would welcome any that correct me.

Because the Pope is seen as holding primacy among the bishops, the physical symbol of the unity of the Church, etc. The Pope’s role includes assuring unity among the bishops, and that includes approving their successors. Catholic history has many examples of bishops going off and ordaining people without permission, which causes schism. Google “SSPX”.

Ah, yes…thank you. That’s what I mean, though those excommunications have been rescinded, yes?

Correct, the Pope is not an apostle, nor do we claim that he is. Nor do we claim that bishops are equal to apostles. The Pope can indeed receive revelations, as we all can. We don’t operate like the LDS church however, nor do we claim to.

Then how is the Pope giving permission for ordinations any different from Archbishop Lefebvre doing the same thing?

He is a “bishop among other bishops”, yet he is the first among them, and has primacy. Again: Catholics believe that all bishops are successors of the apostles. We believe that Peter had primacy among the apostles, and that this primacy resided in the Church of Rome, where we believe that he died. The Bishop of Rome, the Pope, is seen as the successor of Peter, and therefore holds that primacy among the other bishops.

…but…he’s still a Bishop. Not an apostle. See where the sticking point is, for us? As to revelation, yes, I’m certain that he can, and does, recieve revelation as we all do. The problem, of course, is that no Pope has ever claimed to have one that affects the entire church. …

Yes, and we simply view this differently. We believe that there were Twelve Apostles, and that the criteria for an Apostle was made explicit with the selection of Judas’ replacement. We believe that Paul was not a member of the Twelve (i.e. replacing someone), but that he was an apostle in the sense of the definition of the word (messenger sent forth). So, we see a distinction between apostles of the Twelve, and apostles outside of them. The bishops were the appointed successors of the Twelve, since no one else could fulfill that criteria of being one of the Twelve. Bishops were/are similar to the Apostles of the Twelve in a number of ways, yet they are not apostles, and we don’t claim that they are or have the same authority and power(s).

…but…Paul did. He had revelations. He ordered people around and gave permission for ordinations. He was called, and accepted by Peter and the other apostles as an apostle. He did everything that the first set of twelve did. Doesn’t this indicate that this level of authority, revelation and line of authority was meant to continue?

 

[TheosisM]

Ok, I see now what you are getting at.

whew…Ok, a Bishop is a High Priest. Or rather, only High Priests can be Bishops. One must be a High Priest in order to be a Stake President, too…or serve in a Bishopric or Stake Presidency. The OFFICE of Bishop is an office–a job, not a level of the priesthood, except that once having been a Bishop, the respect stays with you; you are entitled to be referred to as 'Bishop" for the rest of your life. Stake presidents, referred to as “President” during their term, will, when they are released from that calling, be referred to again as “Bishop” more times than not. When they become General Authorities (Apostles) the title is 'Elder." …It’s an interesting progress–the title of most respect is “Elder…” the first one a young man is given when he becomes a missionary at 19, and the last one he holds if he becomes an apostle. “Elder,” Bishop," “President…” “Elder…”

I have never known a Stake President who did not serve in a Bishopric before he became a Stake President. He may not have been THE Bishop, but he was first or second counselor. So, even though the authority of the job doesn’t stick, the title does—and so we have the Stake President, who was also at one time a Bishop, and who is always a High Priest, ordaining (with permission from the General Authorities…) a new Bishop.

I hope we have cleared up that bit of communication confusion.

cont. on next post…

Yes we have, thank you for explaining.

 

[kikkichan]

dianaiad,

Hi, I have some randon thoughts/questions with regard to priesthood authority in the BoM:

In particular to the of the 12 new-world disciples – named in 3 Nephi 19:4, but commissioned in 3 Nephi 18, ( I think)

3 Nephi 19:4
And it came to pass that on the morrow, when the multitude was gathered together, behold, Nephi and his brother whom
he had raised from the dead, whose name was Timothy, and also his son, whose name was Jonas, and also Mathoni, and
Mathonihah, his brother, and Kumen, and Kumenonhi, and Jeremiah, and Shemnon, and Jonas, and Zedekiah, and Isaiah–
now these were the names of the disciples whom Jesus had chosen–and it came to pass that they went forth and stood in the
midst of the multitude.

Were these “twelve” equivalent to the 12 Judean apostles? They were given the power to baptize, We’re they given the power to ordain? (i.e., Aaronic priesthood ?).

Since they are not called apostles, could they ordain bishops? I know that the new-world church apostasized as well, but w/o “apostles” did they even have a chance?

thanks,
-kc

Yes.

In May, 1829, Joseph and Oliver Cowdery were translating the plates, and read about the importance of baptism. It concerned them, so they went into the woods to pray. They received a vision there. A ‘messenger from heaven’ came down and ordained Joseph to what we call the “Aaronic Priesthood.” With that authority, Joseph baptized Oliver, ordained HIM, and Oliver returned the favor and baptized Joseph. That messenger, we believe, was John the Baptist, who acted directly under the authority of Peter, James and John.

If you are asking about any earlier baptism, it doesn’t matter, since we don’t believe any earlier baptism actually counted.

 

[TheosisM]

cont. from last post…

No, he can’t. That would be doing it on his own authority, and all priesthood ordinations have to be done with the correct authority. For us that wouldn’t be an automatic excommunication, but it would mean an inevitable, and very definite, one.

Right. But can a LDS bishop be given permission to ordain another bishop? As you said, stake presidents usually were bishops before. But, can a regular bishop, without a higher calling (i.e. stake president, general authority, etc), receive permission to ordain other bishops? That’s fundamentally what I was wondering.

Ah, yes…thank you. That’s what I mean, though those excommunications have been rescinded, yes?

Yes, they have, though the SSPX are still in an irregular status.

Then how is the Pope giving permission for ordinations any different from Archbishop Lefebvre doing the same thing?

This goes back to the primacy of Peter, extending into the primacy of the Bishop of Rome. It is by virtue of the office of Bishop of Rome that the Pope can give permission for ordinations, and not by virtue of his ordination as a bishop.

In Catholicism, two words are important to the sacraments: “valid/invalid” and “licit/illicit”. The case of Archbishop Lefebvre illustrates this. All Catholic bishops can ordain other bishops. This is “validity”. Having permission from the Pope makes it “licit”, essentially “legal”/“authorized”. Archbishop Lefebvre’s ordinations were valid. Since he was a bishop, he had the power to ordain these people. However they were illicit ordinations, since he didn’t have permission from the Pope to ordain them. Therefore, such bishops were outside of the normal bounds of the Catholic Church structure.

So, this “permission granting” rests only in the office of the Bishop of Rome, because of his primacy over the other bishops. In Catholicism, there are only three “Orders” of the priesthood: deacon, priest, bishop. Within those, there are different offices/titles that carry different functions, rights and privileges, such as patriarch, cardinal, bishop of Rome (Pope), etc. “Permission granting” for ordination is one of those privileges that only the Bishop of Rome holds.

…but…he’s still a Bishop. Not an apostle. See where the sticking point is, for us? As to revelation, yes, I’m certain that he can, and does, recieve revelation as we all do. The problem, of course, is that no Pope has ever claimed to have one that affects the entire church. …

Well that depends on what we mean by revelation. Some may interpret the exercising of Papal Infallibility, in defining the Immaculate Conception of Mary and the Assumption of Mary, as “revelation”, in the sense that the Pope was guided by the Holy Spirit in defining these dogmas. Catholics would not see these two doctrines as pulled out of the blue necessarily, but that God guided the Pope in formally defining them.

…but…Paul did. He had revelations. He ordered people around and gave permission for ordinations. He was called, and accepted by Peter and the other apostles as an apostle. He did everything that the first set of twelve did. Doesn’t this indicate that this level of authority, revelation and line of authority was meant to continue?

Paul of course had an important role in the development of the early Church. Paul was an apostle, but he wasn’t an apostle of the Twelve. One of the main differences between Paul and the Twelve goes back to the “criteria” for being one of the Twelve that we believe was made explicit when Matthias was chosen. In fact, I can see many Catholic authorities of old as being apostles that “did everything the first set of twelve did”, complete with revelations, ordinations, etc., and yet we would not consider them to be part of the same “quorum of the twelve” as the originals. Paul was also visited personally by Jesus Christ for his unique role.
This article may be helpful:

catholic.com/thisrock/2001/0107bt.asp

 

[dianaiad]

dianaiad,

Hi, I have some randon thoughts/questions with regard to priesthood authority in the BoM:

In particular to the of the 12 new-world disciples – named in 3 Nephi 19:4, but commissioned in 3 Nephi 18, ( I think)

3 Nephi 19:4
And it came to pass that on the morrow, when the multitude was gathered together, behold, Nephi and his brother whom
he had raised from the dead, whose name was Timothy, and also his son, whose name was Jonas, and also Mathoni, and
Mathonihah, his brother, and Kumen, and Kumenonhi, and Jeremiah, and Shemnon, and Jonas, and Zedekiah, and Isaiah–
now these were the names of the disciples whom Jesus had chosen–and it came to pass that they went forth and stood in the
midst of the multitude.

Were these “twelve” equivalent to the 12 Judean apostles? They were given the power to baptize, We’re they given the power to ordain? (i.e., Aaronic priesthood ?).

Yes.

Since they are not called apostles, could they ordain bishops? I know that the new-world church apostasized as well, but w/o “apostles” did they even have a chance?

thanks,
-kc

Took 'em a little longer in the Americas. Things went south here about AD 400…and when they went south here, they REALLY went downhill.

 

[kimmielittle]

Hiyas

That messenger, we believe, was John the Baptist, who acted directly under the authority of Peter, James and John.

If Saint John the Baptist died before Jesus.
And Jesus hadn’t yet given authority to Saint Peter, John, and James. How did Saint John the Baptist get their authority?

Thank you

 

[Catholic20064]

True and Dianaid said that Mormon Bishops ordain other Mormon Bishops, but Parker says it is a sign of the “Great Apostasy.” From the Bible it seems to me only Christ and The Twelve ordained Apostles; and The Twelve were never intended to last past the life time of those who walked with Christ on earth, so the position of Apostle was temporary by design. Which means, who else would ordain a Bishop if not another Bishop.

Sometimes we are too quick to accept the faulty premises that Mormons put forth as gospel truth. The Catechism paragraph 862 is very clear about the apostolic authority of the Bishops.

Just as the office which the Lord confided to Peter alone, as first of the apostles, destined to be transmitted to his successors, is a permanent one, so also endures the office, which the apostles received, of shepherding the Church, a charge destined to be exercised without interruption by the sacred order of bishops. Hence the Church teaches that "the bishops have by divine institution taken the place of the apostles as pastors of the Church, in such wise that whoever listens to them is listening to Christ and whoever despises them despises Christ and him who sent Christ.

The Bishops exercise the authority the Apostles had been given. The office may be different, but it seems to me their authority is the same as that of the Apostles. The Mormon denial of the Catholic Bishops’ authority is a denial of the authority these Bishops were given by the Twelve and a rejection of Jesus Christ.

It is clear that Christ said he would “always” be with the church. That closes the door to the kind of apostasy the Mormons claim and reveals that Mormons are the apostates.

 

[catholic-rcia]

You’ve been teaching in Utah for 11 years and you don’t even have that one right? We don’t believe that the Atonement 'took place in the garden not on the Cross." We believe that the Atonement encompassed the garden, the cross and all that came after, including the Resurrection.

**Exactly what Christians beleive right? **

Quite true. Before you can speak about such things, you have to know what you are talking about. I don’t get the feeling that you do. For one thing, the first time you tell a Mormon that he or she does not believe that the Atonement had anything to do with His death, you are branding yourself as someone who hasn’t done his homework.

After listening to the LDS right in the heart of their religion for eleven years you would be the first to tell me the atonement took place on the Cross as well as the Garden. As far as taking on the sins of the world go.

*"…I do not wish to give offense to any of my Christian colleagues who use the cross on the steeples of their cathedrals and at the altars of their chapels, who wear it on their vestments, and imprint it on their books and other literature. But for us, the cross is the symbol of the dying Christ, while our message is a declaration of the Living Christ. *
Yet it is pain and suffering that transform us:
http://utahmission.com/pages/Why_suffering.html

He then asked: “If you do not use the cross, what is the symbol of your religion?

I replied that the lives of our people must become the most meaningful expression of our faith and, in fact, therefore, the symbol of our worship." (Gordon B. Hinckley, “The Symbol of Our Faith,” Ensign, Apr 2005, 2–6)

Catholics celebrate each year as a cycle, from Jesus’s birth, to Jesus’s teachings, His Passion, His Death on a Cross, to His Glorious resurrection. If you have attended Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and then Easter Sunday you would know this. To say that Christians focus on the dying Christ, but we focus on the living Christ comes from pride and a deep mis understanding of Christianity and Christians themselves. Does the LDS Church speak of these lives for Christ?
http://www.catholic.org/saints/stindex.php

Again the reason the LDS do not have the Christian Cross as their symbol is because they separated themselves from it because it represented fallen Christianity. …Apostasy….”Catholic” / “Protestant”

It is their belief that Jesus took on the sins in the Garden, that He only suffered physical pain on the Cross.

The question begs “Why”?

Take out the Cross and you can focus on the Resurrection, you don’t have to go deep into your own sin. Yet when Jesus fell who helped Him back up? Risking their lives, who wiped the sweat and blood from His face? Or did they just wait for Jesus next to the empty tomb. Or comfort Him when He was done meditating in the garden with His Father? The tears were shed at the foot of the Cross, as He endured the weight of our sins in a spiritual battle that He came to win for us.

By focusing more on the Garden and the empty tomb they avoid the fact that it was they themselves that Crucified Christ. That each time we tell a small lie we Crucify Christ, that each time we partake in gossip we Crucify Christ etc… The question becomes who did Jesus forgive on the Cross? How does our own sin today play a part in His One death for all?

Continued…

 

[catholic-rcia]

“The proud cannot bring themselves to hold out empty hands to God, they insist on offering virtues, good works, self denials, anything in order not to have nothing. They want to be beautiful for him from their own resources, whereas we are beautiful only because God looks on us and makes us beautiful. God cannot give himself to us unless our hands are empty to receive him. The deepest reason why so few of us are saints is because we will not let God love us. To be loved means a naked, defenceless surrender to all God is. It means a glad acceptance of our nothingness, a look fixed only on the God who gives, taking no account of the nothing to whom the gift is made. To lose ourselves like this is the most radical of despoliations because the last shred of self-importance is discarded. The very words and acts of humility can be a barricade of well-nigh infinite subtlety. Jesus came to us precisely to break down the bars, something we could never have done of ourselves. Yet we cannot live the life of Jesus unless we consent to leave our own pitiful lives, and this is what pride finds unendurable. Striving for ‘perfection’ is the most disastrous of the mistakes good people fall into. It feeds the very vice it intends to destroy. Most fervent souls are prepared to give God any mortal thing, work themselves to death, anything except the one thing he wants, total trust: anything but surrender into his loving hands. ‘You must become as little children’, whose one virtue is that they know they are unimportant.”

(above taken from Guidelines for Mystical Prayer pages 83-84 by Ruth Burrows, published and copyright 1976 by Sheed and Ward and used by permission of the publishers.)

 

[catholic-rcia]

If you want to revive the post on the Cross and Mormons feel free to do so. Will check back tonight. But let me go deeper here, into the Message of the Cross. Why we meditate of the suffering Christ, the dying Christ. How it makes Easter, His resurection so powerful in our lives.

I will give you this, it really should help you understand the Cross, how Christians view it, the deep meaning of it, the message of it, not just the symbol. How your restoration of these things really seems silly to even consider. Its powerful stuff, it’s reality and it very, very authentic. This was given to me through permission for my Utah Mission site 10 years ago from the Catholic Digest.The original copy is tucked away between the pages that speaks about Christ’s Church and how the gates of hell will not prevail against it. It is in my grandmothers (LDS) King James Bible.

Why Does God Allow Suffering?
By Richard Rohr, O.F.M.

“Try looking at pain as something that transforms. Once you learn to hold opposites together, you can find happiness.”

Julian of Norwich asked Jesus why there was so much suffering in the world and why God allowed it. “I allowed the worst thing possible to happen,” Jesus told her. “I let humanity kill God–and I made it the best thing….There isn’t anything that I cannot transform into good.”

That explains the old axiom, Crux probat omnia, “the
Cross proves everything.” That is, the Cross (pain, suffering) is what transforms us. And yet most people do not know how to handle pain. Fear, anxiety, and negativity bang around inside them until they can’t stand it, and so they look for ways to eliminate it. One quick way to diminish pain is to seek blame: “Whose fault is it?”

That’s when the process of scapegoating begins–as evidenced, in our secular culture, by the high number of lawsuits. Where you do not have healthy spirituality, pain is always someone else’s fault.

The roots of this unhealthy thinking go deep, to the age-old notions of good and bad, worthy and unworthy. In such thinking, God and salvation are always found only in the pure, only in the good, only in the worthy. In such a dualistic world, there are always bad people to blame.

The revelation of Jesus, though, is that God is found in both the so-called good and the so-called bad. Most Christians worldwide haven’t gotten this message yet. It is too shocking. It is too disappointing. In the Incarnation, in the entering of human flesh, Jesus reveals that God is found in the actual–not in the idealized, the “pure, good, worthy.”

Pretend for a moment that all the good people are in your Church and all the bad people are “out there”. Your Church is saved and theirs is lost. How nice for you. How very convenient.

Everybody–all Churches–think this way, because it’s easy. It demands no transformation. You are saved because someone else is going to hell; you are smart because someone else is stupid.

Well, here’s another shocking truth: Jesus is not upset at sinners. The tax collectors and the prostitutes are getting into the kingdom of God before you (Mt 21:31), and Jesus said so to the people in the synagogue. Isn’t it obvious, now, why they killed Him? He broke down the distinctions that made their lives so clear and clean and nice.

The fact is, Jesus is only upset at people who do not think they are sinners. If I were to say that in half the churches in this country, I would have things thrown at me. And it is a disappointing statement. It says, No one else is your problem–not abortionists or homosexuals or your wife or the pope. You are your own problem. So many of us put all our energy into changing others, making them into Catholics, for example, but true spirituality is about keeping your feet to the fire. So you grow up. You become changed.

A large percentage of Christians, as I know them, don’t understand the distinction between theism and Christianity. A theist is one who asks, Is there a God? Of course, the answer is yes. Everybody wants a God, and in most of Western culture, the available god figure has been Jesus. In theism, God exists to solve problems, and if you are good and you honor God, God will oblige.

Christianity has a very different message. It says God does not really solve our problems. God reveals them, leads us to the solution, leads us through the solution, and–here is the mystery of the Body of Christ–includes us in the solution. And so we are transformed. In Christianity, sin and salvation are two sides of the same mystery. Salvation is sin overcome and used for better purposes. The question becomes, How do we use evil for good?

Continued …

 

[catholic-rcia]

Continued

Mary offers an example at Calvary. She does not try to pull Jesus off the Cross or try to sue somebody, saying, “This should not happen! This is unjust!” Of course it is unjust. But what does it mean? What is the message of the Crucifixion? Christ offers a similar example. He hangs on the horns of the human dilemma and does not eliminate it. He just hangs there in a reality of pain and contradictions.

That is how transformation happens: by holding the tension instead of expelling it, holding it until it changes us.

Through the Cross, Jesus says you can love it all, even the enemy. There is no scapegoating. Everything, everyone belongs. There is only the broken and suffering Body of Christ eternally crucified, eternally resurrected: the human eternally crucified, eternally resurrected. What faith and surrender and courage it takes to hold the Cross and the Resurrection simultaneously, to let both simultaneously be true in you, in your body, in your marriage, in your children, in your neighborhood, in the Church.

Stop looking for some perfect institution or perfect religion. Stop looking for the perfect friend or partner, because you will be disappointed. He is not Mr. Universe. She is not Miss America. He or she is an ordinary person with faults and wonderful gifts at the same time. It is so hard–but so rewarding–to hold the gifts and the faults together!

There are those who insist that reality be consistent and logical, and those who insist that life is only chaos. Those are the two poles–perfect consistency or chaos. In fact, what Jesus did in the revelation of the Cross was tell us that life is neither of those poles. The pattern of reality is neither perfectly consistent nor perfectly chaos–it is cruciform. There is order and structure, but it is filled with contradictions. Once you learn to hold opposites together, you can find happiness. You hang in the middle with Christ, on the Cross, which bears the mystery of reality–at once fully human and fully divine.

Meister Eckhart, the wonderful Dominican mystic, said that however great one’s suffering, God has suffered from it first. There is only one Cross, one Resurrection, captured in that microcosmic moment and person we call Jesus. We see it there; we understand it there. All the wars, the struggles, all resurrection and rebirth is about God. We are merely fragments in this huge flame of divine action.

Mystics and sinners understand this because, unlike the rest of us, they are not trying to create a universe they can understand and explain. They’ve let go, surrendered to a new identity.

Basically, there are two patterns of transformation into the mystery of God–the pattern of pain and the pattern of prayer. However, because most people do not surrender to real prayer until they suffer pain, you can say there is only one pattern. The fact is, normally we aren’t willing to give up ego control until we must, until pain forces us to do so. Nobody walks gracefully into the mystery of Crucifixion.

That is why the mystery of suffering is so central to transformation. The mystic lets go of the need to prove anything, protect anything, defend anything, be superior to anything, be anything. I am who I am who I am. I am who God is in me.

At that point in spiritual development, you are so grounded that you do not have to worry about your reputation anymore–you don’t have to worry about seeking blame or using other people to make yourself feel good or competing or winning. You are basically invulnerable.

The Franciscan word for this is poverty. The Carmelites call it nothingness; the Buddhists, emptiness. It says, I am naked underneath my clothes.

This experience feels like dying. If you do not have good spiritual wisdom while it’s happening, you will do everything you can to get back up. Yet, transformation is all about going down–into the pain, into the ordinary, into the physical, into the bloody, into the concrete. It’s about descent not ascent, not heightened states of consciousness. In other words, until we can see God where we did not want to see God, the world remains a secular, dualistic world.

After we are transformed, we can look back and see that we were guided through this process by Another who is choosing us, desiring us, and is infinitely wise and compassionate. That means you do not have to figure out all the patterns ahead of time. You do not have to be that smart, that good. You just have to surrender. Good spirituality is not about being good. It is about God being good. When you keep your eyes on the reality of God’s goodness, then God rubs off into you. You start being good almost in spite of yourself, but you do not even care about it anymore. You are not checking whether you are better than the next person. You have got something so much more wonderful to be excited about.

This is a difficult concept, and a long process. Most people do not get to this understanding until their 60s and 70s. I meet a lot of old nuns in motherhouses and infirmaries. All they keep saying–over and over–is that God is so good, God is so good. …end

 

[dianaiad]

Hiyas

If Saint John the Baptist died before Jesus.
And Jesus hadn’t yet given authority to Saint Peter, John, and James. How did Saint John the Baptist get their authority?

Thank you

Where did John get the authority to baptise Jesus?

 

[ParkerD]

Hiyas

If Saint John the Baptist died before Jesus.
And Jesus hadn’t yet given authority to Saint Peter, John, and James. How did Saint John the Baptist get their authority?

Thank you

Kimmielittle,
Good morning and Merry Christmas!

John the Baptist had the authority to baptize through his line of authority coming by way of his father and the Levitical priesthood through their ancestral lines, as Moses had received the instruction to have the tribe of Levi act in the office of that priesthood within the Mosaic laws and ordinances.

Christ’s authority was greater than the authority of John the Baptist, and His authority is typified in Paul’s writings by reference to an Old Testament prophet, Melchizedek. When Christ ordained the apostles, and gave leadership keys to Peter, James, and John and they eventually received the special instructions on the Mount of Transfiguration, they then held the fulness of the greater priesthood authority on earth. That greater authority would direct the lesser authority of the Levitical priesthood in any functions retained by the Levitical priesthood.

Mormons believe that communion and baptism (“outward ordinances” in the new covenant gospel) are authorized to be performed by holders of the restored priesthood that John the Baptist held and conferred on Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery. But when John the Baptist came to earth and restored that authority, he was acting under the direction of Peter since Peter held the greater priesthood authority which would give direction to the lesser priesthood authority for any of its functions.

Have a terrific day.

 

[Catholic20064]

After reading an article by an Elder Dallin H. Oaks entitled “Apostasy and Restoration” sent to me by one of my former teens who has just converted to the LDS Church, the word “Restoration” caught my attention. Seems to me that to “restore” something means to bring it back to its original condition, at least as closely as possible. I can find nothing in scripture or in the writings of the early Church Fathers that contains any uniquely Mormon doctrines. In fact, the beliefs found in reading Ignatius of Antioch, Irenaeus and Polycarp are distinctly Catholic. It seems that the process of “restoring” something would have to include finding out what it looked like in the beginning by conducting careful research of early Church documents. When you bring in “modern revelation and doctrine” which differ greatly from early Church doctrine prior to and immediately after the time that the LDS Church claims the apostasy took place in order to substantiate your beliefs, how do you claim that it is a “restoration” of the original. If you want to create something new, its a free country, but why do you claim the original has been restored? Is there a Mormon out there who can help explain this to me?

SteveVH

I think it is important to look at the original premise of this thread once again. I think the last two questions have been answered on this thread. The original was not restored by Mormonism. And no Mormon can explain it to you. They can’t explain how Christ’s promise to always remain with the church was broken requiring a restoration. They certainly can’t explain all of the weird Mormon add-ons that weren’t part of the original church.

 

[dianaiad]

I think it is important to look at the original premise of this thread once again. I think the last two questions have been answered on this thread. The original was not restored by Mormonism. And no Mormon can explain it to you. They can’t explain how Christ’s promise to always remain with the church was broken requiring a restoration. They certainly can’t explain all of the weird Mormon add-ons that weren’t part of the original church.

Could you give me the verses in which Christ said that He would always be with the church, and that the church would never fail, even temporarily?

 

[Catholic20064]

Could you give me the verses in which Christ said that He would always be with the church, and that the church would never fail, even temporarily?

I gave you the verse. You can Bill Clinton it if you want, but it is pretty plain.

 

[dianaiad]

I gave you the verse. You can Bill Clinton it if you want, but it is pretty plain.

I’m sorry, but if you gave me the verse, I missed it. Would you mind giving it to me again?

 

[ricko]

Could you give me the verses in which Christ said that He would always be with the church, and that the church would never fail, even temporarily?

Teach them to carry out everything I have commanded you. And know that I am with you always until the end of the world. Mat 28:20

“Upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:19)

I will ask the Father and he will give you another Paraciete—to be with you always: the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot accept since it neither sees him nor recognizes him: but you can recognize him because he remains with you and will be within you. I will not leave you orphaned. John 15:16-18

Notice how clear Jesus is about how he will guide and protect the Church from teaching error until the end of the world. Notice also that the Spirit will remain with the Apostles and be within them. Always means always. He established one Church, promised that it would last until the end of the world, promised that the Holy Spirit would prevent it from teaching error and this Spirit REMAINED with the Church and was passed on to others. The Spirit prevented the teachers and their successors from falling away from the Church. That’s what “always” means