What do you get when you dump a whole bunch of noodles into the Red Sea?
“A-Pasta-Sea”!
Ok lame joke, but people have been telling me that they enjoy Bryan's humor more than my dry “fact-filled” approach so I'm trying to compensate. That said, I must admit that trying to be Bryan is a job in and of itself... In trying to adapt his personality, I find myself exhibiting tourette-like symptoms except every outburst has something to do with Banana's or lemonade... But enough about me being him, we've got a very serious-yet-humor-injected post to bring to you tonight: The Great Apostasy!
First off let us term terms, label labels, and define definitions – after which we shall muse together momentarily...
Lds.org definition of apostasy:
When individuals or groups of people turn away from the principles of the gospel, they are in a state of apostasy. One example is the Great Apostasy, which occurred after the Savior established His Church. After the deaths of the Savior and His Apostles, men corrupted the principles of the gospel and made unauthorized changes in Church organization and priesthood ordinances. Because of this widespread apostasy, the Lord withdrew the authority of the priesthood from the earth. This apostasy lasted until Heavenly Father and His Beloved Son appeared to Joseph Smith in 1820 and initiated the restoration of the fullness of the gospel.
That's a pretty outrageous claim! Joseph Smith comes along in the 1800's and tells the world that Christianity died a long time ago, actually about the time the New Testament wraps up. This of course came as a surprise to “Christians” everywhere! Where did Smith get this information? If it was true surely there would be compelling evidence that an investigator could look at to gain a sure knowledge of it's truthfulness.... Or maybe not.
In the Ensign article “Early Signs of the Apostasy” Kent P Jackson seems fairly certain that all one needs to do is read the New Testament to become convinced of the apparent apostate condition of the church by it's conclusion. Jackson refers to 2 Thes 2:3 when he says “Paul taught that the day of Christ's coming would not take place until the 'falling away' and the revelation of the 'man of sin'” He goes on to say that once the apostles died, that the “man of sin” or Satan took Christ's place as “head over the church” Basically re-affirming 1 Ne 13:5-6 5 “And the angel said unto me: Behold the formation of a church which is most abominable above all other churches, which slayeth the saints of God, yea, and tortureth them and bindeth them down, and yoketh them with a yoke of iron, and bringeth them down into captivity.6 And it came to pass that I beheld this great and abominable church; and I saw the devil that he was the founder of it.”
Jackson goes even further in his article by saying that apostasy is clearly demonstrated in the New Testament simply because the doctrinal and behavioral problems became increasingly difficult to quell. In conjunction with this assessment, Jackson says that by the time 3 John was written, the heresies were so bad that the apostles could no longer prevent an apostasy from taking place.
The thing to realize here is that there isn’t much evidence for either side of this debate. On one hand we have evidence that shows a precedence for apostolic replacements and/or appointments. On the other hand the Bible doesn’t record every single event that happened during the churches beginning, so we can only assume this practice was continued or quelled.
Contrary to what Jackson would have you believe, the New Testament is packed with instances where the Apostles were admonishing the Churches to refrain from false doctrine and false Christs because they knew that the Church was meant to persevere! They weren't preparing for the church to fall into an apostate state, they were doing their best to ensure the proper doctrine be kept and preserved. Instead of seeing leaders preparing for a complete dying off of their faith, you see leaders warning people to not fall away, Paul instructs all believers to run with patience the race that is set before us!
When the LDS church references the “Falling Away” that must occur before Christ's return, it is not something that is foreign to Christianity. The only difference is in Christianity, the “Falling Away” is the Rapture. The Bible is clear that before Christ returns that the Church will be completely removed from the earth; that the Spirit of God will be taken from the Earth as well. Then the Anti-Christ will set himself up as the head of the One world religion for only 7 years, then the Glorious Return of Christ ushers in a millennium where the Devil is bound, then he comes back up to have his butt kicked and Christians get to spend eternity with their God and Savior!
Christians would largely agree with what is said in Bill McKeever's “Mormonism 101”. In his 6th Chapter McKeever writes the following: “If an apostle was killed or died of natural causes, a godly replacement to carry on the goal of his predecessor would have been picked, much like the system set up today in modern Mormonism. However, if the primitive church did not have this system in place, then the LDS Church leaders have no right to claim they represent the same church as that led by Christ and the biblical apostles.” he goes on to say “If, as the current LDS Church practices today, new apostles should be picked to replace outgoing disciples (through retirement or death) it seems strange that God would have allowed the leaders of His church in Palestine to be so ignorant as to stop replacing martyred apostles. Furthermore, Mormons are often told that God will never allow the leaders of the LDS church to guide their church into error. This is a teaching that is hammered home on a continual basis. If this is true of the modern Mormon Church, it must have also been true in the apostolic church. If the early church had a prophet like the modern LDS prophet guiding it, how could it ever fall into a state of apostasy? It would make sense that each successor would also be prohibited from allowing the church to fall into such a state,”
Mormonism holds that their current system is identical to that of the primitive apostolic church. If this were the case, McKeever’s points are to be taken very seriously. Mormons would say that the reason the primitive church fell into Apostasy was not due to a failure on the Churches part, but rather a realization of the will of God.
Personally, and this is just my own opinion, but I believe there is more evidence of an Apostasy in the early days of Mormonism that there is for the primitive church. After Joseph Smith was murdered in 1844, there were multiple people who claimed divine appointment to succeed him as prophet. The RLDS church claims to be the true church as Joseph Smiths own son was the prophet that continued that sect. For more information on that look up "Succession Crisis of 1844".
The Apostasy is a foundational doctrine of the LDS faith and central to it’s entire existence. In the same way, lack of apostasy is central to Christian theology. My recommendations would be to study both sides and see if you can find out for yourself what really happened. Let’s leave this post with a quote from the “History of the Church” - “Nothing less than a complete apostasy from the Christian religion would warrant the establishment of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
