The Not-So-Great Apostasy

[DrumNFeather]

I thought this was interesting...

http://timesandseasons.org/index.php/2012/02/the-not-so-great-apostasy/

So that’s a discussion I would enjoy hearing at the BYU conference next month. Can the LDS view of the apostasy be reconceptualized in light of this newer view of early Christian diversity? Maybe we view the original church not as a plane that crashed after takeoff but as one that never really got off the ground. Perhaps we can view the apostasy in two complementary stages, with the original church not enjoying God’s favor because it wasn’t really a church yet (a “proto-apostasy”) and the eventual unified church of the late 3rd century not enjoying God’s favor because it had, by then, lost or changed key doctrines or practices (the fulness of the apostasy).

[jay santos]

This is a good book with great scholarship. Even a guy like SU should enjoy it.

[DapperDan]

Here's the book mentioned in the article, or at least a form of it.

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/books/?bookid=42&chapid=

Skimming parts of the book quickly it seems as if they are still viewing the apostasy through the lens of supporters of the Roman version of Christianity which was a different and later version than what was practiced in Jerusalem after Jesus' death.

I'm going to have to read up on the subject again. It's been awhile since I studied it.

[UtahDan]

I think it is a plane that never got off the ground probably for different reasons. The problem with the idea of a great apostasy is that it presupposes that there was a primitive church established by Jesus or at his direction. Jesus never established a church. The idea of a church is anachronistic to him. It doesn't appear he even ever talked about a church. He talked about the kingdom of God which was going to arrive any minute.

When he died it appears that his disciples were genuinely puzzled by that development. It is possible to track how their explanations for this evolve from an immediate return to an eventual return that was nevertheless soon ( which is what every generation since has more or less believed). Eventually over decades his followers organized themselves into what we might think of as churches but Paul and the disciples at Jerusalem were immediately in conflict and the various congregations agreed about little. What is going on is the opposite of apostasy, it is the slow and eventual calcification of what orthodoxy was. Even so, there have been myriad schisms from then until now.

Trying to map a priesthood hierarchy similar to what the Mormon church has now (or of any kind) on to the early disciples of Jesus after his death is again totally anachronistic.

[Hanokh]

I think reexamining the idea of the apostasy will be very beneficial, and I am glad to see that inter-faith relations are in mind on this. I was also impressed that the post tackled the idea that there wasn't really a clear primitive Church.

UtahDan is correct. I think the best way to summarize the situation would be thus:

There was no primitive Church because Jesus and his followers were expecting the immediate coming of the Kingdom of God, which would make a Church unnecessary. The Jesus movement was a short term solution and symbolic anticipation of the coming Kingdom.

That said, Jesus established a core of elements that were then taken up by later Christians in diverse ways. He shared teachings, gathered followers, and encouraged rituals such as baptism and the sacrament.

But that this movement=Mormonism is untenable. I think we could say that all Christian denominations are faithful to different degrees to the spirit of Christianity, but I think Mormon claims to authority are almost impossible to support with a scholarly view of biblical history. Hope I don't come across to harshly with that. I do think a strong case can be made that there is divine power and even authority within Mormonism, just not in the absolute way we claim.

[Sullyute]

Great stuff. Here are two comments to the post that I found interesting (bolded emphasis is mine):

Another aspect of the Apostacy that LDS should remember is that the church of Christ was also established in the spirit world as soon as the Atonement was completed. It has operated uninterrupted there ever since, and “captures” all the people who have been affiliated with some branch of Christianity on earth, making up the deficit in their understandings of God and salvation. It is the mercy of God, which mitigates the thought, horrifying to traditional Christians, that God could abandon his people on earth for millennia. The true church has indeed been one that, under the ongoing leadership of Peter holding the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, has prevailed against the “gates of hell” and liberated the dead, and preserved the primitive church among all mankind, until the resurrection brings about a reunion.

I’m currently reading a book called After God by Mark Taylor about religion and secularism and he quotes Nietzsche’s critique of early Christianity, claiming that it was Paul who reversed or annulled the gospel of Christ by “setting sinful human beings against a transcendent God and promising their reconciliation only in the afterlife” (Taylor). He points out that Jesus didn’t preach about a distant God, but demonstrated “how one must live in order to feel ‘deified’” (Nietzsche). First I think it’s interesting that Nietzsche discusses the role of Jesus as demonstrating how everyone can attain some kind of deification. Second, I think it’s a very compelling idea to think that the “church” (churches) established by Paul on his various missions in the Greek world might not have been built on the Gospel of Jesus, but on the Gospel of Paul, his own rendering of Christianity. I hesitate to say it, but maybe the Great Apostasy started with Paul?

If the apostasy started with Paul, what does that say about the the Mormon Church clinging to things said by Paul about baptism for the dead; third heaven, worlds celestial, terrestial; faith without works is dead, etc.?

[Indy Coug]

Great stuff. Here are two comments to the post that I found interesting (bolded emphasis is mine):








If the apostasy started with Paul, what does that say about the the Mormon Church clinging to things said by Paul about baptism for the dead; third heaven, worlds celestial, terrestial; faith without works is dead, etc.?

What makes you think these doctrines are unique to him? Certainly there are numerous apocryphal manuscripts in circulation that hit on these topics. Just because the editors that slapped the New Testament together were obsessively Paul-iphiles doesn't mean he is the original source of these teachings.

[Moliere]

If the apostasy started with Paul, what does that say about the the Mormon Church clinging to things said by Paul about baptism for the dead; third heaven, worlds celestial, terrestial; faith without works is dead, etc.?

There were already clear divisions between Paul and Peter as shown in the Council at Jerusalem. But I agree with you that it is kind of odd that we cling so much to the letters of Paul to validate our doctrine that some might be in for a complete shock if/when they find out that Paul was pretty rogue and some of his letters were likely not written by him.

[The Rambam]

There was no New Testament "Church" as we use that term.

One of the biggest lies of Mormondom is that "We believe in the same organization that existed in the primitive church. . ." No we don't. Not even close. Any scholar of the early Christian church can tell you that with no hesitation.

Also, it is completely unreasonable to think that all lines of priesthood authority were snuffed out and all precursors to the Orthodox and Catholic priesthood were based on someone's lie that they were ordained. It is mathematically certain that at least some groups today do have a proper priesthood line of authority back to the original apostles. They didn't lose authority and invent it. We just disagree with how they operate. This is hugely doctrinally significant from an orthodox Mormon perspective.

Of course Greg Prince's Priesthood book kind of lays bare the silliness of the Mormon priesthood myth anyway. . .