Re: Oops...
Submitted by Dirk Gently on February 03 2000 at 21:04:44
In reply to Oops... Submitted by midnite on February 03 2000 at 01:52:21
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I've got the 1974 printing of D & C, which doesn't include the Pearl. Maybe I need to go visit the local congregation... For me, the issue wasn't so much Joseph Smith as it was history. As I understand it, when Smith received his revelations, he was told that none of the currently existing denominations were correct. I was quite prepared to accept that for the sake of the argument. The problem is, there is absolutely no documentary evidence for certain key doctrines which the LDS "restored" to Christianity. We have theological writings right from the first century, from the disciples of the apostles, which have never been rejected by the church. We know what the Gnostics believed. We know what the Ebionites believed. Nobody has ever taught an eternal progression of deities, whereby God the Father was once a man and was glorified and became the god of this world, and we in turn shall be glorified and will become the gods of other worlds, and so on and so on and so on. Biblical revelation from Genesis to Revelation supports the traditional teachings of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam that there is only one Creator, and that this creator is precisely the God of the Scriptures. The last time the elders came to visit me, they were visibly shaken when I pointed them to the last half of Isaiah 43:10 "Before me there was no God formed, nor shall there be after me" and Isaiah 44:6 "Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: 'I am the First and I am the Last; besides Me there is no God.'" The third study guide they gave me is called "The Restoration" and it explains that "When the people rejected the truth and killed the apostles, God took the priesthood authority and the Church from the earth. The loss of revelation through the Church led to great confusion, contention, and incorrect teachings. This falling away from the truth is called the Apostasy." Then the pamphlet cites 2 Thessalonians 2:3 to prove that the Truth was lost, apparently not realizing that it could just as easily be applied to the LDS or the Jehovah's Witnesses today. After all, the time frame for the falling away in 2 Thessalonians indicates that it will occur before "the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him," an event which has obviously not yet taken place. Maybe the falling away happened in the first century, or maybe it began in the 19th. And incidentally, not all of the apostles were martyred. The apostle John died of natural causes around the year 95 AD. He had a significant influence on Ignatius, the bishop of Antioch who was himself put to death in the year 107. And the continuity of doctrine remains to this day... Dirk |