Pastor Jeff on the LDS Doctrine of Apostasy

 

That is a big subject in the world of interactions between LDS and non-LDS, and is brought up and discussed or challenged often. That is to be expected of course; mainstream Christianity in general are not going to accept the LDS doctrine of the Apostasy. They would be signing their own death certificate, and putting themselves out of commission if they did. Hence this is a subject that I had also previously discussed in several other of my previous blog posts, the main one of which can be seen here. This message was posted some 14 years ago in 2008. Since then my views on the subject have evolved; I have therefore now edited it to reflect more closely my current views on the subject. Other blog posts in which I had previously discussed this subject are listed here: (Links: 1, 2, 3, 4). These together provide a pretty comprehensive response to the points he has raised, so there is no need to discuss it again at length here. I will only highlight a couple of main points:

1. Apostasy does not mean that all Christians lost their faith, and there were no more true believing faithful Christians left in the world, who had a saving faith in Jesus Christ. It means that the ecclesiastical structure of the church, with proper priesthood authority, under the inspired leadership of the Twelve Apostles was lost.

2. From the LDS point of view, Apostasy is not the evidence of Restoration; the Restoration is evidence of Apostasy. I am not a Church member because I believed in the Apostasy; I believe in the Apostasy because I am a Church member. I am a member of the restored Church because the Spirit of the Lord witnesses to me that it is true; and that is how I conclude that there was an Apostasy. If there had been no Apostasy, there would have been no need for a Restoration. My conviction of the Restoration leads me to the conclusion that there was an Apostasy.

Joseph Smith did not start the Church from the premise of an Apostasy. He did not say, “Christianity is apostate, therefore let’s start a new religion.” That may be the Protestant position, but not the LDS one. Joseph Smith was just 14 years old when he had his First Vision; and he didn’t go to the woods in order to start a new religion. He went there to ask God which church was right, so that he could know which one to join. It was God who then informed him that none of the churches were right (thus implying that there had been an Apostasy); and that the true Church would at some point in the future be restored through him.