How can I liken the events of the apostasy and restoration to my life?
What does the word Apostasy mean?
It is almost always used in a religious context
It means, "the abandonment or renunciation of a religious or political belief"
But isn't it really just a fancy way of saying someone got new information or their convictions changed and they decided to do something different?
As a missionary, I asked many Catholics and Evangelicals to apostatize from their religious beliefs and convictions
What does the word Dogma mean?
"a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true"
Then read a Dr. Seuss book to the class: The Sneetches and The Zax
What were the convictions or beliefs of the Sneetches and Zax?
Did some change their mind? Some Sneetches did, but the Zax did not.
Did any of it matter? (not really, in fact the whole thing is laughable and sad. The one dude made a ton of money off of the ridiculousness of the Sneetches wanting to be "right", while the Zax - that is just sad.)
What is the relationship between Apostasy and Dr. Seuss?
What beliefs and dogmas did the Sneetches and Zax have?
Did the Sneetches apostatize? Did the Zax?
At some point, you have to ask yourself if your beliefs and dogmas (or what you're being told to believe), really matters or not. Then you have to decide: what really matters in this life?
Let's look at a few examples:
What are core beliefs of Islam?
- Belief in Allah as the one and only God
- Belief in angels
- Belief in holy books
- Belief in the prophets (Adam, Abraham, Moses, David and Jesus)
- Belief in Judgement Day
- Belief in Predestination
What are core beliefs of Judaism?
- God exists; is one and unique; and is incorporeal (no body); is eternal
- Pray to God and no other
- Belief in the Prophets
- The Written Torah (first five books of Bible) - there is or will not be any other Torah
- God knows the thoughts and deeds of men
- God will reward the good and punish the wicked
- The Messiah will come
- The dead will be resurrected
What are the core beliefs of Christianity?
- Belief in God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son of Go and the Holy Spirit
- The death, descent into hell, resurrection and ascension of Christ
- The holiness of the Church and the communion of saints
- Christ's second coming, the Day of Judgement and salvation of the faithful
Even within Christianity; there is a fundamental dispute about the nature of God, along with other topics.
So you have to ask yourself a few questions:
1. Does belief in a dogma matter?
a. Some people think it is all spaghetti (see CotFSM)
b. Some become agnostic or atheist
c. For others, it is important to belief in a dogma
2. If so, then you are faced with a decision about which one?
3. Are they all correct? Are they all incorrect? Is there just one that is endorsed by God? Or are there two, three?
What does Apostasy mean in the Mormon context?
After Christianity was established, Mormons believe the power, beliefs and traditions of the Apostles were lost. Catholics believe it was never lost - power went to Peter and down through the Popes.
All through the time of the Apostles and down through the many hundreds and thousands of years, it was just the Catholic church with a few deviations.
Watch this 26 minute video, which I think, does a pretty good job explaining how we got here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TH79F0Hn56U … focus on the explanation. Towards the end, he reveals his opinion and you can decide to agree or disagree.
Then a guy by the name of Martin Luther came along and protested against the Catholic church - thus started the Reformation as well as Protestant Religions.
As a side note, check out this mind-blowing podcast about Martin Luther and the Muster Rebellion (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WN8A4ygoEgo / https://player.fm/series/dan-carlins-hardcore-history/show-48-prophets-of-doom)
The bigger new churches / denominations are:
Lutheran (i.e. Martin Luther)
Anglican
Calvinist
Methodist
Baptist
Among this time with all the "new" churches established, a new wave spiritualism / revivalism began in upstate New York. There was so much preaching and debating among the churches there, it was referred to as the Burned Over District (see the Wikipedia entry on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burned-over_district)
It was during this time that Joseph Smith had his own reckoning with religion and would soon introduce the Mormon version of the Restoration of the gospel via the translation of the Book of Mormon, the visitation from John the Baptist for the Aaronic Priesthood and Peter, James and John for the Melchizedek Priesthood. And then temples, Masonic rituals and polygamy were introduced followed by multiple iterations of Mormon beliefs from the 1850s to the present day based on "continuing revelation."
