Adapted from a study journal entry dated February 25, 2006: "Contend against no church . . . Take upon you the name of Christ, and speak the truth in soberness" (D&C 18:20-21).
Apostasy and Restoration
Part Two: Reformation Inadequacies As I address this topic, please understand that I do not mean to attack any specific church or religion. If I mention the history of a particular church, it is to provide an example of general principles. Many good things have come from those churches, even though I disagree with the principles from which they started or developed.
Recognizing the signs of apostasy, well meaning and inspired men tried to bring Christianity back to its original purity. Their efforts, though significant, were ultimately not enough to solve the complete apostasy. Where did Protestantism fail? In what way was Protestantism not enough?
One way Protestantism failed to correct the problem was in its inability to provide direct, divine authority. Of all the Christian reformers, Martin Luther is the most well known. He was a great man who recognized serious faults in the Church he loved. His aim was not to start a new church; it was to fix the Catholic Church from the inside out. When that didn’t happen, a group of Catholic German Priests who didn’t want to pay Rome anymore approached the reluctant Martin Luther. These priests used Luther’s complaints to justify splitting off from the Roman Church so that they wouldn’t have to pay their tributes to Rome. They became the Lutherans. A new Church was formed, but not with any new manifestation of God. It was formed out of the political, economic, and social drives of the world. This seems to be the consistent thread through the reformation.
Take, for example, the Anglicans, or the Episcopalians. How were they started? King Henry VIII of England wanted a divorce that the Pope wouldn’t grant. With much bloodshed, he started his own church in England. There were no visions or revelations, nor even doctrinal differences, just politics.
The pattern goes on and on. Each of the Protestant movements was started not by direct revelation or the voice of God, but by politically and economically motivated man. The word "Protestant" itself reflects the disgruntled apostate Catholics who started the movements. Yes, there were pure people who sincerely wanted to purify doctrine, but those people became the pawns of governments and corruption. Their efforts were crucial to the restoration and benefited billions of people, but they alone did not end the general apostasy.
Another indication that the apostasy of the original Church of Jesus Christ did not end with the reformation is the fact that apostate creeds were not discontinued by the reformed Churches. Treatises like the Nicene Creed that defined the substance and essence of God differently than taught by Christ and the Apostles were still used by the Protestant Churches. These creeds were established by the Christian Church hundreds of years after the apostasy had started.
Furthermore, practices that had been lost in the apostasy were not restored through the Reformation. For example, in the original Christian Church there were Apostles that were called. In addition to the first twelve, Matthias, Paul, and others were ordained Apostles. The practice of ordaining Apostles stopped during the first century and was not reconstituted during the Protestant Movement. In fact, none of the leaders in the movement can trace authority to the Apostles by the laying on of hands. The Apostolic line of authority was broken.
These indications of a continued apostasy demonstrate how the Reformation was not the solution to the apostasy. The Movement was instead the offspring of political, social, and economic contentions. The fruit of all of this contention during the Reformation became the American "extraordinary scene of religious feeling" (JSH 1:6) described by the young Joseph Smith. It was in this "war of words and tumult of opinions" (JSH 1:10) that the Restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ was able to happen, beginning with a manifestation of God. Understanding the inadequacies of the Protestant Reformation makes the clarity of the Restoration so much more magnificent. The Restoration of Christ’s Church in 1830 solved in every way the general Christian Apostasy.
"And for this cause, that men might be made partakers of the glories which were to be revealed, the Lord sent forth the fullness of his gospel, his everlasting covenant, reasoning in plainness and simplicity—. . . And by the weak things of the earth the Lord shall thrash the nations by the power of his Spirit" (D&C 133:57, 59).
"According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust." (2 Peter 1:3-4).
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