Friday, September 15, 2006
You Connect The Dots
From the Introduction to the book A Different Jesus? The Christ of the Latter-Day Saints (part of my continued reading into Mormonism for my blog - Article VI)
Related Tags: origins of apostasy, disattisfaction, faith, transformation, Church
One simply cannot understand the Latter-day Saints, and certainly cannot understand their perspective on Jesus Christ, without at least some understanding of their origins. The population of the United States doubled in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. It was a time of revolution, what some historians have called the "Second American Revolution," a time of upheaval, of movement - social, political, economic, and religious. It was the age of Restorationism, an era in America's history when men and women read the Bible, believed its story and message, and sought for a return to "the ancient order of things." Many longed for the reestablishment of primitive Christianity and to enjoy once more the spiritual gifts and divine outpourings that had once graced the ancients.G.K. Chesterton said
The Beginnings
Brigham Young expressed the feelings he had had before he encountered Joseph Smith or the Latter-day Saints: "My mind was opened to conviction, and I knew that the Christian world had not the religion that Jesus and the Apostles taught. I knew that there was not a Bible Christian on earth within my knowledge." Wilford Woodruff, fourth president of the Church, said: "I did not join any church, believing that the Church of Christ in its true organization did not exist upon the earth." Willard Richards, later a counselor to Brigham Young, became "convinced that the sects were all wrong, and that God had no church on earth, but that he would soon have a church on earth whose creed would be the truth."
The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried. [Chapter 5, What's Wrong With The World, 1910I'll leave it to you kind reader to figure out my point here. But here's a hint: We reap what we sow.
Related Tags: origins of apostasy, disattisfaction, faith, transformation, Church
