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I have given the idea that the LDS church is patterned after the church Jesus organized much thought over many years. Honestly, I don’t see that Jesus actually organized a church or that organizing a church – or starting a new religion – was even his aim. The only reference of any church service I see in the Bible is Jesus attending synagogue, and Jesus and his disciples apparently also followed Jewish traditions and kept Jewish holidays and rites. Other than the son of God part, Jesus generally taught Jewish doctrine, and I do note that Jesus didn’t actually say much (that we have recorded anyway) about himself being the son of God – it was mostly said by others. It is clear he did have apostles and that they did have a role in helping him do his work and they may have organized a church, but did Jesus actually do so? Are we teaching something that isn’t correct? Please understand I am not accusing the church of lying, if anything it’s another one of those things that just gets repeated and is eventually accepted as true. I think it’s largely unknowable, because of our reliance on accounts written 40-ish years after the fact. As portrayed in the Gospel’s, Jesus did establish a movement, complete with community, treasury, hierarchical leadership and missionaries. He referred to it as the Kingdom of God, and he wasn’t talking about the afterlife. I believe that the NT account of Jesus’ activities shows a lot of similarities with the first few years of Joseph Smith’s movement.
So, really, it comes down to how much belief one has in the NT account.
The word used in the NT Greek is “ecclesia”, which means group or assembly. Since he gathered a group of disciples around him, and held assemblies in various places, I suppose he did. But whether that entails an organization is a different question. I’ve often questioned this myself. It’s tough to say. Jesus wasn’t that concerned with organization except calling the Q12. Beyond that, we have no real information about his personal efforts to create a church. Yet one carried on after his death, so something happened off the page. Many people credit Paul with being the true organizer of the Christian church, which is probably true. He at least franchised it all over the ancient world. It’s the diaspora version of what BY did in our day. Paul set up churches in all the major cities. BY gathered all the dispersed saints (that went with the Brighamites anyway) and put them in one big theocratic city (that many think still is a theocracy today). Thanks for your comments. I was really thinking more of the teaching in the church that it is organized like the church Jesus organized, with apostles, prophets, deacons, etc., not so much the doctrine. I’m thinking of that diagram often used in Primary and YM/YW where it’s a church building with Christ as the foundation and all the other parts labeled and built on to that to make the church building – I’m sure if you’ve been around for awhile you’ve seen it. I agree that there were assemblies and there was some sort of simple organization and I also agree it’s hard to know with the limited information we have. I’m not seeing that Jesus had deacons, teachers and priests, though, he certainly didn’t have RS, Primary, etc., and even things like sacrament seem to have only been introduced immediately prior to the crucifixion, and in the case of the sacrament only to the Q12. I guess I’m just not sure missionaries and Primary teachers should go around teaching something like this that there really isn’t evidence to support.
DarkJedi wrote:Thanks for your comments. I was really thinking more of the teaching in the church that it is organized like the church Jesus organized, with apostles, prophets, deacons, etc., not so much the doctrine. I’m thinking of that diagram often used in Primary and YM/YW where it’s a church building with Christ as the foundation and all the other parts labeled and built on to that to make the church building – I’m sure if you’ve been around for awhile you’ve seen it.
I agree that there were assemblies and there was some sort of simple organization and I also agree it’s hard to know with the limited information we have. I’m not seeing that Jesus had deacons, teachers and priests, though, he certainly didn’t have RS, Primary, etc., and even things like sacrament seem to have only been introduced immediately prior to the crucifixion, and in the case of the sacrament only to the Q12. I guess I’m just not sure missionaries and Primary teachers should go around teaching something like this that there really isn’t evidence to support.
I believe that this is problematic because it is one of the A of F that we have the primary memorize. I was in primary recently when the instructor said that evangalists in the primitive church are the equivalent of Patriachs is the modern church. Really?!?!? How about we just organize our church however we feel like it and then slap a bunch of old sounding titles on everybody?
I dislike the memorizing of the A of F anyway. As a statement of our modern beliefs I don’t think it is very good. Do we really believe in ten tribes returning from the north? And to elevate such a belief to an aritcle of faith that would be binding on everyone… I think the current church leadership could come up with something better.
Even still, having kids memorize a statement of our beliefs seems overly focused on making them into good Mormons and not enough into good people.
There is an “out” in Christianity that allows Jesus to have organized a church even if it didn’t happen during his mortal life. It’s called the resurrection – and it includes his appearance to over 500 people and the statement that one of his visits was said to have lasted for 40 days (which might be the older Hebrew term meaning “a long time”). I’m not certain Jesus established a church in his mortal lifetime (or after his death), but I think it’s a valid statement in the context of Christian theology.
I hadn’t looked at it from that point of view, Curtis, and agree that it is a possibility – although again we have no evidence it happened. I also believe that when this idea is taught, it more than implied that any organization occurred during the earthly ministry of Jesus before the crucifixion. He appears to have organized a twelve, and possibly two seventies. However, I had this argument with an RC. Romans always like to stress the continuity of their church, but as I pointed out to him, his church has little to do with the NT body.
I suspect Jesus was a Jewish reformer. Did Luther plan to start a new church? Arguably not. Did John Wesley? Almost certainly not. DId Buddha plan to reform Hinduism? Well, there was no such concept as Hinduism at that point in time.
Christians were attending synagogues into the fourth century.
I think when we talk about the primitive church, it was most definitely primitive.
We talk about Christ organizing the church, but the reality is that Paul started the entire movement after the crucifixion. We have Paul’s report of a vision. His conversion. His name change. His organization. Did he have a WWJD bracelet and act accordingly ? We don’t know. SamBee wrote:He appears to have organized a twelve, and possibly two seventies.
However, I had this argument with an RC. Romans always like to stress the continuity of their church, but as I pointed out to him, his church has little to do with the NT body.
I suspect Jesus was a Jewish reformer. Did Luther plan to start a new church? Arguably not. Did John Wesley? Almost certainly not. DId Buddha plan to reform Hinduism? Well, there was no such concept as Hinduism at that point in time.
Christians were attending synagogues into the fourth century.
I think when we talk about the primitive church, it was most definitely primitive.
I definitely agree with the idea of Jesus as a Jewish reformer. Seriously, if you look closely at what he taught, it really is basic Jewish teachings sans all the rules and laws that some factions had put in place at the time. It really is much like what some of us here struggle with – the basics of the gospel as opposed to church teachings and doctrine beyond those basics.
I also like presenting it as the primitive church as opposed to the church as it was when Jesus was on the earth. I’ve heard it put both ways, more often the latter, but the former is more accurate I think.
One other point – in the BOM, the resurrected Christ is decidedly more of an organizational planner. He organized a church in that situation. While doing a bit more research on this topic I came across this gem: http://www.lds.org/topics/church-organization/the-church-of-jesus-christ?lang=eng ” class=”bbcode_url”> http://www.lds.org/topics/church-organization/the-church-of-jesus-christ?lang=eng Even though it’s on LDS.org, I can’t say I buy into everything it says, like this line: “The Bible does not tell us everything about the priesthood or the organization and government of the Church. However, enough of the Bible has been preserved to show the beauty and perfection of the Church organization.”
I also should point out that the “perfect” early church had so many serious issues occur so quickly that a lot of Paul’s ministry was devoted to correcting things that had crept into the local congregations. It’s not just our history that gets white-washed and/or misunderstood, and it’s not just our church that has to fight doctrinal distortion constantly. It’s the religious pattern of history, played out over and over and over again.
amateurparent wrote:We talk about
Christ organizing the church, but the reality is that Paul started the
entire movement after the crucifixion. We have Paul’s report of a
vision. His conversion. His name change. His organization. Did he have
a WWJD bracelet and act accordingly ? We don’t know.
No, not the entireity. James and others were setting stuff up without Paul’s help, and remember he wrote his letters to established churches.
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