Geoff,
Here's the next section from your article: This time my comments will immediately follow each paragraph. I think it will make it easier to read. The text of the article is in red; my comments are in black.
Lets take a closer look at the text the missionaries offer. At first glance the Book of Mormon appears to be biblical in heft and style. Its couched in tedious "King James" English, and it features color renderings of Mormon scenes made to look like Bible illustrations.
The Book of Mormon is very biblical in style. Maybe that's because they both ultimately come from the same source. It's "couched in tedious King James English" because at the time Joseph Smith translated it, King James English was considered to be the language of scripture. I'm not sure what problem the Catholic Church sees with illustrations. That comment strikes me as overly critical over nothing. Besides, the Books of Mormon the missionaries hand out to prospective converts actually have no pictures in them at all.
The introduction tells you that the "Book of Mormon is a volume of holy scripture comparable to the Bible. It is a record of Gods dealings with the ancient inhabitants of the Americas and contains, as does the Bible, the fullness of the everlasting gospel." There it is againthe "fullness of the everlasting gospel." Naturally, you ask yourself just what that phrase means.
Yes, I think that's a logical question.
According to the Mormon church, authentic Christianity cant be found in any of the so-called Christian churchesonly, of course, in the Mormon church.
This is virtually identical to the beliefs of Roman Catholicism. Like you, we believe that there is much good in all religions, but that the Lord has authorized only one Church to teach His gospel and administer the ordinances (i.e. sacraments) thereof.
Mormons teach that, after Jesus ascended into heaven, the apostles taught the true doctrines of Christ and administered his sacred ordinances (roughly the equivalent of Catholic sacraments). After the death of the apostles, their successors continued the work of the gospel, but with rapidly declining success. Within a few generations, the great apostasy foretold in the Bible had destroyed Christs Church (contrary to Jesus own promise in Matthew 16:18).
That would be an accurate statement, until we come to the last few words in parentheses ("contrary to Jesus' own promise in Matthew 16:18). We interpret this verse differently than you do. Consequently, we believe that the great apostasy foretold in the Bible really did take place. It's nice to know you believe it was foretold, but it would be interesting to hear why you don't believe the prophesy came to pass.
The Mormon church asserts that the Church Christ founded became increasingly corrupted by pagan ideas introduced by nefarious members. (Sound familiar?) Over a period of years, the Church lost all relationship with the Church Christ established. Consequently, the keys of authority of the holy priesthood were withdrawn from the earth, and no man any longer had authorization to act in Gods name.
Right. I couldn't have stated it better myself.
From that time onward there were no valid baptisms, no laying on of hands for the receipt of the Holy Ghost, no blessings of any kind, and no administration of sacred ordinances. Confusions and heretical doctrines increased and led to the plethora of Christian sects seen today.
Again, correct.
Mormons claim that to restore the true Church and true gospel to the earth, in 1820 God the Father and Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith in a grove of trees near his home. They told him that all professing Christians on the face of the earth were abominable and corrupt and that the true Church, having died out completely shortly after it began, was to be restored by Smith.
No, that's not quite how it happened, and the error in this statement offends me. God did not say that "all professing Christians on the face of the earth were abominable and correct." He did say that their Creeds were an abomination in His sight. That's entirely different. We have never denied that millions upon millions of sincere Christians have walked the earth since the time of Christ. We simply reject the 4th and 5th century Creeds as being the work of men and not of God.
Mormons run into no small difficulty in reconciling the great apostasy theory with Christs promise in Matthew 16:18: "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it."
We do? I don't know what in the world that difficulty might be.
How could it be that Christ, who should have known better, would promise that his Church wouldnt be overcome if he knew full well a great apostasy would make short shrift of it in a matter of decades? Was Christ lying? Obviously not. Was he mistaken? No. Did he miscalculate things? No, again. Christs divinity precluded such things.
First of all, I find it sad that anyone would suppose we would accuse Christ of lying. That comment was quite unneccessary when a different interpretation of the verse can easily explain our belief. When Jesus Christ said that the gates of hell would not prevail against His Church, he was not even speaking of an apostasy at all. To a first-century Jew, such as Peter and the other Apostles, "the gates of hell" would not have had the sinister connotation the phrase has today. Many people interpret "the gates of hell" as pertaining to the power of Satan, or to evil and corrupt men. Some probably even think of it as some kind of hyperbole meaning "Nothing in the world shall prevail against the Church I am to establish." But in looking at the Hebrew worldview, the phrase would have meant nothing more than the entrance to the underworld or the residence of the spirits of those who had died. Jesus was saying only that even the dead would hear His gospel. He would take it to the spirits in Prison during the three days His body lay in the tomb. That Spirit Prison continues to exist today, and His gospel continues to be taught to those who did not have the opportunity to hear it during their mortal lives (not by Christ Himself, but by His followers). By the time we stand before God to be judged, all will have had a chance to choose for themselves whether to accept or reject Jesus Christ as their Savior.
What are we left with then? Could it be that Mormons are mistaken in their interpretation of such a crucial passage? This is the only tenable conclusion. If there were no great apostasy, then there could have been no need for a restoration of religious authority on the earth. There would be no "restored gospel," and the entire premise of the Mormon church would be undercut.
I believe we're left with the possibility that the Catholic are the ones who have misinterpreted that crucial passage. God's own prophets prophesied of an apostasy and said that Christ would not return for His millennial reign until it had taken place. The author of this article is right in saying that if there had been no apostasy, there would be no need for a restoration of religious authority on the earth. Our premise is that both the predicted apostasy and the predicted restoration have occurred.
The fact is that the only church with an unbroken historical line to apostolic days is the Catholic Church. Even many Protestants acknowledge this, though they argue that there was a need for the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century.
Now those are two statements which I find quite incredulous. Jesus Christ established His Church on a foundation of Prophets and Apostles, not on a foundation of Popes and Cardinals. How can there possibly be apostolic succession without the existence of Apostes. And how can any structure be expected to stand if its foundation is removed? Lastly, why on earth would the Protestants feel the need to reform a Church with an unbroken historical line to apostolic days? Wouldn't that be quite unnecessary?
As non-Catholic historians admit, it can be demonstrated easily that early Church writers, such as Ignatius of Antioch, Eusebius, Clement of Rome, and Polycarp, had no conception of Mormon doctrine, and they knew nothing of a "great apostasy."
Clearly, they didn't. They were a part of it. Couldn't see the forest for the trees, as they say. The apostasy was pretty well underway by the early second century. It is not surprising that these men were unaware of the fact that they were embroiled in it.
Nowhere in their writings can one find references to Christians embracing any of the peculiarly Mormon doctrines, such as polytheism, polygamy, celestial marriage, and temple ceremonies. If the Church of the apostolic age was the prototype of todays Mormon church, it must have had all these beliefs and practices. But why is there no evidence of them in the early centuries, before the alleged apostasy began?
That's a pretty bold statement for the author to make. I have a 350-page book that contains hundreds of references to ancient doctrines and practices that are quite similar to those the Latter-day Saints teach today. Obviously, with a universal apostasy, it is to be expected that many of them would have been lost or corrupted.