[aimhigh]

Many schools of theology contend that the Church had a falling away, or went apostate, not too long after the death of the last Apostle. The approximate date varies, with 100AD for Jehovah Witnesses and 312AD for Calvinists and Mormons.

There is a great book, MARTYRS MIRROR, written in 1660, which chronicles the existance of a true church with scriptural doctrine from the time of the early church forward. It also chronicles the persecution of that church. Highly recommended.

[Delbert]

i have been reading about first century church as well, and have often wondered about the integrity and or thought process of those who decided which books made it into the new testament. goodluck on your research. what is Didichae?

[Publius6961]

The approximate date varies, with 100AD for Jehovah Witnesses and 312AD for Calvinists and Mormons...
If so, then how can the modern Church accept a major tenant from an apostate Church?

It is difficult to follow any kind of an argument based on unsupported premises.
A brief paragraph on each of the assertions above (the Jehovah Witnesses, the Calvinists and Mormons) might be useful to maintain the illusion that the article is intended to shed light and not heat.

In addition, any mind that cannot make a distinction between "tenet" and "tenant" is not ready for prime time. At least not for me.

[artios]

In assessing the value of early church fathers, one must keep in mind their foundations as described in the scriptures:

Acts 20:29-31 For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.

II Timothy 1:15 This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me; of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes.

By the end of the first century the only apostolic procession was by these grievous wolves. We must look to the scriptures themselves, not the church tradition laid by grievous wolves in sheep’s clothing.

Scripture should be the guide. Jesus Christ is the Son of God. God is not aman that he should lie. Jesus Christ is a man. I understand church tradition. I also understand mans ability to get it wrong especially in established institutions and governments. Abortion is held as a "right" by the USSC, but it does not make it a right in the true sense of the word as used by our founders. What the govt says is not to be confused with what the consitution says. The same concept goes for "church fathers" as opposed to the Word of God itself.

Religion is, was and always will be mans invention, what man does and says. Christianity is what God has done, is doing and will do in and through Jesus Christ.

[patriot_wes]

the falling away was predictable because building the church of man was more important than the revelation of Matthew 27:51

[Romulus]

Scripture comes from the Church; not the other way round. I think you're beginning to understand this.

[Soliton]

A great link for you: http://www.sxws.com/charis/apol6.htm

[MissAmericanPie]

So are you asking me if God is too weak and inept to communicate His word to me? Or are you telling me that God is too weak and inept to communicate His word to me using fallible mankind? Oh ye of little faith.

The Old Testatment and the New, both show in much detail how God operated through personalities, some that even wanted to be far away from God, and some who wanted to sell God's gift of prophecy for money.

I think it should be understood that God in giving examples of performing His work through some humans, of unsavory character, was able to get what He wanted done. He would have no problem whatsoever in using unsavory men to put together the Bible into a letter to mankind. Hope this helps your understanding and lightens your heart over being able to trust God's letter to you.

[LibertyGirl77]

Tenant? Should be tenet?

[LibertyGirl77]

"Achilles heal" should be "Achilles heel." Spell check *cannot* replace a good dictionary.

[hchutch]

FYI

[Askel5]

I pray for the HEAL OF AN APOSTASY ... =)

Just teasing you as I mark this for follow-up. Should be entertaining if the opening volleys are any indication.

[Unbeliever]

Poor popaganda attempt. The cult of rome was started by those who joined with roman pagans under emporer constantine in order to save their own lives. You are trying to claim that All Christians joined that cult which is not true. You are also trying to infer that God has no control over the Bible.
Won't wash padre.

[Dataman]

Many schools of theology contend that the Church had a falling away, or went apostate, not too long after the death of the last Apostle. The approximate date varies, with 100AD for Jehovah Witnesses and 312AD for Calvinists and Mormons.

This is utter nonsense for several reasons:

"Church" isn't defined,
JWs and Mormons are certainly unreliable sources for any kind of history,
An body as widespread and established as the Christian Church couldn't possibly "go apostate" in a year.

The writer continues to be deliberately vague and pretends to have resolved the apostasy question. He also fails to distinguish between a formal and a pre-existing informal Canon. He conveniently fails to mention the reason for the Canon in the first place: pseudepigrapha began to circulate.

To reasonable people, the conclusion "that in fact, the church wasn't apostate after all or if it was then the NT cannon and the faith as well is in serious doubt", is inescapable.

The conclusion is not inescapable because the assumptions about the Church and the Cannon have not been established.

[Romulus]

Many schools of theology contend that the Church had a falling away, or went apostate, not too long after the death of the last Apostle. The approximate date varies, with 100AD for Jehovah Witnesses and 312AD for Calvinists and Mormons.

The Catholic is unable to live with the contradictions that Jesus established a Church that He promised would endure, that for a period God preserved the church; that He then stopped doing so; that finally He resumed His protection. The Catholic is unable to ignore the way such elaborate and arbitrary theories serve the peculiar convenience of the sects in question, and the fact that the general apostasy herein hypothesized is undetectable in the historical record. Finally, the Catholic is unable to reconcile such fanciful theories with any notion of a faithful God, and rejects with scorn the image of Christ as an absent and vagrant Spouse.

[netman]

For a good insight as to who and where the Church was through history get this Book!

The Pilgrim Church

By E. H. Broadbent

The title of this book is well chosen and calculated to challenge today's reader. Events that took place in the initial phase of the church's history are presented in the record of Scripture, while the most recent events have been well documented. But what of the intervening years, and the chapter of events that bridges the considerable gap between early and latter days?

The survival of the authentic church is proof that God's hand of preservation has rested upon this select, unique company over all the years of existence. Not all the attacks that have been mounted by Satan, many issuing from sources of organized religion, have prevailed to the extinction of the church.

E. H. Broadbent reveals, through his painstaking research, how faithful companies of God's people, with clear attachment to the teaching of the scripture, upheld in their testimony and practices that which God had instituted from the beginning. It makes for thrilling reading and demonstrates the progress of a 'pilgrim church' over centuries of darkness, declension and persecution.

This handsome hard-back edition, of what has long been regarded as a classic account of church history, deserves a place on everyone's bookshelf. Additional to the contents of earlier editions is a collection of maps, in colour, that give indication of the locations and movements of these various groups of Christians

456pp, published by Gospel Folio Press, P.O. Box 2041, Grand Rapids MI 49501-2041. Available in the UK from John Ritchie Ltd., 40 Beansburn, Kilmarnock, KA3 1RH. (ISBN 1-882701-53-4).

[BibChr]

These Christians had no cannon of Scriptures

Cannon

Canon

Important distinction.

Dan
Biblical Christianity web site

[american colleen]

Call me stupid but I don't see how the Catholic Church fell into apostacy. Is there backup somewhere for that assertion? I would really like to read it.

I just read a very entertaining and informative book regarding the start and flowering of the Catholic Church in historical context. It is IMO a great book for history lovers of all denominations.

Triumph - the Power and the Glory of the Catholic Church, a 2000 year history. By H. W. Crocker III

I am a history buff anyway and it seems to me that the author stayed with the facts that we know from the ancient historians and he did not try to "fit" facts to support the Catholic Church and her views.

[netman]

view> The Heartbeat of The Remnant

 

The Pilgrim Church

Are you one of those people who think history is boring? Maybe you think church history is the most boring of all, a tedious list of names and places that you can neither pronounce nor remember. Allow us to recommend a totally different kind of church history book, The Pilgrim Church. Its story will fascinate, inspire, and challenge you. It is simply the account of God’s faithful remnant, which the author calls The Pilgrim Church, from the time of Pentecost until the early twentieth century. Thoroughly researched and very well documented, it shows clearly that God has always preserved a faithful Church. In every stage of history there have been groups of sincere, seeking souls who separated themselves from the world and the religious establishment and sought only to serve God and live like Jesus. In The Pilgrim Church, E.H. Broadbent records the history of many of those groups, documenting their failures as honestly as their successes.

In the first chapter, the author explains his book. Events in the history of the churches in the time of the apostles have been selected and recorded in the Book of Acts in such a way as to provide a permanent pattern for the churches. Departure from this pattern has had disastrous consequences, and all revival and restoration have been due to some return to the pattern and principles in the Scriptures. The following account…shows that there has been a continuous succession of churches composed of believers who have made it their aim to act on the teaching of the New Testament. This succession is not necessarily to be found in any one place; often such churches have been dispersed or have degenerated, but similar ones have appeared in other places. The pattern is so clearly delineated in Scriptures as to have made it possible for churches of this character to spring up in fresh places and among believers who did not know that disciples before them had taken the same path, or that there were some in their own time in other parts of the world.

Very early in the history of the church, men had already complicated the simple message of the Gospel, claimed inappropriate power and authority, and lost sight of some of the most basic Bible truths. Writing about the Lord’s Supper being corrupted into a supposedly miraculous act performed only by a priest, Broadbent says that this was one of several things that …intensified the growing distinction between clergy and laity. The growth of a clerical system under the domination of the bishops, who in turn were ruled by “Metropolitans” controlling extensive territories, substituted a human organization and religious forms for the power and working of the Holy Spirit and the guidance of the Scriptures…

Sad to say, even in those early days the Church was splintering into many mutually exclusive factions, but one thing they all had in common was persecution. When the Church came into contact with the Roman Empire, a conflict ensued in which all the resources of that mighty power were exhausted in a vain endeavor to vanquish those who never resisted or retaliated…. However much the churches were divided in view and practice, they were united in suffering and victory.

The fourth century saw the first union of Church and State, a lamentable violation of all New Testament teaching on the subject, and within a short time, the so-called Church had all the power of the State at its disposal. But always there were those lovers of the truth who rejected the very idea of such an unholy alliance, and simply sought to follow Jesus Christ. Pagans and professing Church alike viciously persecuted such people for centuries, but the true light was never extinguished. The first three centuries of the Church’s history prove that no earthly power can crush it. It is invincible to attacks from without. The witnesses of its sufferings, and even its persecutors, become its converts and it grows more rapidly than it can be destroyed. …the union of the Church and the State, even when the powers of the mightiest Empire are put into the Church’s hands, do not enable her to save the State from destruction, for, in abandoning the position which her very name implies, of being “called out” of the world and of separation to Christ, she loses the power that comes from subjection to her Lord, exchanging it for an earthly authority that is fatal to herself.

As The Pilgrim Church clearly shows through many chapters, the greatest harm is done to the Church not by persecution, but by the rise of false doctrine from among her own members. Yet as Broadbent affirms, the pattern for the New Testament Church is delineated so clearly in the Acts of the Apostles that a true church can grow up in any place where honest people simply read and obey the Word of God. Some of the most inspiring accounts in this book are of such people, who with no human example to follow, simply accepted the biblical pattern and were used by God in the growth of the Pilgrim Church. Some attempted to reform the corrupt system in which they found themselves, while many others broke away entirely and began anew in faith. Although their beliefs and practices varied somewhat among different groups, most of them had in common a passion to know Christ and become like Him.

Broadbent quotes extensively from the works of many writers through every age of the Pilgrim Church. One of them writes in the seventeenth century about the One Thing Needful: Christendom has become a labyrinth. The faith has been split into a thousand little parts and you are made a heretic if there is one of them you do not accept…What can help? Only the one thing needful: return to Christ, looking to Christ as the only Leader, and walking in His footsteps, setting aside all other ways until we reach the goal, and have come to the unity of the faith (Eph. 4:13). As the Heavenly Master built everything on the ground of the Scriptures, so should we leave all particularities of our special confessions and be satisfied with the revealed Word of God which belongs to us all. There is the heartbeat of the Pilgrim Church, the common desire that has bound God’s people together through two millennia.

The author’s estimation of the Anabaptists could well be applied to many other groups: …It was not the form of baptism that gave them courage to suffer as they did. They were aware of immediate communion with their Redeemer; no man and no religious form came between their souls and Him…This fellowship with Him enabled them to understand their communion with those who shared it with them, and in their churches to realize the fellowship of saints. These churches had various beginnings, various histories, and differed according to the character of the persons in them; but all were alike in their desire to adhere to the pattern of primitive Christianity found in the New Testament…. Taking this path they were subject to special temptations, and wherever they yielded to fleshly desires, political aims or covetousness, their fall was great, but by far the greater part were enabled to bear a good testimony to the faithfulness of God.

This book is not the story of a single denomination or a particular group. It spans 1,900 years of history, and records the stories of believers who were known by many different names in dozens of different countries. In addition to well-known groups like the Anabaptists, Moravians, and Waldensians, The Pilgrim Church recounts the history of many long-forgotten assemblies whose stories will inspire and encourage you. Jesus Christ has promised to build His Church, and this book will thrill you with the history of the fulfillment of that promise. In every age, in many places, under widely varying circumstances, among people of all walks of life, He has indeed built His Church.

If you have ever been tempted to despair as you compared modern Christianity’s anemia with the early Church’s fearless power, reading The Pilgrim Church will renew your faith. That desire to return to the truth and find the ‘one thing needful’ is the very thing that has inspired many chapters in the story of the Pilgrim Church. It begins with people like you, accepting the Word of God as it stands instead of in the context of your particular creed or confession. When you are willing to do that, willing to ‘come out from among them’, willing to face ostracism and persecution, and willing to pay any price to be ‘conformed to His image’, then you can join the eternal, triumphant story of The Pilgrim Church.

E.H. Broadbent • Copyright © 1931
Copyright © 1999 • Gospel Folio Press
P.O. Box 2041
Grand Rapids, MI 49501-2041

This book is available from:
Benchmark Press
1593 Pinola Rd. • Shippensburg, PA 17257
U.S.A.
(717) 530-8595 • ebbpinola@juno.com
Cost: US$22 + shipping

 

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[Poohbah]

THE CANNON IS RECOGNIZED

Try using "canon" instead. I recognize a cannon when I see a howitzer.