Отстъпления е имало няколко но това след Христос е най-голямото затова се нарича "Великото отстъпление". Знам, че не вярваш в това, но за сведение съшото свидетелства и Книгата на Мормон - след като Спасителя се явява на Нефитите и им донася Евангелието следва период на мир и просперитет около стотина години след което започва най-голямото кръвопролитие довело до изчезването на един цял народ.

Ще се изненадаш на колко много места Новия завет алармира за започващото отстъпление.
Добре, когато ги четете в Библията игнорирате ли всички тези стихове?
В това даже има и логика. Всички знаем кой е княза на този свят. Как си представяте Христовата Църква да не е преследвана винаги? Кой е обещавал "цветя и рози", високи постове и привилегии съотвестващи на позициите в църковната ерархия? Напротив, Самият Спасител използва сравнението като "овце сред вълци".
Въпреки жестоките гонения действително Църквата се е разраствала но бавно, което си е направо чудо. Истинският бум в разрастването обаче става след обявяването на християнството за "държавна религия" от император Константин. Тогава за една нощ става обединение на църковната и светската йерархия и няма как да разбереш за искрениете намерения на хората да станат християни. Безпорно е имало такива но техния брой е бил много малък отнесен към общия.
Отстъплението идва главно поради избиването на апостолите. Липсата на пророци и апостоли от тялото на Църквата води постепенно до вакуум в познаието за божията воля. По-късно за да бъде запълнен този вакуум се прибягва до съборите - орган на колективната човешка мъдрост за да бъдат решавани важни църковни въпроси.


Смит не противоречи на Христа, а е напълно в тон с Новия завет.


За съжаление нямах време да превеждам:

Apostasy in the Early Church


Paul is perhaps the best witness of the eroding forces washing away the foundation of the Church. One impression that his letters give is that he and his companions spent considerable energy trying to smother the flames of apostasy.

In one letter we read that, within two or three years after his mission to central Asia Minor, many Christians there had perverted the gospel. (See Gal. 1:6–12; Gal. 3:1–5.) Paul’s epistles to Church members at Corinth illustrate how unstable some of the Christians there were. When we read his letters to members in Colossae, Thessalonica, and Ephesus, we sense that the struggle over points of doctrine and policy continually persisted and festered. Moreover, much of Hebrews 2 and 4 [Heb. 2, 4] is devoted to warning Jewish Christians against losing what they had received from the Savior’s atonement.

In 1 Timothy, Paul lays down straightforward instructions to his longtime friend, recently called as an ecclesiastical authority in Ephesus. But in 2 Timothy, which Paul wrote near the end of his ministry, we sense that Timothy had become discouraged because of the severe problems he had had to face, including droves of members turning away from the true path. Paul wrote that “all they which are in Asia” had turned away. (2 Tim. 1:15.)

The information in Revelation 2 and 3 was addressed about A.D. 90 to specific congregations in cities near the west coast of Asia Minor. The Lord even accused some of the branches of the Church of having fallen headlong into apostasy. Of the seven that John addressed, five had serious problems with dissension and apostasy. (See Rev. 2:4–5, 14–16, 20; Rev. 3:1–2, 15–16.)

During the first several centuries of apostasy, the major doctrinal disputes centered on the Savior’s resurrection and the exact nature of his mission—the very points on which the Apostles were charged to testify. (See Acts 1:8, 21–22.) We can see how serious the absence of the Apostles became, since such issues continued as centers of controversy among Christians until the fifth century A.D.

Most of the difficulties arose from within the Church, as Paul had said they would. (See Acts 20:29–30.) One misunderstanding of the resurrection had occurred early in Ephesus. Paul wrote to Timothy concerning two men, Hymenaeus and Philetus, “who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some.” (2 Tim. 2:17–18.) Rather than denying the physical resurrection, as did later Corinthians, these two men taught that Christians had already experienced the renewal of life, presumably through baptism, and need not look forward to the resurrection.

The Corinthians seemed to have had long-term problems with accepting the resurrection. Paul’s first letter to members in Corinth centers on the reality of a physical resurrection, and his second letter bears fervent testimony of that doctrine. (See 2 Cor. 4:11–14.) Much later, Clement says that he and other Roman leaders had been consulted about a serious schism in the Corinthian congregation. Clement claims that the division among Christians in Corinth arose because of the jealousy and envy of apostates. (See 1 Clement 1–4.) In another passage, however, Clement identifies the resurrection as a central issue: some were denying bodily resurrection. (See 1 Clement 24–27.)

Much of the misunderstandings about the resurrection must be attributed to the notion of docetism, which came to be more and more influential during the second century. The term derives from the Greek verb dokeo, which means “to seem.” Docetics maintained that Jesus had only seemed to live among men, to suffer, and to die. In reality, they said, the heavenly Christ did not come into contact with the world of matter, for that would have defiled his divine nature.

Such a view of the Messiah denies that salvation comes as a result of Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection. In fact, the doctrine of salvation was subverted into the idea that Christ was a special messenger who brought to earth secret knowledge that would allow the elect to escape this corrupt world and to make their way back to the presence of the Father. This special knowledge was called gnosis, and those who held such a view of the Messiah were known as gnostics.

Several places in the New Testament indicate that the Apostles were already trying to combat these false conceptions of the Savior. Both 1 and 2 John were written to warn of and correct such ideas:

“Many false prophets are gone out into the world.

“Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:

“And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.” (1 Jn. 4:1–3.)

In the second epistle, John repeats, “Many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.” (2 Jn. 1:7.)

In addition, we should note that modern interpreters of John’s gospel have felt that the sentence, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14), was directed against those who denied that Jesus had possessed a mortal body and that it had undergone a physical resurrection. John’s gospel and letters demonstrate that docetism had made deep inroads in Christian thought before the end of the first century.

In its earliest forms, gnosticism had crept in even before Paul’s death. Paul employs many terms familiar to gnostics in his letters to Ephesus and Colossae, trying to correct their misunderstanding of the Savior’s mission and of the nature of the Church. Following are two examples of Paul’s use of gnostic language to correct early gnostic belief:

“Whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him. …

“Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints:

“To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Col. 1:16, 26–27.)

Paul’s first letter to Timothy also contains an explicit attack on gnosticism, which nevertheless developed a powerful influence during the second century A.D.

“O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you. Avoid the godless chatter and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge [gnosis], for by professing it some have missed the mark as regards the faith.” (1 Tim. 6:20–21, Revised Standard version.)

What we see at the end of the first century is a church full of dissensions. All the Apostles were gone, save John, and no one could appeal to the voice of God that comes through his appointed servants. In fact, Eusebius, writing in the fourth century, knew of only one person by the mid-second century who possessed the gift of prophecy—a man named Quadratus. (Ecclesiastical History, 3.37.1.)

Persecution against the Christians must have had some effect as well. A letter written to the emperor Trajan by Pliny the Younger, when the latter was proconsul of Bithynia and Pontus in A.D. 111–12, says that many Christians turned against the Church when they were threatened with death. But as the Church slipped irrevocably into apostasy as a body, the record of martyrs also tells us that many others remained firm in their testimonies of the resurrected Lord.

The New Testament writers not only prophesied of persecution and complete apostasy to come, but also attested to the disabling presence of the two during the first half of the first century A.D., less than fifteen years after Jesus’ death and resurrection. The crippling difficulties in the Church did not cease. For after the deaths of its leaders, the Church was left to wander, making its way haltingly until its original form and authority were lost.

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