Keywords

Church History, Christian History, God

Document Type

Article

Abstract

Many years ago, I addressed a group of faculty and students at a university in New England. It was a fifty-minute presentation on “The Christ of the Latter-day Saints.” Questions and answers followed. One faculty member raised his hand and then made a comment: “I do have a question for you,” he said, “but first let me say that I have great difficulty taking seriously any religious group that dismisses out of hand two thousand years of Christian history.” His words jolted me at the time, and his choice of words still troubles me. His query brought to mind a host of issues: Do Latter-day Saints in fact dismiss the whole of Christian history as “apostate”? Is such a position necessary in light of a belief in a restoration of the gospel? Is it the case that “the lights went completely out” in AD 100 and did not come on again until 1820? Because of the poignance of the professor’s observation, I do not even remember the question he then asked.