Did the Early Chistian Church Apostasize?

[ldsguy]

The early Church showed many signs of apostacy even while the original Apostles were alive. After they died or were killed there was no one to carry on their responsibility of keeping the Church from falling into deeper and deeper apostacy. Many Babylonion and greek influences entered the Church. By the time the Emperor Constantine took over the head of the Church and Christianised many pagan practices, the Church which Christ originated was far from how it was in the early part of the first Centuray AD.
I would be interested in your comments on this matter one and all.

[Clint]

Originally Posted by ldsguy

The early Church showed many signs of apostacy even while the original Apostles were alive. After they died or were killed there was no one to carry on their responsibility of keeping the Church from falling into deeper and deeper apostacy. Many Babylonion and greek influences entered the Church. By the time the Emperor Constantine took over the head of the Church and Christianised many pagan practices, the Church which Christ originated was far from how it was in the early part of the first Centuray AD.
I would be interested in your comments on this matter one and all.

Right. I’m convinced that the way to correct all of that is to rediscover what the church was like in the first century. Jews and Messianic Jews with Gentiles worshiping together in the way they had been taught by their forefathers. The Messianic Jews were really a sect within Judaism.

[telaquapacky]

Originally Posted by Clint

Right. I’m convinced that the way to correct all of that is to rediscover what the church was like in the first century. Jews and Messianic Jews with Gentiles worshiping together in the way they had been taught by their forefathers. The Messianic Jews were really a sect within Judaism.

That’s the secret history of Christianity. The Way began as a sect of Judaism and gradually began accepting Gentiles. The first Christian churches were Jewish synagogues that accepted Jesus as the Messiah, and companies formed by Jews who were kicked out of synagogues that didn’t accept Christ.

At least three and a half years after Calvary, the idea of proselytizing Gentiles was new even to Peter. The first time he tried it, when he baptized a group of Gentiles in Caesarea, and Church headquarters found out about it, some of the brethren freaked: “You went into the house of uncircumcized men and ate with them!” But when Peter explained how it happened, they said, “So then, God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life.” (Wowie, who woulda thought?) Up to then, most of them never witnessed to Gentiles- only to other Jews. (Acts 10:9-11:23.)

The early church gradually accepted Gentiles in. They worshipped together, and kept the Sabbath according to the fourth commandment, as Jews had all along. As for circumcision and keeping the Law of Moses, the Jews who wanted to were not compelled to give it up, but they were admonished, especially by Paul, not to force it on the Gentiles. (Acts 15:13-29, 1 Cor 7:18)

So what happened to lead Christianity to lose it’s Jewish roots? When the gospel spread to Rome and Alexandria in the west, the new churches in those cities thought that since they were the political and intellectual capitals of the world, they should lead the Church. They also had strong roots in Paganism and Greek philosophy, which strongly influenced their doctrine. Trouble was they kept being fed to lions, sold as slaves, burned, and persecuted by the government. At the same time, the more martyrs were killed, the more people saw their conviction and wanted to be Christians too. While the church in Rome was persecuted and wanted to be legalized and gain ascendancy in the Christian world, the government was losing the battle against a rising tide of Christianity. The Roman church desperately needed acceptance by the state, and the state needed a church that wouldn’t upset the Pagan character of their empire, which they felt solidified their authority. Most of the persecution was because Christ was a Jew and the emperors viewed Christianity as something Jewish and seditious. The Roman church found out early that by dropping some of the Jewish influences in Christianity and becoming more similar to Paganism, they could more easily win converts than by the sacrifice of themselves. By the early 300’s, the process was complete. Then Constantine brilliantly co-opted Christianity into a force less threatening to the empire by legalizing and taking under his wing this western branch of the church which was really a hybrid of Christianity and Paganism. Under Constantine, the churches in the west could move out of the catacombs and into great cathedrals. But in the process, they brought in more innovations- less Biblical teaching, more mythical allegory and Greek philosophy; less simplicity in worship and more priestcraft and complex liturgy; less veneration of the Scriptures, and more veneration of statues and relics- and they changed the worship day from the Sabbath to what Constantine called “the venerable day of the Sun,” Sunday.

Of course, I wasn’t there. But all the historical evidence I’ve seen, in my view, supports this conclusion.

[Clint]

telaquapacky,

Very well done. I don't find anything to dispute. The historical evidence I’ve seen, in my view, supports this conclusion as well. THANK YOU

[nvalleyvee]

Thanks Tela for a good history of Christianity. I always wondered what happened to what I have heard as the Jesus testament. I think it goes something like - lift a rock and I am there and said the love of God comes from the heart and not from a temple of worship. I had wondered what happened to the story of Moses about worshipping idols and why Christianity had gone back to that practice.

[capt_buzzard]

A marvelous read,telaquapacky.Thanks

[ldsguy]

Originally Posted by telaquapacky

That’s the secret history of Christianity. The Way began as a sect of Judaism and gradually began accepting Gentiles. The first Christian churches were Jewish synagogues that accepted Jesus as the Messiah, and companies formed by Jews who were kicked out of synagogues that didn’t accept Christ.

At least three and a half years after Calvary, the idea of proselytizing Gentiles was new even to Peter. The first time he tried it, when he baptized a group of Gentiles in Caesarea, and Church headquarters found out about it, some of the brethren freaked: “You went into the house of uncircumcized men and ate with them!” But when Peter explained how it happened, they said, “So then, God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life.” (Wowie, who woulda thought?) Up to then, most of them never witnessed to Gentiles- only to other Jews. (Acts 10:9-11:23.)

The early church gradually accepted Gentiles in. They worshipped together, and kept the Sabbath according to the fourth commandment, as Jews had all along. As for circumcision and keeping the Law of Moses, the Jews who wanted to were not compelled to give it up, but they were admonished, especially by Paul, not to force it on the Gentiles. (Acts 15:13-29, 1 Cor 7:18)

So what happened to lead Christianity to lose it’s Jewish roots? When the gospel spread to Rome and Alexandria in the west, the new churches in those cities thought that since they were the political and intellectual capitals of the world, they should lead the Church. They also had strong roots in Paganism and Greek philosophy, which strongly influenced their doctrine. Trouble was they kept being fed to lions, sold as slaves, burned, and persecuted by the government. At the same time, the more martyrs were killed, the more people saw their conviction and wanted to be Christians too. While the church in Rome was persecuted and wanted to be legalized and gain ascendancy in the Christian world, the government was losing the battle against a rising tide of Christianity. The Roman church desperately needed acceptance by the state, and the state needed a church that wouldn’t upset the Pagan character of their empire, which they felt solidified their authority. Most of the persecution was because Christ was a Jew and the emperors viewed Christianity as something Jewish and seditious. The Roman church found out early that by dropping some of the Jewish influences in Christianity and becoming more similar to Paganism, they could more easily win converts than by the sacrifice of themselves. By the early 300’s, the process was complete. Then Constantine brilliantly co-opted Christianity into a force less threatening to the empire by legalizing and taking under his wing this western branch of the church which was really a hybrid of Christianity and Paganism. Under Constantine, the churches in the west could move out of the catacombs and into great cathedrals. But in the process, they brought in more innovations- less Biblical teaching, more mythical allegory and Greek philosophy; less simplicity in worship and more priestcraft and complex liturgy; less veneration of the Scriptures, and more veneration of statues and relics- and they changed the worship day from the Sabbath to what Constantine called “the venerable day of the Sun,” Sunday.

Of course, I wasn’t there. But all the historical evidence I’ve seen, in my view, supports this conclusion.

Thank you for setting out so elequently what are in fact my own beliefs and understanding of the circumstancies, in which the Church oringinated by Christ, became the hotchpotch which it is until this day. Protestantism attempted to root out the worst of the apostacy in the middle ages propagated by the Catholic Church. However they did not go near far enough and much of the non-Christian traditions and practices were taken into the new protestant churches.

[Ted]

A lot of words containing some truth and some speculation. It is very important to understand the development of the church from the time of Jesus to the end of the first century because it is from that that the later chuch developed.

Did the church change and develop throughout the centuries? Yes. Apostasy? That is questionable.

It is very easy to judge the church from the view point of the 21st Cent. Hindsight is always 20/20.

The church and Christianity were not fully developed by the time Jesus left the scene. It has continued to develop as it should since them. Has the church committed errors? It has, but it has also not always been wrong. This particular topic needs a lifetime of study on the part of some scholars.

Shalom
Ted

[Clint]

It may be hard for some to accept but what telaquapacky wrote is also the result of a lifetime of study by some scholars. These scholars are just now being heard because so many people are questioning the failings of the self directed church of today. If you would like to be exposed to scholars who are opening the eyes of the once stayed masses, try these:
http://www.ariel.org/ Dr Arnold Fruchtenbaum
http://www.restorationfoundation.org Dr. John D. Garr
http://www.manhattan.edu/arts/hist/f...chweitzer.html DR. FREDERICK SCHWEITZER
http://www.restoremagazine.org/volume%2010/43_19.htm Numerous Scholars to choose from here.

There are many more if you need to see them to be convinced that not all of the scholars in the world are teaching replacement theology.

[telaquapacky]

Clint- thank you for those sites! I bookmarked a couple of them. I would recommend one other (which I have mentioned once before):

www.btlministries.org