Restorationism

This article deals with the restoration of Christian authenticity in worship and living; see Supersessionism for a discussion regarding Restorationism in Dispensational Christian views towards Jewish people in the End times.

Restorationist dates for the Great Apostasy

The Latter-day Saints date the apostasy earliest, beginning after the death of the all of the original Twelve Apostles, at approximately 100 AD. With this early date, they claim the least need to reconcile known writings and practices of the early church and Church Fathers as these are all considered apostate.

Related Topics:
100 AD - Church Fathers

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The Sabbatarians have generally agreed on the approximate date of 135 AD as the start of the apostasy. Justin Martyr in about 160 AD had specifically defended the first day assembly, and so is considered an apostate to Sabbatarians. Nevertheless, the early church history recorded the continued keeping of the Sabbath for creation and Sunday for the Resurrection in Hippolytus's time. They view the apostasy as not complete until the church stopped keeping the Sabbath sometime after Constantine.

Related Topics:
Justin Martyr - Sabbath - Hippolytus - Constantine

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The Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement views the Great Apostasy as a gradual process. Ignatius promoted obedience to the Bishop in about 100 AD, which is viewed by some as signalling the introduction of the idea of a professional clergy, who began to elevate themselves over the people, leading by a gradual process of corruption to the prophesied "man of lawlessness." Infant baptism, which restorationists condemned as coercive church membership, is a similar step toward apostasy. They believe that only adult baptism was practiced at least to the time of Tertullian, but that infant baptism was introduced locally around the time of Irenaeus. They often reject notions of original sin which entail a corruption of human nature, and admit only a defilement of mankind's habitual environment, traditions or culture. As do other restorationists, they saw the church-state alliance under Constantine as a kind of taking captive of the church, through the foolishly centralized power of the bishops. And finally, the development of the idea of the supremacy and universal authority of the Bishop of Rome is considered the completing step of the Great Apostasy, from which the Protestant reformation only imperfectly recovered, but most nearly did so among the Anabaptists and the Baptists.

Related Topics:
Ignatius - Bishop - 100 AD - Lawlessness - Infant baptism - Tertullian - Irenaeus - Original sin - Bishop of Rome

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