Mormonism, post-Marxism, and the liberal challenge of John Dehlin

Slowcowboy asked in the last thread about how Mormons are like Catholics. The question can best be answered from a 20,000-foot view of the goals of Protestants, Catholics, and Mormons within Christendom.

The Catholic goals are (1) to protect and preserve the proclamation of the New Testament and (2) maintain the power and influence of the Catholic church as holders of the keys of the priesthood. Protestants had two primary political goals, (1) rationally clarify and re-proclaim the message of the New Testament as the basis of the church and (2) break the political power of the Catholic church. The Mormons goals are (1) reinstate spirituality over rational theology as the primary mover of the church, (2) re-institute the earthly priesthood authority instituted at the time of Christ, (3) establish Zion in preparation for the second coming.   All things considered, the Mormon goals are not unreasonable in the context of the history of Christendom. However, I think the Mormons are operating with some distinct disadvantages in their understanding of Christ.

Rethinking the Great Apostasy: The victory of Christianity over Roman Paganism

What Happened: 

In 1776, Edward Gibbon described a fascinating sequence of events he calls the “ruin of Paganism” during the reign of Theodosius in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. (Gibbon’s patrician, Enlightenment, classically conservative,  modern, and rationalist biases are in full effect — but it’s a brilliant read.)

Gibbon wrote: “The ruin of the Pagan religion is described by the sophists as a dreadful and amazing prodigy, which covered the earth with darkness, and restored the ancient dominion of chaos and of night. . . a revolution, which raised those obscure victims of the laws of Rome to the rank of celestial and invisible protectors of the Roman empire.” He cites it as,”perhaps the only example of the total extirpation of any ancient and popular superstition; and may therefore deserve to be considered as a singular event in the history of the human mind.”

The third to wear the purple robes after Constantine declared himself a Christian was Constantine’s nephew, the last pagan emperor, Julian.  Orphaned as a child, he raised as a Christian with his half-brother, consul of the east, Gallus.  When he reached twenty, Julian rejected Christianity in a secret initiation into the Greek mysteries of Eleusis. He adopted neoplatonic philosophy, and worshiped the Greek pantheon. He hid his pagan devotion and feigned Christian worship for ten years, until he finally declared his paganism while waging a civil war against the Christian prince Constantinius. His victory revitalized paganism as well as religious toleration across the empire.