🌱 Restoration¶
Estimated time to read: 10 minutes
Joseph Smith was told by God that he needed to restore His church, because all the other churches had inequities/problems/no authority. Whenever today's restored church comes under public scrutiny for some foible, the go-to explanation I hear is “God is perfect, but the church is not.” If that’s true, and God can work through an imperfect church, why did there have to be a restoration? Was it not to restore that purity or perfection?
Jesus' Teachings¶
Boy, Jesus sure missed the mark on saying that the church wouldn’t fall to apostasy, huh?
And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
There are other NT scriptures quoting Christ on this matter (read Matthew 13 and John 15-17)
Ongoing Restoration¶
Fun fact: the phrase “ongoing restoration” was never uttered in any general conference talk until 2019 when they made a bunch of changes like 2 hour church and the youth programs and such. For simplicity's sake, here are some search results for the church's library of the term "ongoing restoration." It was a hot topic in 2019 and 2020.
I've encountered few exceptions to this. One in 2014, another in 2016.
In reality, the Restoration is an ongoing process; we are living in it right now.
— Are You Sleeping through the Restoration?, President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, General Conference April 2014
If you live as long as I have, you will come to know that things have a way of resolving themselves. An inspired insight or revelation may shed new light on an issue. Remember, the Restoration is not an event, but it continues to unfold.
— To Whom Shall We Go?, Elder M. Russell Ballard, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, General Conference 2016 October
Up to that point, based on skimming those search results, the only things to be called ongoing, continuous, etc was Christ's love, or revelation to the current president of the church. No specific examples, just that the prophet receives revelation. It did not mean that the church was going to fundamentally change doctrines, in fact, many presidents of the church emphatically stated that doctrines would never change.
So while the specific phrase ‘ongoing restoration’ isn’t in Uchtdorf's talk, the idea that the restoration is ongoing looks as if it originated from there.
But... If the restoration of the gospel is ongoing, there is no restored gospel. In fact, it'd be odd to find some church authorities who have asserted that the restoration is completed.
Already Restored¶
*No matter where I go, I meet our missionaries. They are remarkably resilient and ever effective. They give visible and tangible evidence that the Church of Jesus Christ has been restored in its fulness*.
— Senior Missionaries and the Gospel, Elder Russel M Nelson, General Conference October 2004
The faith that motivated the pioneers of 1847 as well as pioneers in other lands was a simple faith centered in the basic doctrines of the restored gospel, which they knew to be true. That’s all that mattered to them, and I believe that is all that should matter to us. ... We need to know that [God & Jesus] restored the Church to the earth in its fulness through the Prophet Joseph Smith.
— “You Have Nothing to Fear from the Journey”, Elder M. Russell Ballard, General Conference April 1997
As members of His Church, we witness He lives and His Church has been restored in its fulness in these latter days.
— Come and See, Elder David A. Bednar, General Conference October 2014
When the circumstances were right, Heavenly Father once again reached out to His children in love. He called a young man named Joseph Smith as a prophet. Through him the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ was restored to the earth.
. . .
Reading, pondering, and praying about the Book of Mormon are critical for an enduring conversion. Those who begin reading the Book of Mormon for the first time take important steps toward coming to know that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God and that the true Church has been restored to the earth.
— Lesson 1: The Message of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (1, 2), Preach My Gospel, 2004
The Great Apostasy was a time of spiritual darkness, but we now live in a time when we can partake of “the light of the glorious gospel of Christ”. The fulness of the gospel has been restored, and the true Church of Jesus Christ is on the earth again. No other organization can compare to it. It is not the result of a reformation, with well-meaning men and women doing all in their power to bring about change. It is a restoration of the Church established by Jesus Christ. It is the work of Heavenly Father and His Beloved Son.
— Restoration of the Gospel, True to the Faith (2004)
And when the times of the Gentiles is come in, a light shall break forth among them that sit in darkness, and it shall be the fulness of my gospel;
— D&C 45:28, amid other signs of the Second Coming
If this sign has been fulfilled, we have the fulness of the gospel already. If it has not been fulfilled, we're not in the latter days.
See also: - Primary lesson: Jesus Christ’s Church Has Been Restored - Primary song: Jesus’ Church Has Been Restored - Friend magazine (targeted to Primary children): The Church of Jesus Christ Has Been Restored - Hour of Conversion, article in Ensign June 2002 - The Restoration of the Church of Christ, Doctrine and Covenants Instructor’s Guide: Religion 324–325, Lesson 9, Section 20
Or just use search operators on the whole site. Or look for permutations of "restored" alongside "fulness."
What exactly is being restored?¶
If the Book of Mormon is true, we have three Nephites who are immortal and have priesthood. Did Joseph Smith need to restore it? If he did, why, and wouldn’t it have been passed on by them? What does this say about the idea of an apostasy? The priesthood already exists, why would we hype Joseph restoring it?
And why doesn’t the restoration look more like Judaism? Because in theory, that’s what was being restored, right?
Did Christ really form a church?¶
Or did he just tell twelve followers to go out and teach people how to be good? 12 +1 can cover more ground than one preacher. I don’t recall any formal church being set up in the Bible or BoM. A lot of people were told who to follow and how to behave.
Perhaps what I, today, would call “a church” doesn’t fit all the criteria of what Christ set up in his time. So… can we examine what he did? He got baptized, and told people to respect God.
How's this for a hot take: Christ did not teach Christianity. Christianity teaches about Christ.
Christ’s entire worldview is that of apocalyptic Judaism. His entire goal was to prepare His followers for The Lord and the end times. Christ himself did not set up a church, and he did not call for the creation of a new canon of scripture. He did start a movement, though. Everything Jesus needed to argue for His worldview was found within interpretations of existing Judaism and the Old Testament writings as recognized by the Jewish community.
There was no New Testament church established by Christ. Some of Paul’s epistles talk about memberships in churches, suggesting they were established by someone at some time. I’ve read that the four gospels were written decades after Christ’s ministry; earliest was Mark, written in 64 AD, 30 years after the crucifixion.
What would become the Orthodox Church was more or less forced to create an authoritative canon of the New Testament by the proliferation of other interpretations and books of scripture. Hence the council of Nicaea where these divisions and understandings were later canonized into the Scripture we have now
Christ never set up his church. The apostles never set up an authoritative religious structure, what we know as Christianity was developed over a millennia of faith and doctrinal interpretations.
Assuming there was a church during Jesus' ministry, is that what's being restored today?
These are a few of the infallible signs of the true Church. But there are others. The Church of today must be of modern origin. Does that surprise you? Not an ancient church, but of modern origin. That is a vital sign of identification of the true church.
— Signs of the True Church, Elder Mark E. Petersen, Council of the Twelve, General Conference 1979 April
Hold on now, what? You follow that link and tell me if I missed some crucial piece of context.
Elder Petersen has lots of other hot takes for your reading pleasure. He liked talking about race in particular.
Parallels¶
If we can't define what part of Christ's gospel is being restored, then what are we doing?
I recognize the risk in bringing this up, but the idea of "make America great again" comes to mind. When was it great? What made it great? How will we know it has been restored to its state of greatness? Had no other political movement before 2016 thought of a nonspecific past when things were "great"? Does the timeframe we think of as "great" look back on another time that they thought qualified as "great"? Are we nostalgic for the times when seven-year-olds were sweeping chimneys and dying of scarlet fever? No? Then what is the nostalgia pointing to? Did America peak in 1969 when we declared ourselves rulers of outer space by moving the goalposts on Russia?
In the same way, I'd expect that if the modern LDS church is a restoration of what Jesus (allegedly) set up, we'd see a lot more parallels than:
- 12 followers who might be called apostles
- Should get baptized
- Respect God
- Be nice
...