During this time period, hundreds and hundreds of new denominations popped up claiming to have the truth. To name a few are Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah Witnesses, Christian Scientists, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and how about those churches that think handling rattle snakes is sacramental, etc., etc. What is truth among these many late-founded faiths? Why should I accept Mormonism as a bona fide faith from the hundreds and hundreds of faith systems that cropped up during the 19th century. Even those denominations within the framework of Christianity blossomed up by the hundreds: Evangelicalism, Fundamentalism. Each one claims the truth. I am a Christian but I think I will search back further into the earlier years of Christianity, like the 1st and 2nd centuries, rather than looking to the 19th century.

Looking back into an even more primitive time period assuming you'll somehow find more truth? Follow the logic trail on that and ask yourself if that makes any sense. Look forward my man and you'll be much more fascinated by what you see. Will you find "the one and only truth"? Probably not, but you will find everything will make a lot more sense and it will save you from spending even more of your precious life on a wild goose chase.

If you want to keep searching, I'd like to offer a few books that might interest you.

"Pagan Christianity" by Frank Viola and George Bana does a pretty good job of breaking down where and when certain traditions in Christianity probably originated.

You may consider reading things like: "The Forgotten Books of Eden" and "The Lost Books of the Bible"
edited by Rutherford H. Platt, Jr. (http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/index.htm) These are collections of various scrolls that weren't found or purposely left out by the people that put together the Bible. "The Other Bible" by Willis Barnstone is another good collection.

You might also want to look at what is collectively known as "Gnosticism": http://www.sacred-texts.com/gno/index.htm . Gospel of Mary, Gospel of Thomas, and the Pistis Sophia in particular.

Best of luck on your journey, my friend.

You would not let a Bronze aged man much less a stone age man tell you who to vote for president.


Why would you let them tell you who is your God?

The Reformed Baptists tried that -- tried to pattern
themselves after Christianity as it existed before
any of the church councils, before any of the church
fathers wrote their apologetics, before any pope was
ensconced in the eternal city of Rome.

The results were a mixed bag. The New Testament is not
entirely homogeneous in stating how a church should be
operated, nor does it present a systematic theology.

By dropping all the centuries of Christian traditions
and Christian philosophizing, the followers of Alexander
Campbell lost something -- they abandoned the accumulated
wisdom of many centuries and tried to rely upon their
own interpretation of what early apostolic Christianity
had been.

A literalistic approach to the New Testament didn't help
them much, and they were forced to rely more and more
upon reason, or attempts at reason. There were the
inevitable schisms -- the attempts to find common ground
with other groups (like Barton Stone's church) and the
inevitable failures. The various modern sects of the
Church of Christ, the Christian Church, and the Disciples
of Christ are the result of that "restoration movement."

Some say (with considerable justification) that Mormonism
was the first heresy of Reformed Baptist restorationism.

The best laid plans of mice and men...

UD

I have found that there is no "one true church". The objective is to find one which is reasonably close. At the same time, don't despair. On April 15, 1980, I awoke with the conclusion that NO church was wholly true, including TSCC. I then had a dream/vision and, probably by my not recalling what was said, went on and joined TSCC, despite my absolute conclusion it was not "the one true church". But the wholescale degree of error and falsity and fraud took time to penetrate. I have always (or almost always) felt that some people are better off in one church and some another. My conclusion now is to seek the closest and work to improve it. TSCC is beyond improvement being based on such blatantly false bases. As for seeking truth, I look for better translations and evolving just as religion has in the past.

Roger, I don't recommend you look to the past for answers to dynamic, ever-evolving questions.

If you want Christianity as close as possible to how it was practiced in the 1st Century, Coptic Christianity is the way to go. It predates both Catholicism and Orthodoxy.

Here's more info:
http://www.gotquestions.org/Coptic-Christianity.html

Fair warning: Their services are many hours long, and you stand during the entire thing.

Ancient Christianity had it rough with all the Gnostic and Arian faith systems running amok for many centuries. (Gnosticism depended on its esotericism which is not unlike modern-day Mormonism.)

Yet they went the wayside and Christianity survived. The 16th century Reformation movements provided fodder for those faith systems which arose in the 19th century. Everything came up for grabs.

I still think that Catholicism, Orthodoxy and even Coptic Christianity have the leverage or vestiges of original Christianity rather than all the denominations that have shown up centuries later.

Personally I am looking for a revival of the old Greek ways. The "gods" are not all powerful and certainly not all holy and righteous and good. They were reflections or embodiments of the unpredictability of life, rather like the Irish leprechauns before they got taken over by Hallmark and some breakfast cereal. Isn't it so much easier to "believe" (whatever that means) than the type of deity promoted these days?