A Return to the Roots

A few Sundays ago the topic of the sacrament meeting talks was the “restoration”. It had all the necessary ingredients: restoration versus reformation, authority being lost as the ancient apostles were killed, our church being the “same” as the ancient church, and America as the prepared homeland for the restoration.

A brief discussion I had with someone between sacrament and sunday school centered on bringing up the differences rather than similarities bewteen the Latter-day church and the ancient church. By only discussing the restoration as a return to the early church, do we sometimes create an awkward space to talk about differences? Can we spell out some of these differences in a faith-reaffirming way?

I’m no historian of early Christianity, and so I won’t even try to make any historical claims (although those with historical interests are more than welcome to); but I am wondering what kinds of similarities are essential to our “restorationist” claims, and what kinds of differences are we comfortable accepting?