the great apostasy Archives - Christianity Original

The New Testament gives serious warnings about drift after the Apostles. Paul cautions that “savage wolves” can arise even “from among your own selves,” drawing disciples after themselves. This article explores one way Christians have described that long drift: a “Great Apostasy” (2 Thessalonians 2:3) in which the Jesus movement, once a minority faith, learned to speak in the categories of public institutions and philosophical schools as it moved into the orbit of Roman power. The aim is not to question the sincerity of believers, but to trace how those pressures reshaped Christian language over time, and to invite a return to Scripture’s own horizon of resurrection, restored creation, and God’s Kingdom on earth.

The Confession

Jesus did not teach worship as a puzzle. He taught prayer with a clear address: “Our Father…” (Matthew 6:9). And the apostles keep that same clarity: “Yet for us there is but one God, the Father… and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 8:6). Scripture also says, “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son…” (John 3:16). So Christians praise “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father” (Ephesians 1:17) and confess “Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:11).
But why does returning to this simple pattern matter so much?

Creeds under Empire

The earliest believers confessed Jesus as God’s Son inside a world where “lord” and “savior” were imperial titles, and that confession carried real social cost. Under pressure, the church fought distortions on more than one front: some denied that Jesus truly came “in the flesh,” and John’s letters answered by insisting on the concrete, touchable reality of Jesus’ life, suffering, and love. But as Christianity moved from persecution to imperial protection, the conditions of debate changed. Questions once worked out through Scripture and pastoral persuasion increasingly traveled through councils, votes, and, at times, penalties. Let us trace that shift, from contested confession to creeds under empire, and ask what Rome gained when it learned to speak Christian, and what the church risked losing when unity became a public project.

A History of What the Hell!

Pagan ideas of a fiery netherworld date back as far as Egypt's Nimrod. Way before Christ, in the 6^th century BC, Zoroaster taught the Persians of a Lord of Lies who lived in the dark reaches under the earth recording the deeds of men as debits and credits. After death, souls went to be judged, and if found evil, would be doomed to torment. To easily win pagan converts, the church adopted these theories and began relating Zoroastic meanings to symbolic verses. Apostle Paul predicted such distortions (apostasy) would occur (Acts 20:29-30).

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