Just my thoughts on LDS vs Apostolic Succession claims as a fairly non-religious, but interested person
I’m not LDS but I love church history. After spending a lot of time reading arguments from Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and Latter-day Saints, I honestly think yall’s restoration narrative is more logically coherent than apostolic succession.
The Catholic/Orthodox position seems to require believing that the “one true Church” remained fully intact despite centuries of doctrinal disputes, schisms, corruption, political power struggles, and competing claims to authority. To me, apostolic succession ends up feeling like bureaucratic lineage alone is being treated as proof of preserved authority.
The LDS framework actually feels more consistent with what happened historically. The New Testament repeatedly warns about apostasy and doctrinal drift after the apostles. From that perspective, the fragmentation of Christianity isn’t something awkward to explain away — it’s evidence that a restoration would eventually be necessary.
What also makes more sense to me is the LDS idea that authority comes through direct divine revelation and appointment by God rather than simply an institutional chain of ordinations. If God truly intended to reestablish His church, it seems more coherent that He would call and reveal truth to a prophet directly, and then continue guiding future prophets through revelation, rather than relying solely on an unbroken institutional lineage as proof of authority. The Catholic version just feels very “business” to me.
That obviously doesn’t prove Joseph Smith was a prophet. But purely from a historical and logical standpoint, the restoration model honestly makes more sense to me than the claim that authority and doctrinal integrity survived perfectly through uninterrupted succession alone.
Just a thought—btw y’all are literally the nicest people, lol