[AnthonyB]

Traveler,

I’d agree wholeheartedly that the new covenant begins with baptism; it is where in God’s design we obtain remission of sins and enter the covenant.

I’d agree the church was much more pagan (and parts of it remain much more pagan) then they should be.

I don’t know whether you got my distinction between restoration and redemption, so I’ll run through some biblical examples of how I see God works and why I think my thoughts are the kind of thing He is likely to do.

Adam and Eve lived in the garden in innocence, a garden which God visited. They ate gained the knowledge of good and evil and were expelled.

Restoration: Would be to return man to the garden and return us to innocence.

Redemption: Giving us a new home with God, and using the knowledge of good and evil to be used that we may have a deeper relationship with God.

Jesus was physically abused and murdered by man.

Restoration: Would be giving Him His human body back and healing/removing all the wounds.

Redemption: Is giving Him a resurrected body, and leaving the wounds as an eternal reminder of the love of God for man.

A restoration takes things back to (or as near as possible) its original condition. Redemption (as God seems to do it in the scriptures) uses part of the negative and turns it into a greater positive then could have been achieved by merely restoring.

(As for the priesthood restoration, that is something we will never agree on, else one of changes our faith tradition.)