That's kind of what it boils down to. One can either believe that there was an almost instantaneous, rapid, and full-blown apostasy right from the get-go--which basically means Jesus lied when He said "the gates of Hades will not stand against it", and even so, we can't trust anything in the Bible anyway since the Bible is a product of that apostate church.
Or one can believe that Jesus Christ is faithful to His word, and that His Church has indeed been moving right down through history boldly confessing Jesus Christ in the world. One doesn't have believe the Church has always had it all gotten together and figured out, or that the Church is infallible; but there is a very real sense that if we can't put any trust into the Church, then we start losing the ability to trust almost anything else. Because whether anyone likes it or not, the only reason any of us today are even able to have this conversation and call ourselves Christians and even read from a Bible is because each and every single one of us has heard about Jesus from other believers in Jesus, who heard it from others. And that goes all the way back to Jesus and His Apostles.
This is why, I believe, it's important when we confess that we believe in "one holy catholic and apostolic Church" in the Nicene Creed. That's not saying, "I put my faith in fallible men", that's saying, "I put my faith in the faithful God". We believe in the Church because we believe in the faithfulness of God to His Church.
-CryptoLutheran
