 Survivors of the persecutions were overly-influenced by various pagan philosophies either because they were not well indoctrinated in Jesus' teachings or they corrupted their Christian beliefs (willingly, by compulsion, or with good intentions but without direct revelation from God to help them interpret said beliefs) by accepting non-Christian doctrines into their faith.LDS Church doctrine is that many plain and simple truths of the gospel of Christ were, therefore, lost.The LDS Church and its members understand various writings in the New Testament to be an indication that even soon after the ascension of Jesus the Apostles struggled to keep early Christians from distorting the teachings of Jesus and to prevent the followers from dividing into different ideological groups.