true church all but disappeared from western Christendom, limiting it to small pockets of the authentic apostolic gospel that persisted—the Waldensians in Italy, the Hussites in Bohemia and the Lollards in England, for example. During that time the human authority of the pope and the fallible teaching of the Church replaced the unique authority of God in the Scriptures. Man’s works had taken the place of the sovereign and irresistible grace of God in salvation. The result of such apostasy was idolatry,