COLLEEN TINKER | Editor, Life Assurance Ministries
The question is universal among those who have left Adventism (or any other group with a false gospel and a twisted soteriology): how do we find a good church to attend?
This question is one of the hardest ones to answer; there is no single “right church”, and a person can’t really know if a church is healthy or faithful to God’s word without visiting it and studying its statement of beliefs. Denominational affiliation can give important clues about what a local church teaches, but even then the individual churches can vary widely.
We received an email last weekend with questions about the “true church”, and this week I want to share the email and also my answer and the original writer’s follow-up email. I believe the questions the writer asked and the subject of how to evaluate a church are universally important for us as we begin to root ourselves in the body of Christ.
Here is the email, edited to hide the identity of the writer:
Firstly, thank you for your ministry!! Over the past eight months…my husband and I have left the Adventist church because of the evidence that Adventism is a false religion. Still believing and loving God, we are trying to find our place in another church group. We are currently enjoying fellowship with a Presbyterian church, but in the backs of our minds we are concerned that we may have had a knee-jerk reaction, just finding any Sunday church to belong to without doing adequate research. We are reading church history, something we never cared for much during our Adventist days, and we are currently inquiring about the Eastern Orthodox Church which claims to be the “true" church established by the apostles. As Protestantism came out of Catholicism with major reforms, I’m questioning whether Protestantism has the complete teachings given to the church since it is so far removed from the original, or ancient, church (i.e Orthodox). My question is, does it matter that our modern day Protestant churches are SO different from the ancient traditions held by the Orthodox Church? Did you ever consider other Christian groups such as the Orthodox Church or Catholicism once you left Adventism? Why or why not? I am trying to get the balance right—questioning denominations but not being so skeptical that we can’t commit to anything and thus keep running after a mystical “true church” that may not exist.
My Answer
My answer to this letter is not comprehensive but hopefully includes enough detail to help someone begin to evaluate what matters in a congregation.
I believe the idea of a “true church” is one of the deceptions we learned in Adventism. Of course, there IS a true church, but it is not defined by a denomination. Rather, the church founded by the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost is the complete body of believers who have believed and trusted Jesus and have been born of the Spirit. In fact, when we read the New Testament (for example Hebrews 12), we see that the true church includes all the saints who are currently with the Lord. The true church is the body of Christ, and His body is everyone who has trusted Him alone.
That being said, the question becomes how to find a local body of believers where the gospel is central, where the word of God is honored as His eternal, sufficient, inerrant word, and where the Trinity is worshiped: our eternal One God expressed in three persons.
Jesus Established Our Authority
In John 17:20,21 Jesus prayed not only for His disciples:
“I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, [are] in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.”
Did you notice what Jesus said about those who would believe in Him? Throughout the coming millennia during the age of the church, believers would come to know Jesus through the word of His apostles!
In other words, there is only one place where we actually FIND that word of the apostles: in the New Testament. Of course the Lord has raised up many true Christian writers and thinkers over the millennia who help us understand Scripture, but ultimately our doctrines and practices must flow from God’s word which He gave us through His apostles and prophets and are recorded in Scripture. There is only one unerring, tangible source of revealed truth: the Bible—and there is only one unerring, eternal Teacher who explains that revelation to all believers: the indwelling Holy Spirit.
The longer we have been out of Adventism, the more clearly I see that only being immersed in Scripture, praying to know what is true and asking the Lord Jesus to lead us clearly where He wants us to go—only leaning directly on Him and His word leads us to reality and truth.
What About Denominations?
That being said: there are many practices and beliefs that have developed over the years that have become associated with various denominations. These beliefs and practices can be “triaged” into “tiers” of importance. The first tier of mandatory belief is the pure gospel: the finished atonement of the Lord Jesus at the cross and His resurrection on the third day according to Scripture—the event that opened eternal life to each of us. There is nothing else needed for our justification and our salvation than this completely finished work of Jesus.
The belief in the classic Christian Trinity of One God expressed in three Persons who share substance, not just a will and a name, is also a first-tier essential belief. The third thing in the first tier is trust in the full sufficiency and inerrancy of the Bible. Denominations that take liberties with Scripture, not believing the words mean what they say and interpreting it somewhat allegorically or spiritually, much as one might in a literature class, those denominations eventually go “off the rails” and begin adopting unbiblical practices and beliefs that obscure and even gradually change their definition of the gospel.
Second tier beliefs would include such things as infant baptism and the function of the sacraments and aspects of eschatology. Christians have differed on these for centuries, and each belief claims scriptural support. Of course, within these deviations are variations in the ways people rely on and interpret Scripture. Yet “second tier” beliefs do not necessarily prevent true believers from finding fellowship together. The core issue is: does the church teach the pure gospel, and do people believe in individual belief and individual salvation through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit when we hear and believe the gospel of our salvation?
Second tier issues may be serious enough and carry enough suggestion of altering the gospel that a person might not be able to belong to a congregation where these beliefs are practiced—yet we can’t call churches that hold to these secondary beliefs heretical if they teach the completed atonement and the need for one to trust and believe in the Lord’s propitiation for one’s sin and his new life in Christ through the power of His resurrection.
Finally, third-tier beliefs center primarily on eschatology, especially things such as the timing of the rapture of the saints. That the saints will be “raptured”—caught up—is clearly a biblical teaching, but the issue of “timing”—pre-tribulation? post-tribulation?—this is a tertiary issue and should never divide the body of Christ.
What About the Ancient Church?
That being said, the Orthodox and Catholic traditions are, indeed, ancient. Both of them claim apostolic authority, and both claim to be the true inheritors of the apostles’ teaching. Yet neither of these traditions teach that a person can individually know the Lord Jesus and become part of His true body on the basis of his own reading of Scripture and his trusting in the Lord Jesus alone. Both of these traditions teach that an individual is only a member of the “true church” when they become a member of the “real” organization. They do not teach that an individual can read and understand Scripture individually and through the teaching of the Holy Spirit. Both insist that the magisterium, or the tradition, or the papal authority (each of these denominations has a slightly different interpretation and name for their interpretive authority) is necessary for explaining the true meaning of Scripture.
In a very real sense, the Orthodox and the Catholic traditions, like Adventism, rely on extra-biblical authority for interpreting Scripture.
In a very real sense, the Orthodox and the Catholic traditions, like Adventism, rely on extra-biblical authority for interpreting Scripture. Adventism had a false prophet; these ancient traditions have bodies of cardinals (Catholics) or of ancient bishops and leaders who have interpreted Scripture for the church.
If one looks at the worship services of each, they strongly resemble Old Testament worship: they have a priesthood, the incense, a hierarchy that places the lay people in a position one-down from the priesthood. The New Testament teaches that believers are themselves members of a “royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:9), but, as in the Catholic tradition, the lay people are not considered the full members of the church. The priesthood are the true members who mediate “grace” to the people.
Catholicism and Orthodoxy also teach a version of “grace” that effectively makes the cross NOT the end of the atonement. They teach that sacraments are necessary as “means of grace” for the worshipers in order to sustain “eternal life”. Thus, they have to take communion regularly, for example, in order to receive the benefits of Christ’s sacrifice in an ongoing way. Yet the New Testament teaches that Jesus died once for all. There is no continuing means of grace, or atonement, or spiritual “credit” that depends upon participating in the sacraments. Salvation is accomplished through the cross alone; sanctification is the fruit of salvation, not an ongoing achievement of it.
In fact, Adventist, orthodox, and Catholic soteriology are almost identical under the hood: neither offers full salvation through belief alone.
I want to share a podcast I listened to recently by the popular Christian podcaster Allie Beth Stuckey. She interviewed a former Catholic who has had a long-standing ministry to Catholics. I found this extremely helpful and clarifying:
Ep 1055 | Former Catholic on Why He Left Catholicism | Guest: Mike Gendron
Bottom line: the pure gospel of Jesus’s death for our sins according to Scripture, His death, and His resurrection on the third day according to Scripture (as articulated in 1 Corinthians 15:1–4) is the central core of Christian belief and practice. I urge you to begin reading through books of the New Testament in context, one book at a time: Galatians, Hebrews, Ephesians, Colossians, Romans, John—and ask the Lord to teach you what He knows He wants you to understand.
Then begin checking belief statements online before beginning to visit churches. You need to hear the Scriptures taught, straight from the Bible, by faithful pastors who do not have a cultic background coloring their interpretation. Ask the Lord to lead you, and He will. Ask Him to protect you from deception; I still pray that for myself. I have been badly deceived once, and I could be deceived again. Ask Him to hold you faithfully in Himself and His word, planting you firmly in truth and reality.
Finally, here is an audio recording from an early FAF Conference of our pastor Gary Inrig speaking on “How to Find a Church”:
Finally, I want to share the email we received from the original writer just two days ago:
Thank you for your email; I have read it and re-read it maybe five times and cried tears of joy at your response; it was clarifying and relieving at the same time. The end of your email where you say you’ve been deceived before and you don’t want to experience that again—I can relate to this and I’m identifying that it’s fear driven for me, leading me to question other groups and possibly pass by the true gospel message. Your synopsis of Catholicism and Orthodoxy was very clear to understand; I’ve only scraped the surface of them, so it really helped me see the differences. Thank you also for identifying the tiers, this is a great lens through which to see churches. I know this sounds idiotic, but I have almost been too scared to read the Bible for myself, worried I’ll not understand it, but Galatians has been, as you and Nikki have urged formers to read it, a book of hope and clarity. I will read the others as you have recommended, and I’ll also listen to the links you’ve sent. Thank you, thank you, thank you. May God continue blessing your ministry.
The Lord is faithful; He doesn’t drop us when we leave Adventism to follow Jesus alone. He knows where we need to be; He teaches us, and He leads us to the congregations where He knows we will hear His word and find true fellowship in the body of Christ. †
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Colleen: This is a great synopsis for a complex and nuanced topic. I taught college church history (pre-Reformation). Your comments on the Orthodox are helpful for someone from the outside trying to make sense of their tradition. There is a lot of nuance between tradition and Sola Scriptura. It helps for me to look into the mirror as a Protestant and realize that all the Reformers looked back to the pre 1054 era for much of their teaching to help them understand what was the core of the Gospel. We as Protestants also have many written and unwritten traditions the inform us in understanding not just what the words of the Bible say, but more importantly what does the Bible teach? That my Adventist friends take a “ham-handed” approach, with blinders, to interpret Scripture through a proof texting, pry-bar toting method is beyond tragic. Their general disdain for any Christian forebears before 1844 leads them to a very myopic view of Scripture and so much else.
For me as a catering chef, SDA’s approach to church history (especially pre Reformation) is like watching an untrained “chef” mangle a perfectly fine piece of meat into something unrecognizable. Thank you again for bringing clarity with grace, to an important topic.