Answers for Doubting Christians

3: Branches of Christianity.

In this chapter, Katherina talks about the different groups within Christianity, namely Catholicism, Protestantism, and Eastern Orthodoxy. She makes the argument that all of these groups are ‘true Christians’.

Now I am not going to say which are and are not, as I believe that must be based on the individuals rather than on the group as a whole.

In my experience, every person has differing beliefs, even within the same church. So we cannot say ‘this group is’ or ‘this group isn’t’. We have to know the beliefs of the individual.

That being said, we can look at the common principle beliefs in a group and see which groups are more or less likely to hold the same key principles as are taught in the Bible, but again I’m not going to dive into that in this book.

Instead I will say that these are some main core beliefs many groups have which are contrary to scripture;

1: That Mary has some level of power over Jesus (this doesn’t always cause problems, but I’ve often seen it where Mary becomes more important than Christ Himself in a group’s doctrine).

2: That we must earn our way into heaven (this can be either by continuing to pray for people’s souls after death in order to get them to heaven, or by being required to do ministery).

3: More secularized beliefs such as that Jesus didn’t truly come and that was merely symbolic.

Final notes;
These are not necessarily going to make someone not go to heaven, except perhaps the last one, but these are examples of very common non-Biblical beliefs which can change the core of how a person believes.

I have heard a ton of crazy stuff, but I say that if it is something we can argue about in heaven, it’s often not something worth arguing over here.

This is not to say we should never discuss differing opinions, I would never suggest that, but it is to say that we should not allow ourselves to be divided by these differences.

So I think that fundamentally, what Katherina seems to get wrong in this chapter, is that there is still only one truth, only One Way.

God is gracious and understanding when we get details wrong, but He must still be at the center of it. He must still be the Lord of our lives. That is what being a Christ follower is.

This chapter is a bit short, but there will likely be many long ones to come, so don’t worry. Until next time, God bless!