Martha: Hi friends, I was thinking about our last conversation, about how we can identify the true Church.

Michael: Let’s see; tell us what you have thought.

Martha: I was reviewing our method of testing step by step, beginning with the first, which is that of historical elimination[1].

I agree with Joseph that any church whose origin is found in medieval or modern times is not the Church that Christ instituted, for the simple reason that it didn’t exist when Christ instituted his Church.

That includes your church Michael, and Pauline’s, and all those that emerged in the Reformation and after it, such as:

Lutherans (Founded by Martin Luther in 1521)

Presbyterians (Founded by John Calvin in 1532)

Anglicans and Episcopalians (Founded by Henry VIII in 1533)

Methodists (Founded by John Wesley in 1730)

Disciples of Christ (Founded by Alexander Campbell in 1827)

Mormons (Founded by Joseph Smith in 1830)

Christian Science (Founded by Mary Baker Eddy in 1879)

And as these many more: Pentecostals, Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc.

Now, by this method of historical elimination, I have eliminated all of the churches that pretend they are the Church that Christ instituted, except two, and these two are the Baptists and the Roman Catholics. Both are more remote in history or are nebulous during the age of obscurantism.

Joseph: Sorry to interrupt you Martha, but in our last conversation, we saw that it was very hard to accept the hypothesis that the Baptists come from apostolic times, assuming they existed like other more ancient groups called Montanists, Donatists and other groups of Gnostic and Manichaean type?

Martha: I remember all that we talked about, but as I said to you: I still have to check that these groups really believed what you attribute to them, but for the moment I have limited myself to applying this method and want to share the result with them.

Joseph: Ok, continue.

Martha: We have come to the point of our dilemma. Historically we have eliminated all the churches, except two, the Catholic Church and the Baptist, which pretend to be the Church that Christ instituted. From these two, I keep affirming that both have a history in the time of obscurantism, therefore, how should we decide between these two? It is there that the second method of testing enters.

Joseph: Continue.

Martha: The second method of testing is the process of identification. We should compare these two religious bodies, The Baptists and The Catholics, with the Church that Christ instituted. The one that matches the Church in organization and doctrine is the Church that was founded by him, and this is the Church that has the right to administer the ordinances.

Therefore, let’s take the Church of Jerusalem, as an example of the Church that Jesus instituted. Let’s note its characteristics and compare them with the characteristics of Baptists and the Catholics.

Joseph: That seems good to me.

Notes

  1. We illustrate here the method of testing used by the pastor M. L. Moser, Jr. in his already cited book, The Strange Baptism. ↩