Expert: Elder Greg Madden - 2/16/2009

Question
QUESTION: "I've been searching my faith for many years. I grew up attending Church of Christ. Now that I'm an adult and have a child of my own I've been researching the different churches. For many deep and personal reasons I turned from God for 20 years. By the wonderful grace of God I've found I've been saved and have recommitted my life to Him. This is why I have so many questions, and with all the different and similar religions out there how do you choose. I pray about this and feel I've chosen the right one, but what is the "true" difference in the Bible based churches such as: Baptist, Calvary, Presbyterian and yes even Church of Christ churches. I feel in my heart and by scripture that you don't have to "baptized" to be saved. You do have to accept Jesus into your heart and as the Son of God. Church of Christ believes it's the "baptism" that saves you.
Since you seem to have studied the many different denominations I was hoping you can help me get down to the meat and potatoes of the similar religions.
God bless"

ANSWER: Marcia,

I apologize for being so long in getting back to you. Please forgive me.

I would love to help, but could you please keep up something for me? What are you asking specifically? Are you asking about the difference in  Baptist, Calvary, Presbyterian, and Church of Christ churches? Or just all church in general?

Please, a little clarification.

Thanks.

Elder Greg Madden

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Of course I forgive you, and thank you for getting back to me! To clarify my question about the different religions I am wondering what the differences between the "nondenominational" religions. They all follow the Holy Bible, but they also all say they're the right church so what separates them? What are the difference beliefs? Thank you

Answer
Marcia,

Thank you for the clarification. As to the differences between all "non-denominational" churches, there are a myriad of such differences.

Though it has been my experience that all churches who call themselves non-denomination will have similar beliefs to a particular denomination. For example, some will follow closely to Baptist, while others are closer to Assemblies of God. The thing that separates non-denom's from denominational churches is autonomy. The non-denom's may believe the exact same thing as a particular denomination, but are autonomous (or better put, independent) in their leadership, and governmental structure.


Marcia, please let me know if this helps or if you have any further questions.

Elder Greg Madden