Compare Traditional Christian and Jewish Topical Beliefs
How do our beliefs compare with what the world’s major Christian and Jewish traditions teach? On this page we set them side by side, on forty foundational questions.
For each topic, you will first find what seven traditions teach (Catholicism, Protestantism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, Nontrinitarian Restorationism, the Assyrian Church of the East, and Judaism), described fairly and in their own terms. Then you will find The Faithful Remnant view. We have tried to present each tradition as its own members would recognize it, so you can weigh the differences for yourself.
A teaching’s age, or the size of its following, is not evidence of its truth. A claim held by a few and a claim held by billions stand or fall on the same footing: what Scripture and the evidence actually show.
New to these traditions? You may want to start with The Seven Christian and Jewish Religious Groups, a short introduction to each group: its history, its authority, and its core practices, with a side-by-side table, found at the end of this Comparison.
Every answer on this page depends on the text it is read from. Our Teaching Foundation explains why we begin from the oldest authentic copies of Scripture, and why that difference sits at the root of every comparison below.
The forty topics (each opens to the seven traditions, then our view)
Topical Beliefs: Summary, Contrast & Comparison
The Seven Christian & Jewish Traditions, and The Faithful Remnant View, on Forty Foundational Topics
Topic 1: What is the Bible?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
The Bible is inspired Scripture, but not the sole rule of faith — it stands alongside Sacred Tradition as one deposit of divine revelation, both authoritatively interpreted by the Magisterium (the Pope and bishops in communion with him). The canon includes 46 Old Covenant books (including the deuterocanonical books such as Tobit and Maccabees) and 27 New Covenant books, fixed at the Council of Trent (1546). Catholics hold approved translations, descending from the Latin Vulgate tradition, as faithful vehicles of God's word when read within the Church's living tradition rather than in isolation.
Protestantism
Sola Scriptura — the Bible alone is the sufficient, final authority for faith and practice, requiring no equal partner in church tradition. Most Protestant traditions use the 66-book Protestant canon (39 Old Covenant, 27 New Covenant), excluding the Catholic deuterocanonical books, following the Hebrew canon recovered at the Reformation. Individual believers, aided by the Holy Spirit, are held capable of understanding Scripture directly — a conviction that has nonetheless produced a wide range of translation philosophies and denominational readings under the same foundational commitment.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Scripture is one expression of Holy Tradition — the single living stream of revelation handed down through the Church, the Ecumenical Councils, the Church Fathers, and the Liturgy — and cannot be rightly understood apart from that Tradition, of which it is itself a product. Orthodoxy uses the Septuagint (Greek Old Covenant) as its Old Covenant basis, giving it a somewhat larger Old Covenant canon than Protestant Bibles, and reads Scripture primarily through patristic commentary and liturgical use rather than private interpretation.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Holds Scripture and Sacred Tradition as one unified deposit of faith, read through the lens of the ancient councils it accepts (up to Ephesus, 431) and its own patristic heritage. Canons vary by national church — the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, for example, recognizes a notably broader canon (81 books in its widest reckoning, including Enoch and Jubilees) than any other Christian body, reflecting its distinct historical development outside the Greco-Roman mainstream.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints holds the Bible to be the word of God "as far as it is translated correctly," alongside additional scripture (the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price) and ongoing modern revelation through living prophets. Jehovah's Witnesses regard the Bible alone as fully inspired and inerrant, read through their own New World Translation and interpreted authoritatively by the Governing Body's publications.
The Assyrian Church of the East
Holds Scripture as divinely inspired, read within its own ancient East Syriac tradition and liturgical life. It uses the Peshitta, the classical Syriac translation, as its authoritative biblical text, and holds distinctively that the Peshitta New Covenant is itself the original apostolic text rather than a translation from Greek — a claim not shared by other traditions surveyed here.
Judaism
The Bible (Tanakh) comprises the Torah, Nevi'im (Prophets), and Ketuvim (Writings) — what Christians call the Old Covenant, without the New Covenant. Orthodox Judaism holds that an Oral Torah was given to Moses at Sinai alongside the Written Torah and preserved through rabbinic tradition, ultimately recorded in the Talmud, so that Scripture is properly understood only through that accompanying legal and interpretive tradition. Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism treat the Tanakh more as an evolving record of Israel's encounter with God than as literally dictated text.
The Faithful Remnant View
We hold that none of the starting points above — Scripture-plus-Tradition, Scripture alone, or Scripture read through rabbinic law — begins from the right foundation, because each is working from a text substantially altered from what was originally inspired and entrusted to the Israelite people. We do not read the Bible primarily as a historical record or moral guidebook, but as something closer to an owner's manual: a document our Creator, Yahweh, wrote and inspired to explain how we are built and how we are meant to live, function, and worship in light of that design. It was never a “Jewish” book in the sense of the modern rabbinic religion of Judaism, a religion that did not exist prior to the return from Babylonian captivity; it was written by Israelite prophets and entrusted to the Israelite people, most of whom trace to tribes other than Judah. Both Covenants have suffered documented, admitted institutional alterations — the Catholic Encyclopedia's own footnotes record 4th-century monks being instructed to insert supporting language for the Trinity doctrine at 1 John 5:7-8 — and we hold the New Covenant text was originally composed in Hebrew rather than Greek or Aramaic, with internal, manuscript, and patristic evidence pointing that direction. Because we hold our own foundational documents are drawn nearer to those uncorrected originals, we hold a congregation's teaching should begin as close as can be reached to the unaltered original, not from a later, denominationally-shaped edition — recognizing that a text's alteration does not become more original simply because a great many people now rely on it without knowing how it came to differ from what came before.
Topic 2: Are Modern Bible Versions reliable?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
Approved modern Catholic translations (the New American Bible, Jerusalem Bible, Revised Standard Version – Catholic Edition) are considered reliable because they are produced and vetted by the Church's own scholars and approved under the imprimatur/nihil obstat process, ensuring conformity with doctrine and the Church's textual tradition. Reliability is thus guaranteed institutionally, by the teaching authority standing behind a translation, rather than by philological method alone.
Protestantism
Views split by translation philosophy. Formal-equivalence advocates (ESV, NASB) hold that word-for-word fidelity to the Hebrew/Greek critical texts best preserves reliability; dynamic-equivalence advocates (NIV, NLT) hold that thought-for-thought rendering communicates meaning more reliably to modern readers. A vocal minority (the “King James Only” movement) holds that only the KJV, based on the Textus Receptus, is fully reliable, rejecting the modern critical text tradition as corrupted.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Modern translations are reliable to the extent they render the Church's traditional textual basis — the Septuagint for the Old Covenant and the Byzantine/Majority Greek text for the New Covenant — rather than the Western critical editions built on Alexandrian manuscripts. Orthodoxy is generally less anxious about a single authoritative vernacular translation than Western traditions, since Scripture is read within the interpretive framework of the Liturgy and the Fathers, which supplies controlling meaning regardless of translation nuance.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Reads modern vernacular translations as reliable so long as they render each national church's own ancient liturgical and canonical text (Ge'ez for Ethiopian Orthodoxy, classical Armenian for the Armenian Church, Bohairic Coptic for the Coptic Church), with that historic text and its patristic interpretation, not the modern translation itself, treated as primary and authoritative.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
The LDS Church regards the King James Version as its official English Bible text, considered reliable “as far as it is translated correctly,” with modern prophetic revelation available to clarify or supplement it. Jehovah's Witnesses hold their own New World Translation to be the most reliable available English version, notably rendering the divine name “Jehovah” throughout the text — a rendering other biblical scholars widely dispute.
The Assyrian Church of the East
Regards the Peshitta as an authoritative text in its own right rather than a translation needing to be checked against Greek originals; modern English translations are judged reliable insofar as they faithfully render that Peshitta tradition specifically — a minority position relative to biblical scholarship generally, which regards the Peshitta as a early, but derivative, Syriac translation.
Judaism
Jewish translations (the JPS Tanakh, ArtScroll) are judged reliable by fidelity to the Masoretic Text, the standardized Hebrew text fixed by the Masoretes between the 7th and 10th centuries CE, and, in Orthodox Judaism, by consistency with rabbinic interpretive tradition. Modern Jewish scholarship generally regards the Masoretic tradition as a careful, conservative transmission, though textual critics note some variants visible in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint.
The Faithful Remnant View
We hold that no currently circulating Bible translation — Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, or Jewish — is fully reliable, for a specific and documentable reason rather than a general suspicion: a translation must be “substantially different” from earlier versions to qualify for copyright, which by definition means each new copyrighted version is structurally required to diverge further from the source rather than converge on it. More than four hundred fifty English versions exist in significant part for this commercial reason. Layered on top of that incentive are centuries of denominational preference and documented, admitted institutional substitutions — the Catholic Encyclopedia's own footnotes record 4th-century monks being directed to render three distinct original words uniformly as “hell,” and to translate the Hebrew nephesh and Greek soma (both meaning “body”) as “soul,” supporting a doctrine of the immortal soul borrowed from Greek Platonism rather than drawn from Scripture. We further hold Yahweh's own personal name was removed and replaced with the generic titles “God” and “LORD” in roughly seven thousand instances. Our own translation work does not present itself as a new “translation” competing with these; we regard it instead as a work of preservation and correction, restoring documented name and word substitutions back toward the original-language terms wherever the historical record of the change itself can be shown, rather than introducing new interpretive choices of our own.
Topic 3: Who & What are Christians?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
A Christian is one baptized into the Body of Christ and professing the Nicene Creed's faith in the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Church's sacramental life; full communion additionally requires acceptance of the Pope's authority. Catholics see their Church as the direct historical and institutional continuation of the Church Christ founded on Peter, with other baptized Christians regarded as in varying degrees of imperfect communion with it.
Protestantism
A Christian is anyone who has personally trusted in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, typically marked by a conversion experience (“being born again”) and evidenced by faith rather than by membership in any particular institution. This individual, faith-based definition — the direct legacy of the Reformation's emphasis on a personal relationship with God through Scripture — allows the label “Christian” to span an enormous range of specific beliefs and practices.
Eastern Orthodoxy
A Christian is one baptized (by triple immersion) into the Orthodox Church and united to Christ's Body through ongoing participation in its sacramental and liturgical life, understood as the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church in unbroken continuity with the apostles. Identity is corporate and liturgical rather than primarily a matter of a single personal decision, formed through continuing participation in worship and the process of theosis.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Defines Christian identity much as Eastern Orthodoxy does — baptism into, and communion with, the Church's sacramental life — but bound additionally to acceptance of Miaphysite Christology and rejection of the Council of Chalcedon's two-natures formula, a historic dividing line from both Rome and Constantinople since 451 AD.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
Latter-day Saints consider themselves fully Christian, professing faith in Jesus Christ as Savior, while rejecting the Nicene Trinity in favor of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost as three distinct, embodied beings united in purpose. Jehovah's Witnesses likewise self-identify as Christian while rejecting the Trinity and the immortality of the soul, and are often not recognized as Christian by other traditions surveyed here precisely because of that rejection.
The Assyrian Church of the East
A Christian is one baptized into and worshiping within its ancient East Syriac liturgical tradition, affirming the Nicene faith as the Church itself understands it (rejecting the “Nestorian” label applied by outside critics), governed by its own independent Patriarch, the Catholicos, in continuity with the apostolic church of the East.
Judaism
Judaism does not apply the term “Christian” to itself; Jewish identity is understood religiously (adherence to Torah and Halakha) and ethnoculturally, distinct in kind from Christian self-definition. Judaism generally regards Christianity's claims about Jesus as Messiah, and about the Trinity, as departures from strict monotheism rather than as a legitimate development of the same faith.
The Faithful Remnant View
We do not use, or organize around, the label “Christian” for ourselves, for a specific historical reason: the Greek term itself likely derives from pagan usage — “Chrestos” was already an epithet applied to the worship of Mithras and Osiris before it was ever applied, only three times in the entire received Greek text, to the followers of Yah'shua at Antioch (Acts 11:26), a labeling event the text itself says happened “at first,” not a name the earliest believers chose for themselves. The New Covenant's own name for that group was Natsarim, or Nazarenes (Acts 24:5) — a term the Church Father Epiphanius records was still applied, as a term of reproach, to a sect that kept Yahweh's commandments and was otherwise indistinguishable from Hebrews except in believing the Messiah had already come. We hold, consistent with our own name, that we are Israelites in the faith of our forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not adherents of a later, Greek-labeled religion built up around Him afterward — a Congregation of the Faithful Remnant rather than a “Christian” denomination alongside the many others. What actually identifies a true follower of Yahweh, in our reading, is observable and specific: keeping Yahweh's commandments and holding a clear, prophetically grounded testimony of Yah'shua the Messiah (Revelation 12:17; 19:10) — not which Greek-derived label a group happens to have inherited.
Topic 4: Who or What is God?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
One God in three co-equal, co-eternal Persons — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — sharing a single divine nature (the Trinity), formally articulated at the Councils of Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381). God is understood as infinite, omniscient, and omnipotent, knowable partly through reason and fully through revelation, especially the Incarnation.
Protestantism
Affirms the same Nicene Trinitarian formula as Catholicism — one God in three Persons — as foundational and essentially non-negotiable across virtually all mainstream Protestant denominations, though with less developed philosophical elaboration than Catholic scholasticism and greater emphasis on God's personal, relational accessibility to the individual believer through Scripture and prayer.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Trinitarian, but emphasizes the distinction between God's unknowable essence (ousia) and His knowable energies, through which believers may experience real communion with God without comprehending His essence — the basis of theosis. The Orthodox Trinity proceeds from the Father alone, rejecting the Western “filioque” addition to the Nicene Creed.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Trinitarian in the same Nicene sense as Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism — one God in three coequal, coeternal Persons — differing from them chiefly in its Christology (see Topic 5) rather than in its doctrine of God as such.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
Rejects the Nicene Trinity outright. Latter-day Saints hold God the Father (Elohim) and Jesus Christ to be distinct, embodied, exalted beings, with the Holy Ghost a separate spirit personage — three distinct Gods united in purpose — and hold that humans may themselves progress toward godhood. Jehovah's Witnesses hold Jehovah (the Father) alone to be Almighty God, with Jesus as His first and greatest created being and the Holy Spirit as God's impersonal active force, not a person.
The Assyrian Church of the East
Affirms the Nicene Trinity — one God in three Persons — while historically placing distinctive emphasis on the full, unmingled reality of Christ's two natures (see Topic 5), a Christological rather than Trinitarian distinctive.
Judaism
Strict, uncompromising monotheism — God is one, indivisible, and incorporeal (Deuteronomy 6:4, the Shema), a foundational point of separation from every Trinitarian Christian tradition. God is understood as transcendent creator and lawgiver, known primarily through covenant, Torah, and the prophetic tradition rather than through any incarnate or embodied form.
The Faithful Remnant View
We hold that God has a specific personal name, Yahweh (from the Hebrew Tetragrammaton YHWH), occurring some 6,800 to 7,000 times in the original Hebrew text, and that “God” and “Lord” are titles, not names — comparable to calling a specific individual simply “the man” or “the woman.” We regard the wholesale replacement of that name with generic titles across nearly every English, and many Hebrew-language, Bible translation as the single most consequential alteration made to Scripture, because Yahweh's own promise to answer prayer is, in our reading, tied to being called upon by that specific name (Zechariah 13:9; Jeremiah 29:12; Psalm 91:14-15), not by a title generic enough to belong to any of the “other gods” Scripture itself acknowledges are worshipped elsewhere. We also reject the Trinity as an extra-biblical formulation with no basis in the text itself — the word appears nowhere in Scripture — holding instead that Yahweh the Father is the one supreme God, that Yah'shua the Messiah is His literal, begotten Son, not co-eternal with Him, and that Yahweh's Holy Spirit is His power and will in action rather than a third distinct divine person. We understand these as the founding members of a single Family of Yahweh, into which believers are ultimately being adopted as sons, rather than as three co-equal, co-eternal persons in one indivisible being.
Topic 5: Who or What is Jesus Christ?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
The eternal Son of God, the second Person of the Trinity, fully divine and fully human in one Person (the hypostatic union) since His conception, as defined at the Council of Chalcedon (451) — “true God and true man.” He is the unique Savior of humanity, born of the Virgin Mary, crucified, resurrected bodily, and now reigning in heaven, to return in glory.
Protestantism
Affirms the same Chalcedonian formula — fully God and fully man in one person — as Catholicism, with strong emphasis on Christ's substitutionary atoning death as the sole and sufficient basis of salvation received by faith alone, and on a personal relationship with Him as the center of Christian life.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Affirms full, Chalcedonian two-natures Christology — Christ fully divine and fully human, united in one Person without confusion or division — with theological emphasis on the Incarnation as the means by which humanity itself is being restored and divinized (theosis) through union with Him.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Affirms Christ's full divinity and full humanity, but rejects the Chalcedonian formula of two distinct natures joined in one person, holding instead a Miaphysite Christology: Christ's divine and human natures united into a single, unified nature “without confusion, without change, without division, without separation” — a position it insists is distinct from, and often mischaracterized as, Eutychian monophysitism.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
Latter-day Saints hold Jesus Christ to be the literal firstborn spirit son of God the Father and the Savior of humanity, distinct in being from the Father, who took on a body of flesh through Mary. Jehovah's Witnesses hold Jesus to be God's first creation, through whom all else was made, and identify him before his human birth with the archangel Michael — fully subordinate to, and not co-equal or co-eternal with, Jehovah.
The Assyrian Church of the East
Affirms Christ as fully God and fully man, historically emphasizing the distinctness and completeness of each nature within a single united person more strongly than other traditions (the source of the “Nestorian” label critics applied), while the Church itself insists it has always taught the two natures as united and inseparable, not divided into two persons.
Judaism
Jesus is not regarded as divine, as the Son of God, or as the Messiah. Judaism generally understands him, to the extent it engages the question at all, as a historical Jewish teacher or, in some traditional and modern accounts, a controversial messianic claimant whose followers broke from mainstream Jewish practice — a fully human, non-divine figure with no unique salvific role.
The Faithful Remnant View
We hold that His proper name is Yah'shua (“Yahweh's Salvation” or “Yahweh Saves”), not “Jesus” — a name with no meaning at all in the original languages, derived by way of Greek and Latin from a name that never contained the sounds it renders, since neither Hebrew nor Greek possessed a “J” sound until many centuries after the New Covenant was written. We hold Yah'shua to be the literal, begotten Son of Yahweh, conceived when a portion of Yahweh's own Holy Spirit — not a separate divine person, but Yahweh's own power and will — came upon Mary; He was thus fully human in the flesh while His capacity to resist all temptation came directly from that Spirit. We reject that He pre-existed eternally as very God alongside the Father in the sense the Trinity doctrine requires; rather, He was declared, or made, the Son of Yahweh with power specifically by His resurrection from the dead (Romans 1:4), becoming the “firstborn” of Yahweh's larger Family, of whom all faithful believers are meant to become further-adopted sons and daughters. We likewise hold He is an Israelite by lineage — of the tribe of Judah, house of David — not what the New Covenant's Greek text calls a “Jew” in the religious-political sense of that era's Judean establishment, which He Himself denounced (Matthew 23).
Topic 6: Who or What is the Messiah?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
Jesus Christ is the Messiah (Christ, “Anointed One”) prophesied throughout the Old Covenant, fulfilling messianic prophecy through His redemptive death and resurrection and inaugurating the Kingdom of God, understood as continuing now through the Church, with His visible return awaited at the end of the age.
Protestantism
Affirms Jesus as the promised Messiah in essentially the same terms as Catholicism, with particular emphasis (especially in evangelical and dispensationalist streams) on His fulfillment of specific Old Covenant prophecies as apologetic proof of His identity, and on a future, often imminently expected, personal return.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Affirms Jesus Christ as Messiah in continuity with Catholic and Protestant belief, with the office of Messiah/Christ understood primarily through His threefold role as Prophet, Priest, and King, and His work framed chiefly as victory over death and corruption rather than primarily as legal satisfaction for sin.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Affirms Jesus as the Messiah in the same substantive terms as Eastern Orthodoxy, consistent with its Miaphysite Christology (see Topic 5).
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
Both the LDS Church and Jehovah's Witnesses affirm Jesus as the Messiah/Christ, the appointed Savior and eventual King, while denying His co-equality with God the Father — for Latter-day Saints, He is the firstborn spirit son who progressed to become the Christ; for Jehovah's Witnesses, He returned invisibly as heavenly King in 1914 and will visibly establish God's Kingdom at Armageddon.
The Assyrian Church of the East
Affirms Jesus as the Messiah consistent with Nicene Christianity generally, with its own East Syriac liturgical and theological emphasis on His role as mediator between the divine and human.
Judaism
The Messiah (Mashiach) is still awaited — a future human descendant of King David who will be anointed by God to restore Israel, rebuild the Temple, gather the exiles, and establish an era of universal peace and knowledge of God; not a divine figure, but fully human, distinguished by historical accomplishments rather than by a miraculous birth or nature. Judaism holds Jesus did not fulfill these prophesied criteria.
The Faithful Remnant View
We hold Yah'shua is the promised Messiah, the Hebrew mashiach (“Anointed One”), of which the Greek-derived title “Christ” is simply a translation — so that, properly understood, every Israelite already awaits a “Messiah,” and calling oneself “Christian” rather than simply affirming the Messiah adds a Greek, non-scriptural label to what should be a straightforward claim. Central to our understanding is that the Messiah is an Israelite by lineage — of the tribe of Judah, house of David (Matthew 1; Luke 3) — not a member of the religious-political establishment the New Covenant's Greek text calls “the Jews,” whom He denounced (Matthew 23); and further, that religious identity and genealogical descent are two separate things which should not be assumed to guarantee one another, whether in His era or in ours. We hold He fulfilled specific, first-coming messianic prophecy through His death and resurrection as Yahweh's firstborn Son, and that a still-future second coming will fulfill the remaining prophecies of judgment, restoration, and the establishment of Yahweh's Kingdom on earth — not a Church replacing Israel, but Israelites, properly understood, inheriting the promises originally made to their forefathers.
Topic 7: What and Where is the true Church?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
The true Church is the Roman Catholic Church specifically — the visible, historically continuous institution founded by Christ upon Peter (Matthew 16:18) and his papal successors, possessing the fullness of the means of salvation. Other Christian communities are recognized as possessing varying degrees of truth and sanctification, but are not considered part of the Church in its full sense.
Protestantism
Rejects the identification of “the true Church” with any single visible institution, holding instead to the “invisible Church” — the true body of all genuine believers across denominations and history, known fully only to God, distinct from any particular visible organization or building. Visible local congregations are important but secondary expressions of that underlying spiritual unity.
Eastern Orthodoxy
The true Church is the Eastern Orthodox communion specifically — the “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church” in unbroken doctrinal and sacramental continuity with the apostles and the seven Ecumenical Councils, from which Rome broke away in 1054. Orthodoxy generally does not recognize Catholic or Protestant bodies as fully “Church” in the same sense.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Understands itself, similarly, as the authentic continuation of the apostolic Church, faithful to the Councils it accepts (through Ephesus, 431) and its own ancient liturgical and doctrinal heritage, distinct from, and unbroken relative to, both Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
The LDS Church holds itself to be the “restored” true Church, re-established through modern prophetic revelation to Joseph Smith after a centuries-long “Great Apostasy” left no legitimate priesthood authority on earth. Jehovah's Witnesses similarly hold their organization to be God's sole approved channel and true visible representation on earth today, particularly through the Governing Body.
The Assyrian Church of the East
Regards itself as the authentic apostolic Church of the East, tracing continuous descent to the apostles Thomas, Bartholomew, and Thaddeus, governed by its own independent Patriarch (Catholicos), distinct from and predating any of the Western schisms.
Judaism
Judaism has no analogous “true Church” concept; the closest parallel is Am Yisrael (the people, or community, of Israel) and the synagogue as its local expression, joined by covenant, law, and peoplehood rather than by a single hierarchical institution or claim to exclusive doctrinal continuity with a founding figure.
The Faithful Remnant View
We hold that the “church” Christ founded was never meant to be a building, denomination, or incorporated institution at all — the Greek word rendered “church,” ekklesia, simply means “called-out ones” or congregation, and we use “Congregation” in preference to “church” for that reason. Yahweh's true Congregation consists of those He has called out from the world, first His people of the physical birthright of Israel (properly understood as thirteen tribes, not simply the tribe of Judah), and, under the New Covenant, all who respond to that same calling in faith regardless of ancestry. We hold that membership in this Congregation “is registered in heaven” rather than on any man-made denominational roll, and that any church or synagogue that incorporates itself under civil law has placed the state's authority above Yahweh's, submitting its governance and doctrine to a corporate charter rather than to Scripture alone — a pattern we trace to the “doctrine of the Nicolaitans” condemned in Revelation 2, the earliest form of a clergy-laity hierarchy exalting human leadership over the “called-out ones.” We accordingly do not organize as an incorporated denomination and do not use honorific religious titles (Rabbi, Priest, Pastor, Father, Reverend) for our own leadership, understanding the true Church as a natural, Yahweh-governed body rather than an artificial, state-chartered organization.
Topic 8: What is, and How is Baptism achieved?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
Baptism (usually by infant sprinkling or infusion, though immersion is permitted) is the first of seven sacraments, necessary for salvation, washing away original sin and incorporating the recipient into the Church as a child of God, conferring an indelible spiritual mark. It may be performed by clergy or, in emergency, by any baptized person, using water in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Protestantism
Practice divides sharply by tradition. Believer's-baptism churches (Baptists, most Pentecostals, non-denominational congregations) practice baptism by full immersion only, upon a personal profession of faith, as a public symbol of an already-accomplished spiritual conversion rather than a means of salvation itself. Paedobaptist traditions (Lutherans, Presbyterians, Anglicans, Methodists) baptize infants of believing parents as a covenant sign and means of grace, typically by sprinkling or pouring.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Baptism is by full triple immersion (in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), normally administered to infants and immediately followed by Chrismation (confirmation) and first Communion in a unified initiation rite, understood as truly regenerating and uniting the person to Christ's death and resurrection, essential to salvation.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Practices triple-immersion baptism similarly to Eastern Orthodoxy, likewise typically administered to infants and closely joined with Chrismation, regarded as essential and truly regenerative, integrated into each national church's own ancient liturgical rite.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
The LDS Church practices baptism by full immersion only, performed by proper priesthood authority, beginning at the “age of accountability” (eight years old), required for salvation and church membership, and also performed vicariously on behalf of deceased ancestors in LDS temples. Jehovah's Witnesses baptize by full immersion following a personal profession of faith and doctrinal study, generally not before the teenage years, as a symbol of dedication rather than a saving act itself.
The Assyrian Church of the East
Practices infant baptism within its East Syriac liturgical rite, incorporating “Holy Leaven” (Malka) traditions distinctive to its own ancient Eucharistic and initiatory practice, regarded as essential to Church membership and salvation.
Judaism
Judaism has no direct equivalent to Christian baptism; the closest ritual parallel is the mikvah, ritual immersion for purification (required, among other occasions, of converts to Judaism), understood as restoring ritual purity rather than conferring salvation or forgiveness of sin, alongside male circumcision (brit milah) as the primary rite marking covenant membership in Israel.
The Faithful Remnant View
We hold that water baptism, as practiced almost universally throughout traditional Christianity, has been carried over, unnecessarily, from the pre-Christian Hebrew ritual of mikvah, and that John the Baptist's own recorded words describe its supersession rather than its permanence: “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me... will baptize you with His Holy Spirit and fire” (Matthew 3:11). We hold that Yah'shua Himself never performed a single water baptism (John 4:2), and that the baptism which actually matters, the one that incorporates a believer into Yahweh's true Congregation, is baptism by His Holy Spirit — received immediately upon genuine belief, as in the case of Cornelius's household, who received the Holy Spirit before any water was applied (Acts 10:44-48). Yah'shua's own water baptism by John, in our reading, served to complete or fulfill the mikvah ritual once and for all on humanity's behalf, much as His crucifixion completed the Passover and His resurrection completed the wave-sheaf offering, rather than establishing a new required rite for others. We therefore do not treat water baptism as a requirement for salvation or church membership, though it may still be practiced without harm as a voluntary symbolic act, provided it is not confused with, or substituted for, the baptism by the Holy Spirit that alone actually matters.
Topic 9: What and Where is Hell?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
Hell is a real, eternal state of separation from God, the just and everlasting punishment freely chosen by those who die unrepentant in mortal sin. It is distinct from purgatory, which is temporary. Catholic teaching leaves open whether the traditional "fire" imagery is literal or symbolic of the suffering of loss (separation from God), but insists the punishment itself is conscious and unending.
Protestantism
Most Protestant traditions teach hell as a place or state of eternal conscious punishment for the unsaved, the just consequence of unforgiven sin and rejection of Christ. A significant minority (some evangelicals, Seventh-day Adventist-influenced groups) instead hold "conditional immortality" or annihilationism, in which the unsaved are ultimately destroyed rather than tormented forever, though this remains a minority position within the broader tradition.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Hell is generally understood less as a separate location of divine punishment and more as the experience of God's own uncreated light and love by those who have rejected Him — the same divine presence that is bliss to the saved is painful "fire" to the unrepentant. It is everlasting, but its torment is self-inflicted estrangement rather than an externally imposed penalty.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Shares the broader ancient patristic understanding found across Eastern Christianity: hell as an everlasting state of separation from God's presence, experienced as suffering by the unrepentant, generally described in the same terms found in the early Church Fathers common to both Oriental and Eastern Orthodox heritage.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
The LDS Church teaches "hell" as mostly a temporary spirit prison where the dead await judgment and eventual assignment to one of three degrees of glory (celestial, terrestrial, telestial); only a very small number of "sons of perdition" suffer permanent "outer darkness." Jehovah's Witnesses hold that hell (Hades/Sheol) is simply mankind's common grave, an unconscious state, not a place of fiery torment, and that the wicked who are ultimately rejected face permanent annihilation, not eternal suffering.
The Assyrian Church of the East
Holds the traditional ancient Christian view of hell as an everlasting state of separation and punishment for the unrepentant, consistent with the broader patristic consensus shared across the early apostolic churches from which it descends.
Judaism
Judaism has no fixed, unified doctrine of hell. Gehinnom is generally understood in rabbinic tradition as a temporary, purifying post-mortem process, with a traditional maximum duration of twelve months, after which even the wicked are cleansed rather than eternally tormented. Sheol, in the Tanakh itself, is described more simply as the shadowy realm of the dead. Only the most extreme evildoers are, in some strands, held to face a more lasting punishment, but eternal conscious torment is not a normative or central Jewish teaching.
The Faithful Remnant View
We hold that the traditional doctrine of hell as a place of eternal conscious torment rests on the mistranslation of three distinct words into the single English word "Hell." Hades (and its Hebrew equivalent Sheol) simply means "the grave" — the common, unconscious state of all the dead, righteous and wicked alike, with no torment involved at all. Tartaroo, used only once in Scripture (2 Peter 2:4), refers exclusively to the restraint of certain fallen angels, never to the fate of human beings. Gehenna, the word most often behind English "hell" in the Gospels, is the Valley of Hinnom, a real ravine outside Jerusalem historically used for burning refuse and, in earlier idolatrous periods, child sacrifice to Molech — Yah'shua invoked it as a vivid image of complete and final destruction, not of unending torture. We therefore hold that the wicked, at the final judgment, are consumed and cease to exist entirely (the "second death," Revelation 20:14) rather than being kept alive forever to suffer, since we understand man as inherently mortal (see Topic 11) with no innate immortal soul to torment eternally in the first place. We regard the doctrine of eternal conscious torment as both a mistranslation and a serious misrepresentation of Yahweh's character, since it depicts unending cruelty where Scripture, rightly read, describes decisive and final justice.
Topic 10: What are traditional Religious and Jewish holidays?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
Follows a liturgical year built around Advent, Christmas, Lent, Holy Week, and Easter (its highest feast), interwoven with a calendar of saints' feast days and holy days of obligation such as All Saints' Day and the Assumption. These commemorate the life of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the saints, and structure Catholic worship and fasting throughout the year.
Protestantism
Observance varies widely by tradition. Liturgical Protestants (Lutherans, Anglicans, Methodists) retain much of the traditional Christian-year calendar — Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, Pentecost. Low-church evangelical and non-denominational congregations typically keep only Christmas and Easter, with little formal liturgical calendar otherwise, and increasingly emphasize these as family and cultural occasions alongside their religious meaning.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Maintains an extensive liturgical calendar centered on Pascha (Easter), the "Feast of Feasts," together with the Twelve Great Feasts (including the Nativity, Theophany, and Transfiguration), numerous fast periods (notably Great Lent), and a dense annual cycle of saints' commemorations, often calculated on the older Julian calendar and so falling on different dates than Western observances.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Keeps a comparably extensive liturgical and fasting calendar, with each national church (Coptic, Ethiopian, Armenian, Syriac) preserving its own ancient dating conventions and traditions — the Ethiopian and Coptic churches, for instance, celebrate Christmas and Easter on dates fixed by their own calendars rather than the Gregorian calendar used in the West.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
The LDS Church generally keeps Christmas and Easter as cultural and religious observances alongside distinctive occasions such as Pioneer Day and General Conference weekends. Jehovah's Witnesses notably reject Christmas, Easter, and birthday celebrations altogether as originating in pagan customs unsanctioned by Scripture, observing instead only a single annual occasion, the "Memorial" of Christ's death, on the date corresponding to Nisan 14.
The Assyrian Church of the East
Follows its own ancient East Syriac liturgical calendar, including Christmas, Pascha, and a distinctive cycle of fasts and commemorations tied to its own historical and geographic heritage in Mesopotamia, largely independent of both Western and Byzantine dating conventions.
Judaism
Observes the biblically commanded festivals of the Hebrew calendar — Passover, Shavuot (Pentecost), Sukkot (Tabernacles), Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur — together with later historically instituted holidays such as Hanukkah and Purim, all reckoned by the lunar-based Jewish calendar rather than the civil Gregorian calendar.
The Faithful Remnant View
We hold that the only religious festivals actually commanded by Yahweh for His people are the seven annual Holy Days set out in Leviticus 23: Passover, Unleavened Bread, Pentecost (Firstfruits), Trumpets, Atonement, Tabernacles, and the Last Great Day. We observe these still today, understanding them not as an abolished "Old Covenant" system but as a prophetic outline of Yahweh's entire plan for mankind, each with meaning already fulfilled or yet to be fulfilled. The spring festivals (Passover, Unleavened Bread, Pentecost) we hold were fulfilled in the Messiah's death, burial, and resurrection and the giving of the Holy Spirit to the early Congregation, while the autumn festivals (Trumpets, Atonement, Tabernacles, and the Last Great Day) we hold are yet future, depicting the Messiah's return, the reconciliation of Israel, the millennial reign, and the final judgment of all mankind, respectively. We reject Christmas and Easter as later substitutions of pagan origin (see Topics 13 and 14) with no basis in apostolic practice, and likewise do not observe birthdays, Halloween, or other widely kept holidays we judge to derive from non-Scriptural or idolatrous sources. We view Yahweh's seven Holy Days, kept in their proper season, as both a teaching calendar and a standing invitation to understand His redemptive plan for all mankind in its full, ordered scope, rather than a set of dead rituals.
Topic 11: What is Man?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
Man is a unity of body and an immortal, spiritual soul, created directly by God in His image and likeness. The soul survives bodily death and is judged immediately (the particular judgment), later to be reunited with a glorified body at the general resurrection. Human dignity flows from this God-given rational soul, present from the moment of conception.
Protestantism
Generally affirms the same body-and-immortal-soul (or body-soul-spirit) makeup, created in God's image, with the soul consciously surviving death to await either the presence of Christ or judgment. Views on the precise nature of the soul (dichotomist vs. trichotomist) vary, but the near-universal majority position holds to some form of conscious personal survival after death, however apportioned it is denominationally.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Man is a psychosomatic unity of body and soul, made in the image and likeness of God, with "likeness" understood as a potential to be realized through theosis — progressive, grace-enabled participation in the divine life. Man's fall damaged but did not erase this image, and salvation restores and perfects it.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Shares this same theological anthropology of body-soul unity created in God's image, with the restoration and deification (theosis) of that image as the goal of the Christian life, consistent with the broader patristic heritage common to the ancient churches.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
The LDS Church holds a distinctive doctrine that all humans existed first as spirit-children of Heavenly Father in a premortal life before earthly birth, with mortal life a probationary stage and the ultimate potential for exalted, god-like status. Jehovah's Witnesses teach that man does not possess a soul but rather is a soul — a mortal, physical living being with no innate immortal component, wholly ceasing to function at death.
The Assyrian Church of the East
Holds a traditional Christian anthropology of body and soul created in the image of God, broadly consistent with the wider ancient Christian consensus, shaped by its own historic Christological emphasis on the fullness of Christ's human nature as the pattern for redeemed humanity.
Judaism
Man is created b'tzelem Elohim, in the image of God, a unity of physical body and nephesh (life-breath or soul) rather than a body housing a separate immortal substance. Classical Jewish sources give comparatively little systematic attention to the soul's postmortem state, focusing more on righteous conduct in this life, though later rabbinic thought develops fuller ideas of an afterlife and eventual resurrection.
The Faithful Remnant View
We hold, from Genesis 2:7, that man became a "living soul" (nephesh chayah) only through the combination of formed body and breath of life — the soul is not a separate immortal component placed within man, but is what man is, a mortal being with no inherent immortality of his own. We hold that the "spirit in man" referenced in passages such as 1 Corinthians 2:11 refers to man's own mind, intellect, and disposition, not the Holy Spirit and not a surviving conscious essence distinct from the body. On this understanding, man is mortal by nature, exactly as Genesis records, subject to death as the direct consequence of sin (Romans 6:23), and possesses no innate claim on eternal life. Immortality, in our reading, is instead a gift Yahweh offers, made available only through resurrection into His family at the appointed time (see Topics 15-17), not a property automatically possessed by every human being from birth or conception. We hold that this distinction is theologically significant: much of the traditional doctrine surrounding the intermediate state, purgatory, and the immediate ascent of the soul to heaven or hell depends on man already possessing an immortal soul, a premise we do not find scripturally supported once the relevant Hebrew and Greek terms are examined directly rather than through later doctrinal tradition.
Topic 12: Can Science be Wholly Reconciled with God?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
Yes — the Church holds that faith and reason are "two wings" by which the human spirit rises to truth, and that properly conducted science cannot conflict with properly understood Scripture, since God is the author of both nature and revelation. The Church has historically supported scientific inquiry (a Catholic priest, Georges Lemaître, first proposed the Big Bang theory) and permits acceptance of evolutionary biology provided the human soul is understood as specially created by God rather than a purely material product.
Protestantism
No single position; views span a wide spectrum. Some traditions (many evangelical and fundamentalist churches) hold to young-earth creationism and view mainstream science on origins as in direct conflict with a literal reading of Genesis. Others (most mainline Protestant denominations) fully accept evolutionary biology and an old universe as compatible with Scripture understood non-literally or theologically rather than as a scientific text.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Generally does not mandate a literal six-day creation and treats Genesis primarily as conveying theological rather than scientific truth, leaving considerable latitude for individual belief regarding the findings of modern science, with no single dogmatic pronouncement placing science and faith in conflict.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Shares a similarly flexible approach, with few binding official pronouncements on scientific questions, generally treating the Genesis creation account as theologically rather than scientifically framed, consistent with much of the wider ancient Christian tradition.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
The LDS Church has no official position rejecting evolution, and many members hold a range of views from literal to non-literal, with ongoing revelation seen as capable of clarifying such questions further. Jehovah's Witnesses, by contrast, explicitly reject evolution, hold to a relatively recent, literal creation account, and view mainstream scientific consensus on origins as incompatible with Scripture.
The Assyrian Church of the East
Has offered limited formal modern engagement with this question, generally following the broader ancient Christian pattern of reading Genesis as conveying theological meaning about God's sovereignty over creation rather than a scientific account requiring reconciliation with contemporary findings.
Judaism
Views vary widely by movement. Orthodox Judaism tends toward more literal or day-age readings of Genesis, though many Orthodox authorities have reconciled an old universe with Scripture. Conservative and Reform Judaism generally fully embrace evolutionary biology and cosmology, treating Genesis as a theological rather than literal-scientific narrative about God's relationship to creation.
The Faithful Remnant View
We hold that true science and correctly understood Scripture cannot actually be in conflict, because Yahweh is the author of both the physical universe science studies and the Scripture that reveals His purposes. Where an apparent conflict exists, we hold the fault lies in one of two places: either in a mistranslated or misinterpreted reading of the biblical text (much traditional doctrine, in our view, rests on such errors, as with several other topics addressed on this page), or in scientific claims that go beyond what has actually been observed and tested, and are instead asserted as settled fact when they remain interpretive or theoretical. We are therefore skeptical of treating either popular religious tradition or popular scientific consensus as automatically authoritative, and instead try to weigh each specific claim on its own evidentiary merits, testing both traditional doctrine and scientific interpretation against the plain, best-attested text of Scripture and against the observable facts themselves. We do not regard this as "science versus God," since we consider that framing itself to be largely manufactured by people on both sides who have committed themselves in advance to a particular conclusion, rather than a genuine, necessary conflict between the natural world Yahweh created and His revealed word.
Topic 13: What is Christmas?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
The Feast of the Nativity of the Lord, celebrated December 25, one of the principal solemnities of the liturgical year, commemorating the birth of Christ. It is preceded by the season of Advent and typically marked by a Midnight Mass, though the Church does not claim December 25 as Christ's literal historical birthdate — the date was fixed by later ecclesiastical tradition.
Protestantism
Widely celebrated as a commemoration of Christ's birth and, for most denominations and believers, one of the two central holidays of the Christian year alongside Easter, combining religious observance (church services, Advent) with strong family and cultural traditions, again without claiming December 25 as historically precise.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Observes the Nativity as one of the Twelve Great Feasts, preceded by a forty-day Nativity Fast, celebrated on December 25 by churches using the revised Julian or Gregorian calendar, or on January 7 by those (such as the Russian Orthodox Church) still using the older Julian calendar.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Also celebrates the Nativity as a major feast, with several churches (Ethiopian, Coptic) observing it on January 7 according to their own Julian-based liturgical calendars, preceded by extended fasting periods distinctive to each national church's tradition.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
The LDS Church celebrates Christmas as a meaningful religious and cultural commemoration of Christ's birth, without insisting on the historical accuracy of the date. Jehovah's Witnesses reject Christmas entirely, holding that its customs derive from pre-Christian pagan winter festivals and that it was never celebrated by Christ or the apostles, and so should not be observed by genuine Christians.
The Assyrian Church of the East
Celebrates the Nativity according to its own ancient East Syriac liturgical calendar and traditions, structurally similar to other ancient Christian churches in its basic religious meaning and seasonal observance.
Judaism
Not a Jewish holiday and carries no religious significance in Judaism; its main point of intersection with the Jewish calendar is simply the frequent close timing of the unrelated holiday of Hanukkah.
The Faithful Remnant View
We hold that December 25 was not the Messiah's actual birth date and that the holiday itself traces to pre-Christian Roman celebrations — Saturnalia and the cult of Sol Invictus (the "Unconquered Sun"), whose feast day was also December 25, tied to the winter solstice and the symbolic "rebirth" of the sun. We hold that the institutional church, centuries after the apostles, adopted and renamed this existing popular festival rather than instituting a new one commanded by Scripture, and that Yah'shua's own apostles neither observed nor commanded any such birthday commemoration. Based on the timing implied by the priestly courses mentioned in Luke 1 and the presence of shepherds "abiding in the field" (Luke 2:8, a detail inconsistent with the cold, wet Judean winter), we hold the Messiah's actual birth more plausibly fell in the early autumn, in the general vicinity of the Feast of Tabernacles, which we find symbolically fitting given that festival's prophetic association with Yahweh "tabernacling" among men. We do not observe December 25 as a religious holy day, keeping instead the seven Holy Days actually commanded in Leviticus 23 (see Topic 10).
Topic 14: What is Easter?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
Easter Sunday is the highest and most important feast of the liturgical year, celebrating Christ's resurrection following the Good Friday crucifixion and Holy Saturday. Its date is calculated as the first Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox, and it is preceded by the forty days of Lent and the observances of Holy Week.
Protestantism
Widely observed as the central celebration of Christ's resurrection and the cornerstone event of the Christian faith, generally retaining the Good Friday-Easter Sunday framework, with the degree of liturgical elaboration varying considerably between high-church and low-church traditions.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Pascha is called the "Feast of Feasts," the preeminent celebration of the entire liturgical year, preceded by Great Lent and Holy Week, with its own calculation formula that frequently places Orthodox Pascha on a different date than Western Easter.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Similarly regards Pascha/Easter as the supreme feast of the year, with each national church observing its own historic calculation and liturgical traditions surrounding Holy Week and the Resurrection.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
The LDS Church observes Easter as a commemoration of Christ's resurrection, though it holds less liturgical centrality than in Catholic or Orthodox practice. Jehovah's Witnesses reject Easter entirely, associating its name and customs (eggs, rabbits) with pagan fertility-goddess worship (linked to the goddess Ishtar/Astarte), observing instead only their annual "Memorial" of Christ's death.
The Assyrian Church of the East
Celebrates Pascha/the Resurrection as its preeminent feast, following its own ancient East Syriac liturgical calendar and Holy Week traditions.
Judaism
Not a Jewish holiday, though historically and chronologically connected to it — the Christian Easter developed alongside, and its dating remains tied to, the Jewish festival of Passover, from which the Last Supper and crucifixion narratives in the Gospels take their setting.
The Faithful Remnant View
We hold that the very name "Easter" derives from Ishtar (also known as Astarte or Eostre in various regional forms), an ancient pagan fertility goddess, and that the holiday's familiar symbols — eggs and rabbits — are inherited fertility emblems with no connection to Scripture, layered onto the Christian calendar well after the apostolic period. More significantly, we reject the traditional Good-Friday-crucifixion, Sunday-morning-resurrection chronology as mathematically impossible to reconcile with Yah'shua's own explicit prophecy that He would be in the grave "three days and three nights" (Matthew 12:40) — a Friday afternoon to Sunday morning burial spans only about a day and a half, not three full days and nights by any reckoning. We hold instead to a Wednesday crucifixion, before a "high day" annual Sabbath (the first day of Unleavened Bread, John 19:31, not the regular weekly Sabbath), with burial beginning near Wednesday sunset and resurrection occurring precisely three days and three nights later, right at the end of the weekly Sabbath, near Saturday sunset — consistent with the women finding the tomb already empty "as it began to dawn" the first day of the week (Matthew 28:1). We affirm the resurrection itself as an absolutely essential, non-negotiable foundation of the faith; we simply hold that its true chronology, and the holiday's true origin, have both been obscured over time.
Topic 15: Is Eternal Life a Reality?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
Yes — eternal life is a real, promised gift of grace, won for humanity by Christ's death and resurrection, culminating for the saved in the beatific vision, the direct, unmediated experience of God, following the general resurrection and Last Judgment.
Protestantism
Yes — eternal life is the central promise of the Gospel, received by grace through faith, generally understood as beginning spiritually at conversion and consummated fully in the resurrection and life to come with God, a truth held with strong unanimity across otherwise diverse Protestant traditions.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Yes — eternal life is understood as theosis, an ongoing, ever-deepening participation in the uncreated energies of God, already begun in this life through the sacraments and ascetic practice and perfected in the age to come.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Yes — affirms eternal life and theosis as the reality and goal of salvation, consistent with the broader patristic and liturgical heritage it shares with Eastern Orthodoxy.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
The LDS Church affirms eternal life as a reality but reserves the specific term for exaltation, or godhood, in the highest (celestial) degree of glory — distinct from the mere immortality that, in LDS teaching, is granted to essentially everyone through the universal resurrection. Jehovah's Witnesses likewise affirm it as real, but hold that only the "little flock" of 144,000 receive heavenly eternal life, while the great majority of the saved look forward instead to everlasting life on a restored, paradise earth.
The Assyrian Church of the East
Yes — affirms eternal life through Christ's resurrection as the central hope of the faith, consistent with the wider ancient Christian consensus from which it descends.
Judaism
The majority position across Jewish tradition affirms Olam Haba ("the World to Come") as a real future reality, though its precise nature is comparatively undefined and debated across the tradition, resting more on later rabbinic development than on explicit statements in the Torah itself.
The Faithful Remnant View
Yes, we hold eternal life to be an absolutely real, promised future — but we hold that it is a gift to be granted, not a possession every human being already has by nature. Because we hold man to be inherently mortal, with no innate immortal soul (see Topic 11), eternal life cannot simply refer to an unbroken continuation of a life that never truly ends; it must instead be understood as something genuinely conferred, at a specific future point, on those found worthy. We hold that this gift becomes available strictly through the Messiah's own resurrection, described in 1 Corinthians 15:20 as the "firstfruits" of a coming harvest of resurrected believers, and that no one receives it automatically at the moment of physical death. Eternal life, in our reading, is therefore a real but future and conditional reality, made certain by the Messiah's own resurrection as proof of concept and promise, granted to the faithful at their own resurrection (see Topic 17) into full immortality as members of Yahweh's own family, rather than a currently and universally possessed spiritual inheritance. We consider this distinction important because much confusion about the afterlife, in our view, stems from assuming eternal life is already secured the moment someone dies, rather than being the object of a still-future resurrection hope.
Topic 16: What happens When People Die? Do they go to Heaven?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
The soul undergoes an immediate "particular judgment" at death, proceeding to heaven (possibly after purification in purgatory) or to hell, while the body awaits reunion with the soul at the general resurrection and Last Judgment at the end of the age.
Protestantism
Most Protestants hold that the soul of a believer passes immediately and consciously into the presence of Christ at death ("absent from the body, present with the Lord," 2 Corinthians 5:8), with unbelievers awaiting judgment; a minority of traditions instead teach an unconscious "soul sleep" until the resurrection, though this remains a minority view within the broader Protestant world.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Teaches an intermediate state following a preliminary judgment (in some traditions described through "toll house" imagery of the soul's journey), in which the soul experiences a foretaste of heaven or hell, awaiting the final resurrection and Last Judgment for complete consummation.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Holds a similar intermediate-state theology, with the soul's interim experience of blessing or suffering understood as provisional, pending the final bodily resurrection and judgment at the end of the age.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
The LDS Church teaches that the spirit departs at death to the spirit world, entering either "spirit paradise" or "spirit prison," where further teaching and opportunity for acceptance of the gospel continue, prior to eventual resurrection and assignment to one of three degrees of glory. Jehovah's Witnesses teach that the dead are entirely unconscious, "sleeping" in the common grave (Sheol/Hades), aware of nothing at all, with no immediate entrance into heaven or hell, awaiting a future resurrection.
The Assyrian Church of the East
Holds a traditional intermediate-state theology broadly consistent with the wider ancient Christian consensus, in which the soul awaits the final resurrection and judgment following an interim state after death.
Judaism
Views vary considerably. The Tanakh itself describes Sheol as a shadowy, largely undifferentiated realm of the dead. Later rabbinic tradition develops the idea of an intermediate purifying process (sometimes identified with Gehinnom, generally lasting up to twelve months) followed by eventual bodily resurrection and entry into Olam Haba, though the soul's immediate postmortem state is not tightly or uniformly dogmatized across the tradition.
The Faithful Remnant View
We hold that the dead are entirely and literally unconscious, described repeatedly in Scripture as "asleep" (John 11:11-14; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-15) rather than continuing in some other realm of awareness. There is, in our reading, no immediate ascent to heaven, no immediate torment in hell, and no passage of subjective time experienced by the dead between death and resurrection — the next conscious moment a person experiences, from their own point of view, is their resurrection. We hold this to be consistent with Yah'shua's own statement in John 3:13 that "no man has ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven," which we take to exclude the idea that departed believers are presently residing in heaven. We read the apparent exceptions in Scripture accordingly: Elijah's fiery "translation" (2 Kings 2) we hold to be relocation to another place on earth rather than heaven itself; Enoch's disappearance (Genesis 5:24) and Moses' undiscovered grave (Deuteronomy 34:6) we hold to be genuine deaths, however unusual their circumstances; and the appearance of Moses and Elijah at the Transfiguration we note Yah'shua Himself explicitly called a "vision" (Matthew 17:9), not a literal visitation by two living men from heaven. The dead, in our understanding, simply await their bodily resurrection (see Topic 17) as their one and only future hope.
Topic 17: Will People that Die be Resurrected, and when?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
Yes — a single general resurrection of the body occurs at Christ's Second Coming and the Last Judgment, reuniting each soul (already in heaven, purgatory, or hell) with a glorified or condemned body, for all people, righteous and wicked, at once.
Protestantism
Most affirm a future bodily resurrection at Christ's return. Premillennial/dispensationalist evangelicals typically distinguish a "rapture" of living believers and resurrection of the righteous dead, a subsequent tribulation and literal thousand-year reign, and a later resurrection of the wicked for judgment; amillennial and postmillennial Protestants instead hold a single general resurrection at Christ's return without a literal earthly millennium.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Teaches a single general resurrection of all the dead at Christ's Second Coming, immediately followed by the Last Judgment, reading Revelation 20's "thousand years" symbolically of the present Church age rather than as a literal future earthly reign.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Holds the same single general resurrection and judgment at Christ's return, with no literal future millennium, consistent with the shared ancient patristic eschatology.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
The LDS Church teaches an ordered sequence of resurrections tied to the three degrees of glory, beginning with the righteous at the Second Coming and continuing through the Millennium, with the "sons of perdition" raised last. Jehovah's Witnesses teach two resurrection hopes: the 144,000 "anointed" raised to heavenly spirit life to reign with Christ (held to be already underway since 1918), and the faithful dead raised to earthly paradise life during Christ's millennial reign, given opportunity and judgment at that time; the unfaithful are not resurrected at all.
The Assyrian Church of the East
Holds the traditional single future bodily resurrection at Christ's Second Coming, followed by general judgment, consistent with the wider ancient Christian consensus.
Judaism
Techiyat HaMetim, the resurrection of the dead, is a traditionally affirmed future event (one of Maimonides' Thirteen Principles) associated with the messianic age and Olam Haba, held literally in Orthodox Judaism, though historically de-emphasized or read more symbolically in Reform Judaism.
The Faithful Remnant View
We hold that resurrection is the only means by which anyone attains eternal life, since we understand man to have no innate immortal soul (see Topics 11 and 16). We hold to two resurrections, both described in Revelation 20. The first, called the "first resurrection," occurs at the Messiah's return, raising the faithful "firstfruits" — Yahweh's called-out Elect — to immortality, to reign with the Messiah on earth (not in heaven) for a literal thousand-year millennium, exactly as the Messiah's own resurrection, described as the "firstfruits" of this future harvest (1 Corinthians 15:20), guarantees and models. The second resurrection, sometimes called the "Great White Throne" judgment, occurs a thousand years later, for everyone else who has ever lived — the vast majority of humanity who never had a genuine opportunity to know Yahweh or the Messiah in this lifetime (see Topic 37). We hold this to be their first real chance at salvation, granted in fairness by a just Yahweh, rather than a moment of automatic condemnation for having died outside the faith. Those who, even then, knowingly and finally reject Yahweh's offer face the "second death" — complete and final annihilation (see Topic 9) — rather than eternal conscious torment. We consider this two-resurrection framework central to understanding Yahweh's entire plan for mankind, resolving what we see as the otherwise troubling question of the billions who die having never heard a fair presentation of the Gospel.
Topic 18: Why does the Bible Contain an "Old" and a "New Covenant?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
The Old Covenant (the Mosaic Law given at Sinai) is fulfilled and superseded by the New Covenant sealed in Christ's blood, though its moral core, summarized in the Ten Commandments, remains binding; its ceremonial, dietary, and civil provisions are no longer required of Christians, while the Old Covenant retains lasting value as salvation history and typological preparation for Christ.
Protestantism
Broadly holds the Mosaic Law fulfilled and superseded in Christ, though frameworks differ: covenant theology treats Old and New Covenants as one unified "covenant of grace" in different administrations, while dispensationalism treats Israel and the Church as distinct programs under distinct covenants. Most traditions agree believers are not bound by the ceremonial and civil Mosaic law, while its moral substance endures.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Treats the Old Covenant as preparatory revelation, type and shadow of realities fulfilled in the New Covenant sealed by Christ's blood and continued in the Eucharist, understanding both Covenants as one unified salvation history rather than a sharp rupture.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Holds a similar unified covenant theology, with the Old Covenant fulfilled and superseded in the New through Christ's incarnation and sacrifice, read typologically per its shared ancient patristic heritage.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
The LDS Church sees covenants as an ongoing series — Abrahamic, Mosaic, and now a "new and everlasting covenant" restored through Joseph Smith, including temple ordinances. Jehovah's Witnesses hold the Old (Law) Covenant, given specifically to fleshly Israel, was abolished at the cross and replaced by a New Covenant made specifically with the "spiritual Israel" of 144,000 anointed ones, not with all Christians directly.
The Assyrian Church of the East
Holds the Old Covenant fulfilled in the New through Christ's incarnation and sacrifice, consistent with the broader ancient Christian covenant theology it shares with other early apostolic churches.
Judaism
The Torah, given at Sinai, is held to be eternal and unbroken, still fully binding upon the Jewish people; no "New Covenant" superseding it is recognized. Where Jeremiah 31's "new covenant" language is addressed at all, it is generally read as a future renewal or deeper internalization of the same eternal Torah covenant, not its replacement.
The Faithful Remnant View
We hold, per our reading of Scripture, that Yahweh's spiritual law — summarized in the Ten Commandments — existed from creation, long before Sinai, and is eternal; Abraham himself "kept my commandments, my statutes, and my laws" (Genesis 26:5) centuries before Moses. The Old Covenant made at Sinai was not the origin of this moral law but a specific marriage agreement between Yahweh and the nation of Israel, and its later dissolution therefore could not undo a law it never created in the first place — "the dissolving of the Old Covenant could not destroy what it did not bring into existence." We hold that the New Covenant, inaugurated by the Messiah's blood, writes this same eternal law on the heart (Hebrews 8:10) rather than abolishing it; what actually ended was only the temporary ceremonial and sacrificial system — animal offerings and the Levitical priesthood — added later "because of transgressions" (Galatians 3:19) and fulfilled once for all by the Messiah's own sacrifice. We hold that the civil statutes which define what sin actually is — tithing, clean and unclean foods, the weekly and annual Sabbaths, sexual morality — remain in force for the New Covenant Congregation, since Yahweh's character, and therefore His law, never changes (Malachi 3:6). We understand the Old and New Covenants, then, not as two different laws but as the same eternal marriage covenant between Yahweh and His people, first written on stone and now renewed and written on the heart.
Topic 19: What is the Mark of the Beast?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
Interpretations vary widely, from a literal future identifying mark to a broader symbol of allegiance to a future persecuting Antichrist and world power; the mark is not tied to any current practice and is generally treated as belonging to a still-future tribulation period rather than to any present-day observance.
Protestantism
Views differ by eschatological school. Dispensationalist and premillennial evangelicals often expect a literal future mark — potentially a technological, biometric, or economic identifier — required to buy or sell under a future Antichrist's global government during a coming tribulation. Other Protestant traditions read it more symbolically, as allegiance to worldly power and idolatry across history rather than a specific future device.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Generally favors a more symbolic, patristic reading of the mark as representing satanic allegiance and end-times apostasy, without dogmatically identifying a specific literal mark or technology.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Shares a similar non-literal, symbolic reading of the mark as representing allegiance to evil in the last days, consistent with the wider patristic tradition.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
The LDS Church treats it as a comparatively minor, generally symbolic doctrine representing apostasy rather than a specific literal mark. Jehovah's Witnesses interpret it symbolically as complete devotion and allegiance to Satan's world political and commercial system, not as a physical or literal marking.
The Assyrian Church of the East
Follows the broader ancient patristic symbolic reading shared across Eastern Christianity, without significant distinct modern eschatological development on this specific point.
Judaism
Not part of Jewish eschatology, since Revelation is not part of the Jewish canon; outside observers sometimes note tefillin (phylacteries), worn on the hand and forehead per Deuteronomy's commands, as an interesting scriptural antecedent to the "hand and forehead" imagery, though this is not a Jewish eschatological concept.
The Faithful Remnant View
We hold that the mark of the beast is symbolic, not a literal chip, card, or tattoo: the "hand" represents what we do (our actions) and the "forehead" represents what we believe (our mind), together showing whose commandments we actually obey in practice. We hold, further, that the specific commandment historically targeted for substitution by "the Beast" (Rome, and the church government modeled on it, see Topic 20) is the Sabbath commandment specifically, which the Roman council of Laodicea (circa 363 A.D.) formally decreed Christians must abandon in favor of Sunday observance, on pain of being "declared anathema." We hold that Yahweh's own parallel "sign," commanded in Exodus 13:9 and Deuteronomy 6:8 to be kept "upon thine hand" and "between thine eyes," identifies obedient Sabbath-keeping as the positive counterpart to the beast's mark, since the Sabbath alone, among the Ten Commandments, directly determines whether a person will buy, sell, or work on Yahweh's specified day of rest — making it, in our reading, the one commandment capable of functioning as a visible "test" of true allegiance. We therefore hold that the real issue behind Revelation's mark is not a futuristic barcode, microchip, or identification card — which we regard as a deliberate satanic diversion from the actual question — but whether a person submits to Yahweh's seventh-day Sabbath or to the Sunday observance (along with Christmas, Easter, and similar customs) historically imposed by the very institution we identify as the Beast.
Topic 20: Who or What is the Beast of Revelation?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
No single official dogmatic identification exists; historic preterist readings have associated the Beast with first-century imperial Rome (e.g., Nero), while other readings anticipate a future individual Antichrist figure and persecuting world power. Modern Catholic scholarship generally treats the imagery as symbolic of oppressive state power, with a possible future analogue.
Protestantism
Views vary widely. Reformation-era Protestants (Luther and many later Reformers) historically identified the Papacy or the Roman Catholic Church itself with the Beast or Antichrist. Modern dispensationalist evangelicals typically expect a future individual world ruler heading a revived global empire, while other Protestants read the Beast more broadly as symbolic of anti-Christian state power across all of history.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Generally reads the Beast as a still-future individual Antichrist figure and world-persecuting power arising at the end of the age, in keeping with the patristic tradition, without identifying it with any specific past or present institution.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Shares a similar expectation of a future individual Antichrist figure, drawing on the same ancient patristic eschatological heritage as Eastern Orthodoxy.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
The LDS Church generally reads the Beast as representing worldly, evil governments and kingdoms opposed to God's kingdom in the last days, without one single fixed identification. Jehovah's Witnesses identify the "wild beast" primarily with the entirety of humanity's political system, historically applying the "scarlet-colored beast" image specifically to the League of Nations and later the United Nations, rather than to one individual person.
The Assyrian Church of the East
Follows the broader ancient patristic expectation of a future individual Antichrist figure, without significant distinct modern development on the question.
Judaism
Has no equivalent concept, since Revelation is not part of the Jewish canon, though Jewish eschatology includes its own end-time-enemy concepts such as Gog and Magog and the historical association of Edom/Rome as oppressor, unrelated to the specific "Beast of Revelation" doctrine.
The Faithful Remnant View
We hold that the Beast symbolizes the series of four world-ruling Gentile empires described in Daniel 2 and 7 — Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome — culminating specifically in the Roman Empire, which we hold received its authority directly from Satan ("the dragon gave him his power," Revelation 13:2). We identify the Beast's "deadly wound" as Rome's fall in 476 A.D., and its subsequent "healing" as the Byzantine "Imperial Restoration" of 554 A.D., continuing in unbroken succession through the Frankish kingdom, the Holy Roman Empire, and Napoleon's empire, for a symbolic and, in our reading, literal period of 1260 years (554-1814 A.D., applying the day-for-a-year prophetic principle), with a future revival still to come as a federation of European nations. We calculate the number 666 not as any modern technology but as the numeric value of "Lateinos" ("Latin Man"), tying the number directly to Rome's own founding identity via Greek letter-numeral values. We identify the "woman" who rides the Beast in Revelation 17 as the Roman Catholic Church, whose institutional, incorporated form of church government we trace to Pope Leo I (440-461 A.D.), with her "harlot daughters" representing the Protestant churches that came out of her — together constituting "Babylon the Great." We hold this same institution enforced the Sunday-Sabbath substitution described in Topic 19 historically, at great cost in martyred lives, and that Scripture warns it will do so again in a future revival immediately preceding the Messiah's return.
Topic 21: Who and Where are the Lost 10 Tribes?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
Holds no official doctrine on the fate or present location of the ten northern tribes exiled by Assyria; the question is treated as a matter of ancient history rather than binding theology, and the Church does not teach that any modern nation is theologically identified with Israel's lost tribes.
Protestantism
Mostly holds no fixed doctrine either, generally regarding the ten tribes as having been assimilated among the nations after the Assyrian conquest of 722 B.C. and lost to specific historical identification. A historic minority movement, "British Israelism," influential especially in the 19th and early 20th centuries, held that Anglo-Saxon peoples descend from the lost tribes, but this view is now considered marginal and is rejected by mainstream Protestant scholarship.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Holds no distinct doctrine on the subject, generally treating the ten tribes as dispersed and absorbed among Assyria's conquered peoples in ancient history, without ongoing theological significance for identifying any modern nation.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Similarly holds no distinct doctrine on the northern ten tribes specifically, though the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo tradition and the Beta Israel community maintain their own separate, unrelated claims of Israelite descent through the Solomon-and-Sheba legend.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
The LDS Church holds a distinctive doctrine that the ten tribes were led to a hidden place in "the north countries" and will be miraculously revealed and gathered in the last days, alongside the belief that Book of Mormon peoples descended from the tribe of Manasseh and migrated anciently to the Americas. Jehovah's Witnesses hold no special "lost tribes" doctrine, treating "spiritual Israel" as the 144,000 anointed class rather than any physical lineage.
The Assyrian Church of the East
Holds no distinct doctrine on the subject, treating the exile of the ten tribes as ancient history without ongoing theological significance.
Judaism
Acknowledges the historical Assyrian exile of the ten tribes (2 Kings 17) as recorded fact; mainstream rabbinic tradition generally holds their specific present identity and location to be unknown or lost, occasionally the subject of legend (such as the river Sambatyon) or hope for a future ingathering in the messianic age, with various minority communities (in India, Africa, and elsewhere) claiming descent, though none is general Jewish doctrine.
The Faithful Remnant View
We hold, distinctively, that the "birthright" promise of national greatness and material wealth made to Abraham passed, not through Judah (who received instead the "sceptre," the Messianic promise), but through Joseph's two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, and that this promise identifies two modern nations specifically: Manasseh as the United States and Ephraim, together with the "company of nations," as the British Commonwealth, with the other scattered tribes and part of Benjamin identified among northwestern European nations such as Holland, Belgium, France, and the Scandinavian countries. We hold that Scripture's "Jews" and "House of Israel" are not synonymous terms — that "Jew" originally referred to Canaanite and mixed peoples living among the tribe of Judah, not to the Israelite tribes generally — a distinction we consider essential to correctly reading many prophecies. We trace, following Ezekiel 17's "riddle and parable," the continuous transfer of the throne of David — through Jeremiah, a surviving royal daughter, and the "Stone of Destiny" — from Jerusalem to Ireland, to Scotland, and finally to England, continuing today in the British royal line (see also Topic 28). We hold that a prophesied 2,520-year period of national "banishment" (721 B.C. to 1800 A.D., applying the day-for-a-year principle to Israel's "seven times" punishment) explains the otherwise remarkable rise of Anglo-American global wealth and power specifically after 1800, and we hold that Scripture warns these same modern Israelite nations of a coming renewed captivity, at the hands of a revived "Assyria" (modern Central Europe), unless they repent and return to Yahweh's commandments.
Topic 22: Can the Bible be Proven?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
Holds full confidence in Scripture's inspiration and inerrancy in matters of faith and morals, established through the authority of the Church and Sacred Tradition that recognized and canonized it, corroborated by (but not primarily dependent on) external archaeological and historical evidence.
Protestantism
Holds strong confidence in Scripture's inspiration and reliability, often defended through evidentialist apologetics — manuscript evidence, fulfilled prophecy, archaeological corroboration, internal consistency — alongside, in many traditions, the "internal testimony of the Holy Spirit" that directly convinces the believer of Scripture's truth.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Grounds confidence in Scripture's truth in its inseparability from, and authentication by, Holy Tradition and the Church's continuous liturgical and patristic experience, rather than primarily through independent historical-evidentiary argument.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Shares a similar confidence grounded in Tradition and the Church's continuous witness, rather than treating external evidentialist proof as the primary basis for scriptural authority.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
The LDS Church grounds confidence significantly in a personal spiritual witness (a "burning in the bosom") in addition to historical evidence, extending this basis also to the Book of Mormon and other LDS scripture. Jehovah's Witnesses maintain a strong evidentialist apologetic tradition, heavily emphasizing fulfilled prophecy, archaeology, and claimed scientific foreknowledge to demonstrate the Bible's divine origin.
The Assyrian Church of the East
Grounds confidence in Scripture's truth in its ancient, unbroken apostolic tradition and continuous liturgical use of the Peshitta text, consistent with the broader ancient Christian pattern of authority through Tradition.
Judaism
Grounds confidence in the Torah's divine origin in the Sinai revelation tradition and its unbroken transmission (mesorah) through the generations, reinforced by the rabbinic tradition's meticulous textual preservation (the Masoretic tradition), though some modern outreach programs also employ evidentialist and numerical arguments.
The Faithful Remnant View
We hold, from article-length treatment of this question, that the Bible can be actively proven true through several distinct lines of evidence. First, historical and archaeological corroboration confirms its recorded events, and its fulfilled prophecies (which we hold have been fulfilled with total accuracy to date) confirm its predictive authority. Second, cross-confirmation between the Old and New Covenants — the Messiah and His apostles directly authenticating specific Old Covenant books and passages — provides internal verification. Third, the independent consistency of many books, written by different authors often centuries apart without collaboration, on shared topics, argues strongly against merely human authorship. We hold, distinctively, to a structural and numerical argument as well: that the original Hebrew canon of 22 Old Covenant books (per the historian Josephus) plus 27 New Covenant books totals 49 — seven times seven, a number we hold Scripture consistently uses to denote completion — a design we believe was deliberately "scattered" throughout Scripture ("line upon line," Isaiah 28:9-11) specifically to resist tampering and to separate the diligent, called-out Elect from the merely curious reader. Ultimately, though, we hold the most convincing proof to be practical and experiential rather than purely intellectual: obedience to the Bible's specific instructions — its Sabbath, its Holy Days, its moral commands — demonstrably "works" and produces blessing in a life that actually tests it, fulfilling the command to "prove all things" (1 Thessalonians 5:21) through lived practice rather than argument alone.
Topic 23: Does the Biblical Record match with Historical Secular Records?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
Generally affirms substantial historical reliability of Scripture, particularly the Gospels and Acts, supported by archaeology and extra-biblical sources for major figures, places, and events, while treating some early Genesis material with more interpretive flexibility as theological rather than strictly literal-historical narrative.
Protestantism
Views range from strict inerrantist positions insisting on full harmony between every biblical historical detail and secular record, common among evangelicals, to more critical-historical approaches among mainline Protestant scholars who read some Old Covenant narratives as theologically shaped rather than strictly literal history, while still affirming the general historical reliability of major figures and events.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Generally affirms the historical reliability of Scripture as read through Tradition, without placing strong apologetic weight on external secular corroboration as the primary test of scriptural truth.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Shares a similar general affirmation of historicity understood through the lens of Tradition, rather than through a strong evidentialist framework.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
The LDS Church affirms the historicity of the Biblical narrative and similarly defends the historicity of Book of Mormon narratives, notably without significant archaeological or secular corroboration for the latter — a point of ongoing scholarly controversy. Jehovah's Witnesses strongly emphasize demonstrated harmony between Bible history and chronology and secular historical and archaeological records as a central apologetic pillar.
The Assyrian Church of the East
Holds a general affirmation of historical reliability consistent with the ancient Christian tradition, without a strong distinct emphasis on evidentialist apologetics.
Judaism
Holds general confidence particularly in the historicity of the exile, return, and later biblical periods, well corroborated archaeologically and through Mesopotamian, Persian, and Egyptian records, with more varied views among Orthodox and secular scholars regarding the earliest narratives (the Patriarchal period, the Exodus) given more limited direct external corroboration.
The Faithful Remnant View
We hold that wherever Scripture touches secular history it is proven accurate by archaeology and secular records — a point we consider corroborated even by prominent secular historical figures (we note, for example, Winston Churchill's endorsement of taking Bible history "literally" as consistent with sound historical method), and we draw a firm distinction between this historical accuracy and later doctrinal or interpretive claims added by institutional religion, which we hold are a separate matter entirely (see Topic 26). We extend this same confidence in historical corroboration to our own distinctive latter-day historical claims: we hold that the documented rise of British and American global wealth and power specifically after 1800 A.D. corresponds precisely to our calculated end of Israel's prophesied 2,520-year "seven times" punishment (see Topic 21), and we hold that specific, secular-historically documented continuities in the British monarchy's coronation rites — the "Stone of Destiny" beneath the coronation chair in Westminster Abbey, the anointing ritual, and the traditional coronation anthem "Zadok the Priest" (drawn directly from 1 Kings 1:38-40) — provide additional, non-doctrinal historical evidence connecting Scripture's account of David's throne to a documented, continuously reigning modern royal line. We regard this convergence of biblical prophecy and secular historical record as mutually reinforcing rather than coincidental.
Topic 24: Have, or Will all Bible Prophecies be Fulfilled?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
Holds that many prophecies, particularly Messianic prophecies, have been historically fulfilled in Christ; other prophecies (the Second Coming, final judgment, the "signs of the times") remain future, approached with theological caution and without official Church endorsement of speculative, detailed end-times timelines or date-setting.
Protestantism
Views range widely. Dispensationalist and premillennial evangelical traditions maintain highly developed, detailed end-times prophecy schemes (rapture, tribulation, antichrist, millennium) understood as soon to be fulfilled; other Protestants hold a more modest position, affirming fulfilled Messianic prophecy in Christ's first coming while treating future prophecy more generally or symbolically, without detailed predictive schemes.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Affirms Messianic prophecy fulfilled in Christ, but approaches future or apocalyptic prophecy (particularly Revelation) with caution, favoring symbolic and spiritual interpretation over detailed predictive timelines, consistent with a more mystical, liturgical hermeneutic.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Shares a similarly cautious, symbolic approach to unfulfilled or future prophecy, while affirming fulfilled Messianic prophecy as central to the faith.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
The LDS Church holds a strong ongoing-revelation framework in which numerous prophecies, including those in LDS-specific scripture, are seen as being fulfilled in modern restoration history, with further detailed future fulfillments (the gathering of Israel, a New Jerusalem built in the Americas) still expected. Jehovah's Witnesses maintain an extensive, specific record of interpreting current and past world events as direct fulfillments of biblical prophecy, including several specific historical date-related predictions that were later revised.
The Assyrian Church of the East
Affirms fulfilled Messianic prophecy consistent with the ancient Christian consensus, with limited distinct modern development regarding future or unfulfilled prophecy.
Judaism
Affirms the fulfillment of certain historical prophecies, such as the return from Babylonian exile, while holding Messianic prophecy as still future and unfulfilled (the Messiah not yet having come) — a central point of difference from Christianity — and generally holds apocalyptic or end-times prophecy with less systematic doctrinal development than found in some Christian traditions.
The Faithful Remnant View
We hold that every Bible prophecy fulfilled to date has been fulfilled with precision, a central pillar of our confidence in Scripture's divine authorship (see Topic 22), while a very substantial body of prophecy remains future and, in our reading, imminent. Drawing together Ezekiel's "watchman" commission, Malachi's "book of remembrance," Jeremiah's warnings to end-time Israel, Zechariah's "flying scroll," and the detailed seal, trumpet, and plague sequence of Revelation, we hold these unfulfilled prophecies to center on: the end-time judgment and captivity of the modern nations of Ephraim and Manasseh (see Topic 21) for their national apostasy; a coming ministry of "two witnesses"; a period of Great Tribulation and martyrdom of the faithful, which we regard as a privilege securing immediate resurrection to eternal life rather than something to fear; the sounding of the seven trumpets and the pouring out of the seven last plagues upon end-time "Babylon" (the revived Roman Empire together with its "Babylon the Great" false-church partner, see Topic 20); and culminating in the Messiah's visible return to establish Yahweh's Kingdom government on earth. We hold that our own generation is specifically positioned to recognize these end-time fulfillments, per Daniel's prophecy that his book's meaning would remain "sealed until the time of the end" (Daniel 12:4), and that essentially all of the topics addressed throughout this page are, in our understanding, threads of this single, unfolding prophetic narrative rather than isolated or unrelated predictions.
Topic 25: Does Scripture Reconcile with Secular Historical Records?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
Where apparent tensions arise between Scripture's chronology or details and secular records (differing regnal dates, flood or creation chronology, and similar puzzles), the Church generally reconciles these through recognizing the ancient Near Eastern literary conventions of the biblical writers, non-literal genre in early Genesis, and the limits of surviving secular records, rather than treating every apparent discrepancy as a real contradiction.
Protestantism
Approaches to reconciling apparent tensions vary by tradition. Inerrantist evangelical scholarship devotes substantial effort to harmonizing chronological and historical puzzles (competing regnal-year systems, census figures, genealogies) often successfully resolving many through better understanding of ancient dating conventions; more critical mainline scholarship is more willing to attribute some apparent tensions to the theological shaping of ancient historiography rather than requiring full harmonization.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Generally does not treat apparent chronological or historical tensions as requiring point-by-point secular reconciliation, reading Scripture's historical books primarily through Tradition and their theological purpose rather than as a strictly modern chronological record needing external validation.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Shares a similar approach, resolving apparent tensions through the lens of Tradition and typological reading rather than a strong evidentialist reconciliation project.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
The LDS Church addresses apparent tensions in Biblical chronology similarly to other Christian traditions, while facing its own distinct and more significant reconciliation challenge regarding the Book of Mormon's historical claims, for which independent secular corroboration is notably lacking. Jehovah's Witnesses devote considerable published effort to reconciling specific Biblical chronological details (such as their distinctive dating of Jerusalem's destruction) with secular historical records, sometimes adopting chronologies that diverge from mainstream secular consensus to preserve their doctrinal timeline.
The Assyrian Church of the East
Generally treats apparent chronological tensions through the lens of ancient Tradition rather than a modern harmonization project, consistent with the wider ancient Christian pattern.
Judaism
Reconciles most apparent tensions in the later historical books (exilic and post-exilic periods) readily, given strong corroborating Mesopotamian and Persian records; greater latitude and more varied scholarly opinion exists regarding the earliest narratives, where Orthodox tradition generally affirms straightforward historicity while academic and non-Orthodox scholarship is more willing to read some early material as theologically shaped tradition rather than requiring full secular reconciliation.
The Faithful Remnant View
We hold that any apparent tension between Scripture and secular historical record is best explained not by an actual error in the original inspired text, but by translation error, scribal corruption, or incomplete secular record-keeping — never by an actual contradiction in what Yahweh originally caused to be written (see Topic 26). We hold our own distinctive chronological reconciliation to be a strong confirmation of this principle: applying the Bible's own "day for a year" prophetic principle (Ezekiel 4:4-6, Numbers 14:34) to Israel's prophesied "seven times" (2,520 years) of national punishment beginning with the House of Israel's judgment in 721 B.C., we arrive precisely at 1800 A.D. — the exact period in which secular history records the sudden, otherwise unexplained emergence of the British Commonwealth and the United States as the wealthiest, most powerful nations in world history (see Topic 21). We regard this precise convergence of a Scripturally-derived calculation with an independently documented secular historical turning point as exactly the kind of reconciliation Scripture invites: not merely an absence of contradiction, but a positive, verifiable correspondence between the prophetic text and the secular historical record it describes in advance.
Topic 26: Have Bibles been Tampered With?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
Acknowledges the existence of manuscript variants across the history of textual transmission, as documented by textual criticism, but holds that the Church's Magisterium and Sacred Tradition have safeguarded the substance of the deposit of faith from corruption; minor scribal variants are treated as a normal feature of ancient manuscript copying, not evidence of a deliberate doctrinal conspiracy.
Protestantism
Mainstream evangelical and academic Protestant scholarship actively defends the substantial reliability of the transmitted text through detailed textual criticism across thousands of manuscripts, while acknowledging that a small number of passages (such as the Comma Johanneum in 1 John 5:7-8, and the Pericope Adulterae in John 8) are now widely recognized by scholars, including most evangelical scholars, as later scribal additions absent from the earliest manuscripts. A minority "King James Only" movement instead holds that the King James Version and its underlying Textus Receptus represent the divinely preserved, uncorrupted text, and that modern critical-text translations represent a corruption of Scripture.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Trusts its own Byzantine manuscript tradition, continuously preserved through unbroken liturgical use, as the most reliable textual witness, understanding textual fidelity as safeguarded by the Church's living Tradition rather than requiring external critical reconstruction.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Similarly trusts its own ancient national manuscript and liturgical traditions (Coptic, Ethiopian, Syriac, Armenian) as reliably preserved through continuous ecclesial use across the centuries.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
The LDS Church explicitly teaches, per the Book of Mormon (1 Nephi 13), that "plain and precious truths" were removed from the Bible in antiquity, restored through additional modern scripture and ongoing revelation. Jehovah's Witnesses hold that mainstream Bible translations have specifically obscured the divine name (Yahweh/Jehovah) through the translator convention of substituting "LORD," a specific alteration their own New World Translation restores, while otherwise generally trusting the underlying preserved Hebrew and Greek text.
The Assyrian Church of the East
Trusts its own Peshitta textual tradition as representing the original apostolic text, a minority scholarly position ("Peshitta primacy") distinct from the Greek-based textual histories relied upon by most other traditions.
Judaism
Holds the Masoretic Text tradition to have been meticulously and reliably preserved through an elaborate scribal transmission and verification system (the Masorah, including systematic letter- and word-counts as an error-check), affirming very high confidence in the Hebrew Bible's textual fidelity, without any claim of deliberate widespread tampering; variant readings found among the Dead Sea Scrolls are studied by scholars but do not disturb this general confidence.
The Faithful Remnant View
Yes — we hold that deliberate, documented tampering has occurred, and we point to specific, traceable examples rather than a vague general suspicion. We cite the Catholic Encyclopedia's own supplemental footnotes, in which fourth-century Monks admit to translation directives they were given for the early Latin Vulgate, including the addition of the explicitly Trinitarian language now found at 1 John 5:7-8 (the "Comma Johanneum"), a passage absent from the oldest manuscripts and from the Dead Sea Scrolls' textual family; the substitution of "natural" for the more correct "carnal," fostering dependence on the institutional church; the personification of the Holy Spirit as "He" rather than "it," supporting Trinitarian doctrine; "fornication" substituted for the more correct "adultery" in passages actually addressing spiritual unfaithfulness; and, most significantly for several other topics on this page, the rendering of "nephesh" (properly "body") as "soul," importing Platonic Greek philosophy (via early theologians such as Tertullian and Augustine, both explicitly influenced by Plato) into the text to support belief in an inherently immortal soul (see Topics 11 and 16). We hold that a punctuation choice at Luke 23:43 — a comma inserted centuries after the original, unpunctuated manuscripts — likewise manufactures apparent support for immediate conscious afterlife where none was originally intended. We further object, on principle, to the very practice of copyrighting Bible translations, holding that a copyright legally requires a translation to be "substantially different" from the source text to qualify for protection, which we take as an admission, built into copyright law itself, that copyrighted Bibles are, by legal definition, altered from the original. We do not claim every existing translation is worthless — genuine truth remains discoverable in all of them by a diligent student comparing them against the original languages — but we do hold that specific, identifiable, and documented alterations have shaped, and continue to shape, mainstream Christian doctrine on several of the topics addressed on this page.
Topic 27: What and Where is Heaven and Who will Reside There?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
Heaven is the ultimate, eternal communion with God — the Beatific Vision — enjoyed by the righteous dead (after purification in purgatory, if needed) and, following the general resurrection, by the glorified body and soul reunited; its residents are the saints, the angels, and all the redeemed.
Protestantism
Heaven is generally understood as God's eternal dwelling place and the destiny of all who trust in Christ, entered immediately and consciously at death and consummated at the resurrection in a renewed heaven and earth; open, by grace through faith, to all genuine believers rather than a limited class.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Heaven is the fullness of communion with God's uncreated light and glory (theosis), experienced progressively in this life and perfected in the age to come, shared by the righteous, the angels, and the glorified saints.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Affirms heaven similarly as eternal communion with God shared by glorified saints and angels, consistent with the wider ancient patristic theology it holds in common with Eastern Orthodoxy.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
The LDS Church teaches three distinct degrees of glory (celestial, terrestrial, telestial) as differentiated "heavens," with the highest celestial kingdom — God's own direct presence and "exaltation" — reserved for the most faithful, while nearly all of humanity ultimately inherits one of the three kingdoms; only "sons of perdition" are excluded from all glory entirely. Jehovah's Witnesses reserve heaven exclusively for a limited class of 144,000 "anointed" believers who reign as co-rulers with Christ, while the vast majority of the saved are expected to live forever in a restored paradise on earth, not in heaven.
The Assyrian Church of the East
Holds heaven as the eternal dwelling of God, the angels, and the righteous, entered fully at the resurrection, consistent with the broader ancient Christian consensus.
Judaism
The majority tradition emphasizes Olam Haba ("the World to Come") and a future resurrected, righteous life in a messianic era, often centered on earth, more than a systematically developed doctrine of "heaven" as final destination; a heavenly Gan Eden concept exists but with comparatively less doctrinal elaboration, and its residents are generally understood to include the righteous of Israel and, in many strands, righteous Gentiles as well.
The Faithful Remnant View
We hold, distinctively, that no human being — living, dead, or resurrected — will ever reside in heaven in the sense of Yahweh's own personal dwelling place, based directly on Yah'shua's own statement that "no man has ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man" (John 3:13). We distinguish three "heavens" in Scripture: the atmosphere immediately above the earth, outer space and the celestial bodies, and, distinct from both, Yahweh's own throne and personal dwelling — and we hold that only the Messiah has ever entered this third heaven. We read the famous exceptions accordingly (see also Topic 16): Elijah's fiery "translation" (2 Kings 2) as relocation to another location on earth, not heaven; Enoch's disappearance and Moses' death as genuine deaths despite their unusual circumstances; and the Mount of Transfiguration appearance of Moses and Elijah as an explicitly labeled "vision" (Matthew 17:9), not literal visitors from heaven. We hold instead that the reward of the faithful is to be resurrected to reign with the Messiah on this earth (Revelation 5:10, "they shall reign on earth") during the millennium, and ultimately to inherit Yahweh's Kingdom government as it is established here, rather than to depart the earth for a disembodied heavenly existence. We regard the popular expectation that the saved simply "go to heaven" as a significant and consequential departure from what we hold Scripture actually teaches about mankind's resurrected future.
Topic 28: What does the bible Reveal about British Royal Family?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
Holds no doctrine connecting Scripture to the British royal family specifically; any theology of monarchy (such as older ideas of the "divine right of kings") is treated as political theology and history rather than a claim of literal biblical descent from any specific ancient royal line.
Protestantism
Mainstream Protestant traditions likewise hold no such doctrine. The Church of England's coronation liturgy draws on biblical anointing imagery and the anthem "Zadok the Priest," but without an official teaching that the monarch is a literal descendant of King David. A minority 19th- and 20th-century movement, "British Israelism," held that the British royal family and Anglo-Saxon peoples descend from the "lost" tribes of Israel, but this view was never mainstream and is now generally considered discredited by mainstream biblical and historical scholarship.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Holds no such doctrine; historic Orthodox political theology developed its own ideas of divinely sanctioned monarchy (the Byzantine Emperor, later the Russian Tsar) as defender of the faith, without any claim of literal Davidic descent for the British crown specifically.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Holds no such doctrine regarding the British crown, though the Ethiopian Orthodox tradition separately maintains its own claim of Solomonic royal descent for Ethiopia's historic monarchy, an entirely distinct and unrelated tradition.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
Neither the LDS Church nor Jehovah's Witnesses hold any doctrine connecting Scripture to the British monarchy specifically; LDS tribal-lineage teaching (patriarchal blessings) addresses individual members' assigned lineage, not a national royal family.
The Assyrian Church of the East
Holds no such doctrine regarding the British crown or any other specific modern royal house.
Judaism
Holds no such doctrine; Jewish messianic expectation looks instead to a future Davidic Messiah of Israelite lineage connected to the land of Israel, not to any Gentile royal house.
The Faithful Remnant View
As set out more fully under Topic 21, we hold that the unconditional Davidic covenant (2 Samuel 7:12-16; Jeremiah 33:20-21) required that David's throne never lack an heir, and we trace, through Jeremiah's documented commission to "root out" and then "build and plant" (Jeremiah 1:10) — accomplished, in our reading, by escorting a surviving daughter of Judah's royal line, together with the "Stone of Destiny" (Jacob's Pillar-Stone, Genesis 28:18), to a new land — the continuous, unbroken transfer of that same throne from Jerusalem to Ireland, to Scotland, and finally to England, where, we hold, it remains today in the reigning British royal line. We point to specific claimed points of continuity as supporting evidence: the twelve-pointed crowns historically worn by Irish kings, the Stone of Destiny itself resting beneath the coronation chair in Westminster Abbey, the anointing ritual performed at coronation exactly as prescribed in Scripture, and the traditional coronation anthem "Zadok the Priest," drawn directly from 1 Kings 1:38-40, describing the anointing of Solomon by the priest Zadok. We hold this to be the specific fulfillment of Yahweh's promise that David's dynasty would continue forever, identifying the modern British monarchy as its living, present-day continuation — while distinguishing this national birthright inheritance (through Ephraim, see Topic 21) from the separate Messianic "sceptre" promise, which passed through Judah to the Messiah Himself.
Topic 29: What or Who is the Whore of Babylon?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
Historic and modern Catholic scholarship generally reads "Babylon" in Revelation as a cipher for the pagan Roman Empire of John's own first-century context, understood as the persecuting power of that era; the Church explicitly rejects the Protestant-era polemical identification of the Catholic Church itself as the "Whore of Babylon."
Protestantism
Historically, many Reformation-era Protestants (including Luther) explicitly identified the Whore of Babylon with the Roman Catholic Church and Papacy, a view that persisted in some later Protestant traditions and confessions but is now a minority position. Most modern Protestants instead read "Babylon" more broadly as a symbol of worldly, idolatrous, materialistic power opposed to God throughout history, or as a future end-times global system, rather than one specific institution.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Generally reads Babylon/the Whore as symbolic of a corrupt, idolatrous world power or system, historically often associated (in Byzantine-era interpretation) with pagan Rome, rather than with any specific modern institution.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Shares a similarly symbolic reading of Babylon as a corrupt world system, without singling out a specific present-day institution.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
The LDS Church reads "Babylon"/the "great and abominable church" symbolically as any and all worldly institutions and false systems opposing God's kingdom throughout history, not one specific church body. Jehovah's Witnesses explicitly identify "Babylon the Great" with the entirety of false religion worldwide — meaning, in their teaching, all religious organizations other than their own — rather than with one single church.
The Assyrian Church of the East
Generally follows the broader ancient patristic symbolic reading of Babylon as a corrupt world power, without a distinct modern development singling out one specific institution.
Judaism
Has no equivalent concept, as Revelation is not part of the Jewish canon; "Babylon" in Jewish tradition refers historically to the literal ancient empire responsible for the First Temple's destruction and the Babylonian exile.
The Faithful Remnant View
We hold that "Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots" (Revelation 17:5) specifically identifies the Roman Catholic Church, depicted riding and controlling the Beast — the revived Roman Empire (see Topic 20) — with her "harlot daughters" representing the Protestant churches that came out of her in historical protest yet, in our assessment, retained her same essential incorporated, man-made church-government model and her same pagan-derived traditions (Sunday observance, Christmas, Easter — see Topics 13, 14, and 19). We hold this identification is corroborated by the historical record of martyrdom described as this woman being "drunken with the blood of the saints" (Revelation 17:6) — an estimated 50 million believers killed during the medieval persecutions of those who kept Yahweh's true Sabbath and commandments rather than submitting to Rome's imposed authority. We understand "Babylon" in the broader sense (Revelation 18:4, "Come out of her, my people") as Yahweh's urgent call for His true Congregation to separate itself entirely from this whole pagan-corrupted religious system — Catholic and Protestant alike — before the onset of the coming Great Tribulation and the seven last plagues that Scripture describes as Babylon's ultimate judgment.
Topic 30: What does Born Again Christian Mean?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
Being "born again" (John 3:5, "of water and the Spirit") is understood as accomplished specifically through the sacrament of Baptism, which regenerates the soul and incorporates the person into the Church and the life of grace, rather than as a separate, distinct experiential category outside of sacramental baptism.
Protestantism
Usage varies significantly by tradition. Evangelical, Baptist, and Pentecostal traditions treat "born again" as the definitive term for a personal, conscious conversion — repentance and trusting faith in Christ producing spiritual regeneration by the Holy Spirit, often at an identifiable moment. More sacramental Protestant traditions (Lutheran, Anglican, Reformed paedobaptist churches) instead connect the new birth more closely with baptism itself, alongside a later personal, conscious faith.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Connects the "new birth" with the unified sacramental rite of Baptism and Chrismation, understood as the beginning of theosis, an ongoing transformative process, rather than a separate one-time experiential conversion event.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Similarly ties the new birth to its own sacramental baptismal and Chrismation rite, consistent with shared ancient liturgical theology.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
The LDS Church connects being "born again" with baptism by proper priesthood authority and receiving the Holy Ghost through confirmation, marking entry onto the restored covenant path. Jehovah's Witnesses reserve "born again" language specifically for the anointed 144,000 class begotten to a heavenly hope, not applying it to the "great crowd" majority, who hold an earthly hope instead.
The Assyrian Church of the East
Connects the new birth with its own baptismal and Chrismation sacramental rite, consistent with the broader ancient Christian pattern.
Judaism
Has no direct equivalent doctrine, as this is a distinctly New Covenant Christian concept (John 3); the nearest general parallel some note is the idea of a convert to Judaism being considered, in a legal and covenantal sense, "like a newborn child," though this is a substantively different concept.
The Faithful Remnant View
We hold, from Yah'shua's own explanation to Nicodemus, that being "born again" or "born from above" (John 3:3,5) requires two specific actions: genuine repentance (a complete change of mind and life, turning away from transgression of Yahweh's law) and belief — specifically, believing the actual Gospel of the Kingdom of Yahweh that the Messiah preached (Mark 1:14-15), not merely believing facts about His life, death, and resurrection. We hold this is followed by receiving Yahweh's Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38), not by water baptism itself, which we hold is not required (see Topic 8). Being "born again," in our understanding, describes entry into Yahweh's own family as a literal begotten child (1 John 3:1-3), the beginning of a lifelong process of purification that culminates in full "birth" into immortality only at the future resurrection — this present life functioning, in effect, as an engagement period prior to the Messiah's return and marriage supper (see Topic 17). We hold that being "born again" is therefore not merely an emotional experience or a one-time verbal profession of faith, but a genuine, obedience-tested transformation, and we hold, pointedly, that "faith without works is dead" (James 2:26) — that many who identify as "born-again Christians" in the popular modern sense may mistake a profession of belief, unaccompanied by obedience to Yahweh's actual commandments, for the genuine new birth Scripture describes.
Topic 31: What is Salvation?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
Salvation is a lifelong process involving grace, faith, and cooperation through good works and the sacraments, beginning at baptism and sustained through ongoing sacramental life (especially Penance and the Eucharist), requiring perseverance — a synergy of God's grace and human free cooperation culminating, possibly via purgatory, in eternal life with God.
Protestantism
Salvation is generally held to be by grace alone through faith alone in Christ's atoning death and resurrection, not by works, though genuine faith is widely held to produce good works as evidence (not the cause) of salvation. Reformed traditions typically emphasize predestined election and the perseverance of the saints; Wesleyan, Arminian, and most Pentecostal or Holiness traditions instead hold that salvation can be forfeited through subsequent unbelief or unrepented sin.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Understands salvation primarily as theosis — a lifelong, synergistic process of transformation and union with God's uncreated energies, involving grace, faith, sacramental participation, and ascetic cooperation, rather than a single forensic legal transaction or one-time event.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Shares this synergistic, theosis-oriented understanding of salvation as an ongoing transformative process, consistent with shared ancient patristic theology.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
The LDS Church distinguishes "salvation" (near-universal resurrection and immortality granted through Christ's atonement, largely regardless of merit) from "exaltation" (godhood in the highest celestial kingdom, requiring covenants, ordinances, and continued faithfulness) — a two-tiered framework. Jehovah's Witnesses hold that salvation requires faith in Christ's ransom sacrifice combined with dedication, baptism, and ongoing obedient conduct as a Witness, understood as a process requiring endurance "to the end," not a single guaranteed moment.
The Assyrian Church of the East
Holds a traditional Christian synergistic understanding of salvation through grace, faith, and sacramental life, consistent with the broader ancient Christian consensus.
Judaism
Does not use "salvation" in the Christian sense of individual eternal rescue from sin's penalty through a mediating savior's atoning death; emphasizes instead righteous living, repentance (teshuvah), and covenant faithfulness to Torah as the path to a share in Olam Haba, with atonement achieved through repentance, prayer, and historically sacrifice, rather than a substitutionary savior figure.
The Faithful Remnant View
We hold that salvation is the "good news" that man, separated from Yahweh by sin (Isaiah 59:2), can be reconciled to Him through the Messiah's sacrifice, which pays the death penalty sin incurs (Romans 6:23), opening the possibility of a genuine relationship with Yahweh the Father Himself — not merely with the Messiah. We hold that the Gospel which saves is not simply belief in facts about the Messiah's life, death, and resurrection, but belief in the actual Gospel message He preached: "the Gospel of the Kingdom of Yahweh" (Mark 1:14-15), a real, future government with real laws, to be established on this earth at His return (see Topic 27). We hold salvation requires two things: genuine repentance and belief, followed by receiving Yahweh's Holy Spirit — and that it is properly understood as an ongoing process rather than a single completed transaction, since "faith without works is dead" (James 2:26). Obedience to Yahweh's commandments, in our reading, is the necessary evidence, and arguably the necessary condition, of authentic saving faith, standing in explicit contrast to what we characterize as a popular "faith alone" teaching that we regard as a serious and consequential distortion — one that we hold Satan has used effectively to secure the false assurance of millions who believe themselves saved while remaining in ongoing, comfortable disobedience to Yahweh's actual commandments (see Topic 32).
Topic 32: Do Satan and Demons Exist? Why and What are they?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
Affirms Satan and demons as real, personal, fallen angelic beings who rebelled against God and now tempt humanity toward sin; official teaching affirms their genuine existence and ongoing influence, maintaining a formal rite of exorcism, while cautioning against superstition or excessive preoccupation with demonic activity.
Protestantism
Broadly affirms Satan and demons as real, personal, fallen spiritual beings actively opposing God and tempting or afflicting humanity, though emphasis on demonic activity, spiritual warfare, and deliverance ministry varies considerably — minimal in many mainline traditions, very pronounced in Pentecostal and Charismatic traditions.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Affirms the real existence of Satan and demons as fallen angels, maintaining a strong ascetic and liturgical tradition of spiritual warfare — prayer, fasting, and exorcism rites — central to its spiritual theology.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Shares this affirmation of real fallen angelic beings and maintains its own strong ascetic and liturgical tradition addressing demonic influence.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
The LDS Church teaches that Satan (Lucifer) is a real spirit-son of God the Father who rebelled in a premortal council, leading a following of one-third of the spirits (denied mortal bodies as punishment) who now oppose God's plan. Jehovah's Witnesses likewise affirm Satan as a real, originally perfect angel who rebelled through pride and a desire for worship, leading a following of demonic angels understood as connected to Genesis 6's "sons of God."
The Assyrian Church of the East
Affirms the real existence of Satan and demons as fallen angels, consistent with the broader ancient Christian consensus, integrated into its own ascetic and liturgical tradition.
Judaism
Views vary considerably; in the Tanakh, "ha-satan" generally functions more as an adversarial or accusing role or office (as in Job) than as a singular cosmic evil personal being in the later Christian sense. Classical rabbinic and kabbalistic traditions developed richer demonological figures (such as Lilith and Samael), though without the same centrality or systematic doctrine found in Christianity, and belief in a personal Satan or demons is not uniformly emphasized across Jewish movements today.
The Faithful Remnant View
Yes, we hold Satan and demons to be entirely real, personal beings, not metaphors for human evil or psychological forces. We hold that Satan, originally Lucifer, was the archangel created to lead praise and worship directed toward Yahweh, but rebelled by desiring that worship for himself; along with a following of fallen angels ("demons"), he is now, by Yahweh's own current permission, "the ruler of this age" and "the god of this age" (2 Corinthians 4:4), holding sway over deceived nations and individuals. We hold his central strategy is not crude, obvious evil but sophisticated religious counterfeit: he transforms himself, and his human agents, into convincing "ministers of righteousness" (2 Corinthians 11:13-15), producing genuinely miraculous-seeming "signs and wonders" — healings, ecstatic experiences, and the like — that lead the great majority into comfortable disobedience of Yahweh's actual commandments (particularly the Sabbath, see Topic 19) while sincerely believing themselves faithful and Spirit-led. We hold this deception operates chiefly, though not exclusively, through traditional Christianity itself, as well as through other world religions and secular ideologies, and that Satan is properly understood as the ultimate source and "father" of every false Messiah and false gospel described throughout Scripture. We hold this deception will end only with Satan's binding during the millennium and his final destruction, and we regard clear-eyed recognition of his real, ongoing, and specifically religious activity as essential to avoiding the very deception Scripture warns of most frequently of any single subject.
Topic 33: Has God made mistakes?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
No — God, as perfect and omniscient, cannot make mistakes or err. Scripture's occasional language depicting God as "repenting" or grieving (as over creating mankind before the Flood) is understood as anthropomorphic accommodation to human language, not a literal change of mind or error within God's unchanging nature.
Protestantism
Most traditions hold, consistent with classical theism, that God cannot err or make mistakes, reading Scripture's "repenting" language as anthropomorphic. A minority "open theism" position within some evangelical circles holds God's knowledge of the future is genuinely open in certain respects, allowing for real (not merely apparent) divine responsiveness to human choices, though this remains a minority and often controversial view.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Holds God to be perfect, immutable, and beyond error; scriptural language depicting change or regret in God is read symbolically, describing the changing human relationship to unchanging divine reality rather than literal divine error or reconsideration.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Shares the same classical view of divine immutability and perfection, reading anthropomorphic language of divine "regret" symbolically rather than literally.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
The LDS Church holds a distinctive theology in which God the Father is an exalted, embodied, perfected being; while still generally considered incapable of error, this conception is less bound to classical philosophical immutability than in traditional Christian metaphysics. Jehovah's Witnesses hold Jehovah as perfect and error-free, reading scriptural "regret" language as accommodated to human understanding, similar to the mainstream Protestant and Catholic approach.
The Assyrian Church of the East
Holds the traditional Christian view of divine perfection and immutability, consistent with the broader ancient Christian consensus, reading anthropomorphic language symbolically.
Judaism
Classical rabbinic theology generally holds God as perfect, though the Tanakh's anthropomorphic language of God "repenting" (as over making Saul king, or over mankind's wickedness before the Flood) is taken more directly in some classical Jewish exegesis than in later Christian philosophical theology, understood as genuine, if mysterious, divine responsiveness to human action; other rabbinic and medieval Jewish philosophical (Maimonidean) traditions instead favor a more allegorical reading closer to classical theism.
The Faithful Remnant View
We hold that Yahweh's character and moral perfection are unchanging — "I am Yahweh, I change not" (Malachi 3:6) — and that Yahweh does not make mistakes in the sense of moral error or miscalculation. We hold, however, that Scripture's repeated language of Yahweh "repenting" (as in Genesis 6:6, over the wickedness that developed after He granted both angels and mankind a genuine, uncompelled free will) reflects real divine responsiveness to the actual, sometimes painful results of that granted freedom, rather than error on Yahweh's part. We hold this reflects the authentic, costly risk built into Yahweh's deliberate decision to create beings capable of real moral choice — capable of freely loving and obeying Him — rather than "mindless automatons" incapable of genuine character (see Topic 38). We hold that Yahweh anticipated this risk, having already directly witnessed the consequences of the same free-will choice in the angels' prior rebellion, and that He built a complete redemptive plan — the entire prophetic sweep addressed throughout this page, from the Messiah's sacrifice to the final restoration of all things — to fully and justly resolve the consequences of both angelic and human rebellion, rather than being caught by surprise or forced into damage control. We therefore hold that the "mistakes" evident throughout human history are the responsibility of the free agents, human and angelic, who make them — not of Yahweh, who foresaw the possibility and prepared, from the beginning, a just and complete answer to it.
Topic 34: Explain the Tribulation and the Antichrist.
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
The "Antichrist" is generally understood as a future individual who will oppose Christ and persecute the Church before the Second Coming, arising during or triggering a period of tribulation; Catholic teaching avoids detailed speculative timelines, affirming these events as part of end-times doctrine while holding that only God knows their timing.
Protestantism
Views vary considerably. Dispensationalist and premillennial evangelicals typically hold a detailed sequence: a future seven-year Tribulation (drawn from Daniel's "seventy weeks" prophecy) featuring a singular end-times Antichrist who makes and later breaks a covenant with Israel, often preceded or accompanied by a "rapture" of believers, followed by Christ's visible return to establish a literal thousand-year millennium. Other Protestants (amillennial or preterist) read "Antichrist" and "tribulation" language as substantially fulfilled already in the early centuries of the Church, or as recurring symbolically throughout history, rather than pointing to one future individual and event.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Expects a future individual Antichrist and a final period of tribulation and apostasy before Christ's Second Coming, generally without a developed pre-tribulation "rapture" doctrine, and typically without a literal future millennium.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Holds a similar expectation of a future Antichrist and tribulation period preceding Christ's Second Coming, consistent with the shared ancient patristic eschatology.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
The LDS Church expects a future tribulation period and various last-days calamities preceding the Second Coming and Millennium, generally without a single systematically developed "Antichrist" figure central to its theology. Jehovah's Witnesses teach that the "great tribulation" is a still-future, climactic period, following the symbolic destruction of "Babylon the Great" (false religion), culminating in the war of Armageddon, and identify "antichrist" not with one individual but broadly with any who deny Christ, particularly false religious leadership collectively.
The Assyrian Church of the East
Holds the traditional ancient Christian expectation of a future Antichrist and tribulation preceding Christ's Second Coming, without significant distinct modern development.
Judaism
Has no "Antichrist" concept, this being a specifically Christian category; Jewish eschatology includes its own concept of a difficult period preceding the messianic age, sometimes called "the birth pangs of the Messiah," along with an opposing power (associated with Gog and Magog) to be defeated at the Messiah's coming.
The Faithful Remnant View
We hold the Tribulation to be a definite, still-future seven-year period, tied to Daniel's "seventy weeks" prophecy, marked by the rise to power of the "Beast" (the revived Roman Empire, see Topic 20) and an escalating sequence of seals, trumpets, and plagues (see Topic 24), including the martyrdom of the faithful, which we regard as a privileged, guaranteed path to immediate resurrection rather than a fate to fear, and a ministry of "two witnesses" who confirm the Messiah's New Covenant testimony over a final three-and-a-half years before being martyred and then resurrected themselves. We hold that "the Antichrist" is best understood not as a single future human individual to be watched for, but as the combined institutional system of the Beast (corrupt political power) together with the "image of the beast" and "false prophet" (the corrupted, institutionalized church system, "Babylon the Great," see Topic 29) — a counterfeit of Christ's true government that has, in our reading, operated throughout the church age and will reach a climactic final expression in the last days. We hold the Tribulation is specifically directed as corrective national judgment against the modern, apostate nations descended from Ephraim and Manasseh (see Topic 21) for their disobedience, rather than indiscriminate global catastrophe, and that it will be followed immediately by the "Day of Yahweh" — the seven last plagues — and then by the Messiah's visible return to establish His millennial Kingdom government on earth.
Topic 35: Does Purgatory or an Intermediary State Exist?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
Affirms Purgatory as a defined dogma: a temporary state or process of purification for those who die in God's grace but still bear the temporal consequences of forgiven sin, before entering the full glory of heaven, traditionally supported by prayers and indulgences offered on behalf of the dead.
Protestantism
Virtually all Protestant traditions reject Purgatory as unbiblical, a sharp point of division from Catholicism since the Reformation, holding instead either immediate entrance into Christ's presence at death (the majority view) or unconscious "soul sleep" until the resurrection (a minority view in some traditions) — with no intermediate purifying process required, since Christ's atonement is held to fully and immediately cover all remaining sin.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Rejects the specific Catholic doctrine of Purgatory as formally defined, but holds a related, less systematically dogmatic concept of an intermediate state involving continued growth of the soul toward theosis after death, sometimes described through "toll house" imagery in some Orthodox circles, aided by the prayers of the living before final judgment.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Generally does not hold the specific Catholic Purgatory doctrine, but shares a related concept of an intermediate state with ongoing prayers offered for the dead, consistent with ancient liturgical tradition.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
The LDS Church holds a distinctive intermediate "spirit world" (divided into spirit paradise and spirit prison) where continued teaching, repentance, and vicarious ordinances (including baptism for the dead performed by living members in temples) can lead to further progression — functioning in some ways analogously to Purgatory, though theologically distinct. Jehovah's Witnesses reject any intermediate state or Purgatory entirely, holding the dead to be simply unconscious until resurrection.
The Assyrian Church of the East
Does not hold the specific Catholic Purgatory doctrine, but like other Eastern churches holds an intermediate state with prayers offered for the dead, consistent with ancient liturgical tradition.
Judaism
Has no direct equivalent to Purgatory, though the rabbinic concept of Gehinnom as a temporary (traditionally up to twelve months) purifying process for the soul after death is sometimes compared to it; the Kaddish prayer is traditionally recited for eleven months following a parent's death partly in connection with this idea.
The Faithful Remnant View
We reject Purgatory, and any conscious intermediate state, entirely. Consistent with our understanding of death as complete unconsciousness (see Topics 9 and 16), we hold the dead experience no purification process, no "toll houses," no conscious waiting of any kind, and no passage of subjective time between death and resurrection. We hold that Purgatory, like the doctrines of an immediately conscious heaven or hell (see Topics 9, 16, and 27), depends entirely on the premise that man possesses an inherently immortal soul that survives death in a conscious state — a premise we reject outright (see Topic 11). We hold that whatever genuine spiritual "purification" a person requires occurs either during this present mortal lifetime, through the lifelong process of growth and overcoming described under Topic 30, or, for the great majority who never had a fair opportunity to know Yahweh, during the future judgment period following the second resurrection (see Topics 17 and 37), when they will for the first time be given a genuine opportunity to learn the truth and respond to it. There is, in our reading, no purgative "third state" between death and resurrection at all — death is simply sleep, and the next event any person experiences, from their own perspective, is one of the two appointed resurrections.
Topic 36: What is the Trinity?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
Formally defines the Trinity as one God existing eternally in three distinct, co-equal, co-eternal Persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) sharing one identical divine essence, articulated at the Councils of Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381) and further developed through the Athanasian Creed and the Western "Filioque" clause (the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son); considered the central mystery of the Christian faith.
Protestantism
Virtually all mainstream Protestant traditions affirm the same Nicene Trinitarian formula as Catholicism, regarding it as essential, historic Christian orthodoxy rather than a distinctively Catholic doctrine, generally retaining the Western Filioque clause as well.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Affirms the Trinity — one Godhead in three hypostases, or persons — per the Nicene Creed, but rejects the Western Filioque addition, holding the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, a historic point of division between Eastern and Western Christianity.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Affirms Trinitarian doctrine broadly consistent with the Nicene formulation accepted at the councils it recognizes (through Ephesus, 431), its historic separation from Eastern Orthodoxy concerning Christ's nature rather than the Trinity itself.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
The LDS Church explicitly rejects the traditional Nicene Trinity, teaching instead that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three distinct, separate divine beings united in purpose (a "Godhead") rather than one metaphysical substance, with the Father and Son possessing distinct, glorified physical bodies. Jehovah's Witnesses likewise explicitly reject the Trinity, teaching that Jehovah God the Father alone is Almighty God, that Jesus is God's first and greatest created being (not co-eternal or of the same substance as the Father), and that the Holy Spirit is God's impersonal active force rather than a distinct person.
The Assyrian Church of the East
Affirms the Trinity as defined at Nicaea and Constantinople, the councils it accepts, while its historic Christological emphasis on Christ's two distinct natures relates specifically to the second Person of the Trinity rather than involving any rejection of Trinitarian doctrine itself.
Judaism
Firmly rejects the Trinity as incompatible with the absolute, indivisible oneness of God expressed in the Shema ("Hear, O Israel: Yahweh is our God, Yahweh is one," Deuteronomy 6:4), regarding any multi-personal conception of God as a departure from monotheism.
The Faithful Remnant View
We reject the Trinity as a later ecclesiastical formulation without genuine basis in the original inspired text. We hold, as discussed under Topic 26, that a key proof-text long cited for the doctrine — 1 John 5:7-8, the so-called "Comma Johanneum" — was a fourth-century scribal insertion, absent from the earliest manuscripts, added specifically to support Trinitarian doctrine rather than part of the original apostolic writing. We hold that Yahweh the Father alone is the one supreme God; that the Messiah, Yah'shua, is Yahweh's literal, begotten Son, pre-existent as the divine "Word" but distinct from, and submissive to, the Father — citing Yah'shua's own statement, "My Father is greater than I" (John 14:28) — rather than co-equal or co-eternal with Him in the Nicene sense; and that the Holy Spirit is Yahweh's own active power and presence extended into the world and into believers, not a separate, distinct divine "person" alongside the Father and Son. We hold this three-into-one formulation, developed and formally imposed centuries after the apostles at councils convened under imperial Roman political authority (beginning at Nicaea, 325 A.D.), represents precisely the kind of institutional doctrinal development, disconnected from original apostolic teaching, that this page identifies repeatedly across other topics (see also Topics 4 and 26).
Topic 37: Will those ignorant of God and/or Christianity have an opportunity to be Saved?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
Holds that those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ or His Church but sincerely seek God and follow their conscience can be saved through the grace of Christ even without explicit, formal faith (sometimes discussed under the principle of invincible ignorance), though the Church remains the ordinary and fullest means of salvation.
Protestantism
Views vary. Exclusivist positions, common in much of evangelicalism, hold that explicit, conscious faith in Christ during this life is required for salvation, leaving those who never hear the Gospel without salvation, though some hold God judges based on the light a person actually had (natural revelation, per Romans 1-2); inclusivist and universalist minority positions within Protestantism instead hold a wider hope for those who never heard, grounded in God's justice and mercy.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Generally holds a hopeful, though not systematically defined, position that God's judgment of those outside the visible Church is merciful and accounts for genuine ignorance, entrusting the ultimate outcome to God's love and justice rather than to a fixed doctrinal formula.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Holds a similarly open, non-systematized trust in God's just and merciful judgment of those who never received the Gospel, consistent with the broader ancient Christian pattern.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
The LDS Church holds a highly developed doctrine of salvation for the dead: those who die without opportunity to accept the LDS gospel can have it preached to them in the postmortem spirit world and can receive essential ordinances, including baptism, performed vicariously on their behalf by living members in temples. Jehovah's Witnesses hold that the unfaithful dead (excepting those individually judged unworthy at Armageddon) will be resurrected during Christ's millennial reign specifically to receive their first genuine opportunity to learn and accept the truth.
The Assyrian Church of the East
Holds the traditional Christian trust in God's just and merciful judgment for those who never received the Gospel, without a specific systematized doctrine addressing the question.
Judaism
Does not require adherence to Judaism for a share in the World to Come; classical rabbinic doctrine holds that righteous Gentiles who observe the seven universal "Noahide laws" have a share in Olam Haba, representing Judaism's own long-standing answer to the question of those outside the covenant community.
The Faithful Remnant View
Yes, decisively — we hold this question is answered specifically by the doctrine of the second resurrection, the "Great White Throne" judgment of Revelation 20:11-15 (see Topic 17), which we understand as providing every person who ever lived without a genuine, fair opportunity to know Yahweh and the Messiah — the overwhelming majority of humanity throughout history, including those born before the Messiah's first coming, those in regions the Gospel never reached, and those who only ever encountered corrupted or misrepresented versions of Christianity — a first real, uncoerced chance to learn the truth and respond to it, resurrected specifically for that purpose one thousand years after the first resurrection of the faithful Elect. We regard this teaching as resolving what we see as a serious and consequential problem in much mainstream Christian theology: the implication that billions of people are eternally condemned for failing to accept a message they never had a genuine, fair chance to hear or evaluate. We hold that those who reject Yahweh's offer even after this fair opportunity face the "second death" — final annihilation, not eternal torment (see Topic 9) — while those who respond receive full salvation into Yahweh's family, joining, though in a distinct capacity from, the "firstfruits" Elect raised at the first resurrection.
Topic 38: Why does God allow Violence and Suffering?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
Holds that suffering entered the world through the Fall and humanity's misuse of free will; God permits evil and suffering to preserve authentic human freedom and can bring greater good out of suffering (redemptive suffering, united with Christ's own), with the ultimate resolution coming in the new heavens and new earth when suffering will end entirely.
Protestantism
Broadly similar — the Fall introduced sin, death, and suffering into a good creation; most traditions hold God permits suffering out of respect for human free will, while more Reformed and Calvinist traditions emphasize God's sovereignty even over suffering for His ultimately good, if mysterious, purposes. Suffering may be used for spiritual growth, discipline, or witness, with final resolution at Christ's return.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Attributes suffering to humanity's fall and the resulting corruption and mortality introduced into creation, with God's respect for human freedom (synergy) central to the explanation, and suffering possessing potential redemptive, purifying value on the path toward theosis when united with Christ's own suffering.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Shares a similar theological framework, attributing suffering to the Fall and human free will, with redemptive potential when suffering is united with Christ's own.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
The LDS Church holds that mortal life, including its suffering and adversity, is a divinely designed "second estate" testing ground, essential and purposeful for spiritual growth and the development of agency-based character, part of God's plan of happiness rather than a flaw to merely be endured. Jehovah's Witnesses hold suffering results from Satan's rulership of this world (following humanity's original rebellion) and human imperfection, permitted temporarily by God to settle the "issue of universal sovereignty" definitively before He intervenes to end it entirely at Armageddon.
The Assyrian Church of the East
Holds the traditional Christian view attributing suffering to the Fall and human free will, consistent with the broader ancient Christian consensus, with redemptive potential through union with Christ's suffering.
Judaism
Offers diverse perspectives without one single settled doctrine — suffering is variously explained as a consequence of sin, a test of faith (as in Job, where God's ways are ultimately held to exceed human understanding), a means of moral refinement, or a mystery to be endured in covenant faithfulness, with ultimate justice and comfort expected in the messianic age and Olam Haba.
The Faithful Remnant View
We hold that suffering originates from the free-will choice Yahweh gave both angels and mankind to determine right and wrong for themselves rather than accepting His own definition — symbolized by Adam and Eve's choice of the forbidden tree. We hold Yahweh does not desire human suffering and is not to be blamed for the greed, hypocrisy, dishonesty, corruption, and false religion that humanity's own wrong choices have produced; rather, Yahweh is responsible for the resulting discipline — the natural, built-in consequences of wrong choices ("we reap what we sow") — through which mankind learns, by hard and often bitter experience, the real and lasting difference between Yahweh's ways and humanly-devised alternatives. We hold Yahweh deliberately withholds intervention, "keeping hands off" to allow this learning process to run its full course, specifically until humanity's continued sin would otherwise bring about total self-destruction (Matthew 24:22) — at which precise point the Messiah returns to end human self-rule and establish Yahweh's Kingdom government, inaugurating a thousand years of peace, health, and prosperity in which "nation shall not lift up sword against nation" (Micah 4:3). We hold this entire, sometimes painful process serves the ultimate purpose of producing genuine sons and daughters of Yahweh who have freely chosen righteousness, having learned experientially the true cost of rejecting it — rather than "mindless automatons" incapable of authentic love, character, or moral choice.
Topic 39: Are Christians or Jews or both God's Chosen People?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
Holds that the Jewish people remain, in a real sense, God's chosen people under an irrevocable covenant (per Romans 11:29 and modern Catholic teaching, especially since the Second Vatican Council's Nostra Aetate), while also holding that the Church — comprising both Jewish and Gentile believers in Christ — constitutes the "People of God" in the fullest, universal sense inaugurated by the New Covenant; both senses are affirmed together in contemporary Catholic theology.
Protestantism
Views vary substantially. "Supersessionist" positions, historically common and still held in some traditions, hold the Church has succeeded and fulfilled Israel's role as God's chosen people; "dispensationalist" evangelical positions instead maintain a distinct, ongoing future role and chosen status for ethnic and national Israel alongside a separately chosen Church; a range of intermediate positions also exist across Protestantism.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Generally holds the Church (the "New Israel," comprising all baptized into Christ regardless of ethnicity) as the present chosen people in continuity with, and fulfillment of, ancient Israel's calling, without a developed separate doctrine regarding modern ethnic Jewish chosen-ness.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Holds a similar view of the Church as the New Israel and chosen people in Christ, consistent with the broader ancient Christian pattern.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
The LDS Church holds a distinctive doctrine that "Israel" today is constituted by covenant (through baptism and an identified patriarchal lineage) rather than by physical descent alone, with the LDS Church itself understood as the modern gathering point of covenant Israel. Jehovah's Witnesses hold that "spiritual Israel" (the 144,000 anointed) has succeeded and superseded ethnic and national Israel as God's chosen people under the New Covenant.
The Assyrian Church of the East
Generally holds the Church as the New Israel and chosen people in Christ, consistent with the broader ancient Christian consensus.
Judaism
Holds the Jewish people to be God's chosen people through the unconditional, everlasting covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, understood as a distinctive covenantal responsibility and mission rather than a claim of exclusive access to divine favor, with righteous non-Jews fully able to attain a share in the World to Come (see Topic 37).
The Faithful Remnant View
We draw a sharp distinction between "Israelites" — a covenant people defined by descent from Jacob (Israel) through all thirteen tribes, including the "Lost Ten Tribes" we identify with the modern nations of Ephraim and Manasseh (see Topic 21) — and "Jews," a narrower term we hold, based on our sourced historical and etymological research, refers most precisely to the tribe of Judah together with an admixture of other peoples historically settled among them, and to practitioners of Judaism, a later religious development we hold to be historically and doctrinally distinct from the "Hebrewism" of the Old Covenant (a distinction we note a former Chief Rabbi of the United States himself drew, contrasting the religion of the Old Covenant with the later Babylonian-Talmud-based Judaism that emerged after the Babylonian captivity). We hold that "chosen-ness," in its fullest sense, belongs to the "Israel of Yahweh" (Galatians 6:16) — all thirteen tribes, and by adoption, anyone who responds in genuine faith and obedience under the New Covenant — rather than to the ethnic and religious group known today as "Jews" specifically, or exclusively to "Christians" as commonly understood, since we hold most institutional Christianity has similarly departed from Yahweh's actual commandments (see Topics 19, 20, 26, 29, and 36). We hold, per Hosea's warning (see Topic 21), that this chosen status carries primarily responsibility and accountability rather than favoritism, with the modern descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh specifically facing heightened, not lessened, judgment for their disobedience precisely because of their unique calling. We hold all people not currently part of this chosen line retain a fair future opportunity for full inclusion into Yahweh's family through the second resurrection (see Topic 37), so that "chosen-ness" in this present age is a matter of current calling and responsibility, not a final verdict on any individual's ultimate salvation.
Topic 40: What is the Purpose of the Lord's Prayer?
The Seven Traditions
Catholicism
The Lord's Prayer (the Pater Noster) is regarded as the perfect, model prayer taught directly by Christ; it is recited verbatim as a central fixed liturgical prayer in the Mass and daily devotional life, treated as complete in itself and encompassing the full scope of proper petition.
Protestantism
Widely used both as a fixed corporate prayer recited verbatim in liturgical traditions (Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist) and, in evangelical and low-church traditions, primarily as a model or pattern for personal prayer structure — covering adoration, submission to God's will, provision, forgiveness, and protection — rather than a fixed formula to be repeated by rote.
Eastern Orthodoxy
Recited as a central, fixed prayer in the Divine Liturgy and daily prayer rule, understood as the model prayer given by Christ, encompassing the Church's basic petitions in compact form.
Oriental Orthodoxy
Similarly incorporates the Lord's Prayer as a central, fixed liturgical prayer, consistent with shared ancient liturgical tradition.
Nontrinitarian Restorationism
The LDS Church regards the Lord's Prayer as an important model of prayer taught by Christ but does not use it as a fixed liturgical recitation in the way many other Christian traditions do, generally favoring personal, extemporaneous prayer following its pattern. Jehovah's Witnesses similarly treat it primarily as a model outline for the content and spirit of prayer rather than a formula for repetitive recitation, which they explicitly discourage as "vain repetition" (Matthew 6:7).
The Assyrian Church of the East
Recites the Lord's Prayer as a central, fixed prayer within its ancient liturgical tradition, understood as the model prayer given directly by Christ.
Judaism
Has no direct equivalent, as the Lord's Prayer is a distinctly Christian text, though its content and structure draw recognizably on existing Jewish prayer forms and themes — praise of God's name, petition for God's kingdom, request for daily bread, forgiveness, and deliverance from evil — similar to those found in the Kaddish and other traditional Jewish prayers of the Second Temple period.
The Faithful Remnant View
We hold, based on Yah'shua's own introduction of it — "in this manner, therefore, pray" (Matthew 6:9) and "when ye pray, say..." (Luke 11:2) — that the Lord's Prayer was given specifically as a teaching outline or pattern for the proper content and priorities of prayer, not as a fixed liturgical formula meant to be recited verbatim or repetitively; we note that Yah'shua Himself, in giving these words to His disciples, was not Himself praying but instructing them on how to structure their own. We hold the prayer's specific content establishes a correct order of priority for petition: first, reverence for Yahweh's name; second, genuine longing for the actual, future arrival of Yahweh's Kingdom government on earth (see Topics 27 and 31); third, submission to Yahweh's will; and only after these, practical requests for daily provision, forgiveness (explicitly conditioned on our own forgiving of others), and protection from temptation and evil. We hold that genuine, effective prayer more broadly must be heartfelt, persistent, and offered by someone in an actual, obedient relationship with Yahweh — "if our heart does not condemn us... whatever we ask we receive... because we keep His commandments" (1 John 3:21-22) — rather than a matter of ritual repetition, and that the Lord's Prayer's ultimate purpose is to train believers in Yahweh's actual priorities, above all the coming of His Kingdom, rather than to function as a magical or liturgically sufficient formula in itself.
The Seven Christian and Jewish Religious Groups
Seven traditions, in their own words: what each one actually teaches about authority, God, Jesus, and practice. A teaching’s age or the size of its following is not evidence of its truth — a claim held by one person and a claim held by two billion people stand or fall on the same footing, decided by what the evidence and the source material actually show, not by how many people already accept it. What follows is offered for that kind of examination.
Part 1: The Seven Groups
1. Catholicism
The largest single body in Christianity, representing roughly half of all Christians worldwide. It is centralized under the Pope in Rome, whose authority extends over the Latin (Roman Catholic) Church — its primary and by far largest body — as well as a number of Eastern Catholic Churches, such as the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and the Maronite Church, which keep their own distinct liturgies and traditions while remaining in full communion with Rome. Catholic teaching holds that truth comes from Scripture and from Sacred Tradition together, interpreted through the Church’s teaching authority, and its worship centers on the Mass and the seven sacraments, above all the Eucharist.
2. Protestantism
Protestantism accounts for over one-third of the global Christian population and traces its origin to the 16th-century Reformation, when reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin broke from Catholic authority over questions of Scripture, salvation, and church governance. Its unifying principle is Sola Scriptura — the Bible alone as the final authority, without an equal partner in church tradition — but that single starting point has produced an unusually wide range of denominations under one label: Pentecostal and Charismatic churches (the largest and fastest-growing stream), Anglicans, Baptists, Lutherans, the Reformed and Presbyterian tradition, Methodists, Adventists, Anabaptists, and a large and growing body of independent, non-denominational congregations. What holds them together is less a shared structure than a shared instinct: that Scripture, read directly, outranks any human institution’s claim to interpret it.
3. Eastern Orthodoxy
Eastern Orthodoxy split from the Western, Rome-centered church in the Great Schism of 1054, a rupture that had been building for centuries over questions of papal authority, doctrine, and liturgical practice. Rather than a single global leader, it is governed by a communion of self-governing (autocephalous) regional churches — the Greek, Russian, Serbian, and Romanian Orthodox Churches among them — each led by its own patriarch but recognized as equal in standing to the others. Orthodox worship is built around the Divine Liturgy, richly layered with incense, chant, and iconography, and its theology places particular weight on theosis: the lifelong process of a believer becoming more fully united with God.
4. Oriental Orthodoxy
Oriental Orthodoxy separated from the rest of Christianity in 451 AD, at the Council of Chalcedon, over a dispute concerning the precise nature of Christ. It comprises several ancient national churches — the Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Armenian Apostolic Church, and others — each led by its own patriarch (the Coptic Pope among them) over an autocephalous body, much like Eastern Orthodoxy’s structure but historically and theologically distinct from it. Its defining doctrine is Miaphysite Christology: the belief that Christ’s divine and human natures are united into a single, unified nature, rather than existing as two distinct natures joined in one person, as the wider Christian world would go on to affirm.
5. Nontrinitarian Restorationism
This category gathers movements that set out to restore what they regard as the "original, pure" form of Christianity, but which arrived at theologies markedly different from historic Christian orthodoxy in the process. The largest is the Latter Day Saint movement, chiefly represented by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which holds the Book of Mormon alongside the Bible as scripture and organizes itself around a modern prophetic leadership. Jehovah’s Witnesses form a separate and doctrinally distinct restorationist body, known for door-to-door evangelism and a distinctive reading of biblical prophecy. The two groups differ substantially from each other in structure, scripture, and practice; what they share is a rejection of the historic doctrine of the Trinity that every other Christian branch discussed here affirms in some form.
6. The Assyrian Church of the East
Sometimes labeled "Nestorian" by outside historians — a label the Church itself firmly rejects as a mischaracterization of its own teaching — this ancient church separated from the rest of Christianity in 431 AD at the Council of Ephesus. Smaller today than the other branches surveyed here, but historically significant far beyond its size, it remains concentrated in the Middle East and in diaspora communities scattered by centuries of displacement. It worships according to the ancient, non-iconographic East Syriac rite, affirms Christ’s divine and human natures as united and inseparable rather than divided (contrary to how its critics have long described it), and is governed by its own independent Patriarch, called the Catholicos.
7. Judaism
Judaism is a monotheistic tradition rooted in the Torah, the wider Hebrew Bible, and centuries of rabbinic interpretation and legal reasoning, and Jewish identity carries both a religious and an ethnocultural dimension that sets it apart from the Christian branches discussed above. It divides into several major movements according to how binding its religious law is held to be: Orthodox Judaism, the most traditional, regards the Torah and Jewish law (Halakha) as divine, binding, and unchangeable; Conservative Judaism occupies a middle ground, treating that law as binding in principle while open to gradual adaptation; Reform Judaism, the most liberal of the major branches, emphasizes personal ethics and autonomy over strict ritual observance; and Reconstructionist Judaism reframes Judaism itself as an evolving religious civilization rather than a fixed body of law and doctrine.
Part 2: Side-by-Side Comparison
All seven groups, on the same four questions: