Can You Be Sure Your Religion Is Right?
RELIGION has had a tremendous impact on people’s lives, often influencing their conduct and their entire outlook on life. Truly, then, there is good reason to be sure about one’s religion.
Today, however, a growing number of people are having doubts about what their church is doing. In fact, some voice open disagreement. The editor of The American Church News, for example, decried the fact that the Episcopal Church, for claimed financial reasons, is unable to fulfill “the one and only task with which Jesus charged His Church”—evangelism. He listed a number of projects that were being financed by his denomination and then added, “but there is no money for evangelism. . . . We do not put first things first. We leave them out altogether.”
Others, while perhaps not expressing such open disagreement, are, nevertheless, very confused by what is being done in their church. A Jesuit weekly declared that many Catholics today “flounder” because of the changes in their church.
Are you also disturbed because beliefs you have long cherished are being cast aside by your church? Do you find it disturbing that more and more clergymen speak approvingly of premarital sex relations, of adultery and of homosexuality?
Many who have been disturbed by what they have seen in their churches have simply left them. A considerable number of these people still believe in God. To them there is overwhelming evidence that he exists. But they do not feel that the churches of Christendom are properly representing God. Still others continue supporting their church even though they may not be in full harmony with it.
In view of this, it might be asked, Does God approve of the doctrines and practices of these churches?
Many sincere persons, after making a careful investigation of the available evidence, have come to the conclusion that the Bible is a sound basis for judging religion.—2 Tim. 3:16, 17.
We invite you to undertake a comparison of what the Bible contains with what is being taught in the churches of Christendom. Many who have done this have been amazed to find that the very things that offended them in the churches of Christendom were not taught in the Holy Scriptures. What they learned from a serious consideration of God’s Word enabled them to identify the true religion.