Why this site? Why not write about your own beliefs instead?

Occasionally, INC members ask me why I have this site to discuss their beliefs. Sometimes they suggest that I should respect their religion or write about my own beliefs. Are such suggestions reasonable? In a way they are. In a way, they aren't.

One can understand the frustration some INC members feel in seeing a site so targeted at their beliefs, so let me please respond to these questions and suggestions.

I am writing about my own beliefs.

To those who tell me I should instead make a page about my own beliefs: I am. This is a page about my own beliefs. For every doctrine or verse I analyze, I explain my own beliefs. There is nothing I am trying to hide.

I am respecting the INC.

What I am doing is very, very respectful of the INC. To ignore the issue of our differences would not be respect, but apathy. I am not apathetic about our differences.

Additionally, my approach is very respectful. Look at many of the sites that disagree with the INC. How many of the authors of those sites attended the Bible Studies for months in order to better understand? Not many do, but that is what I have done because I respect INC members enough to do my best not to misrepresent their beliefs.

Listen to many of those who speak against the INC. They spread rumors about church members not being allowed to read their Bibles or about the INC believing that the church buildings will ascend into heaven at the rapture. On the other hand, I have spent a lot of time asking multiple INC ministers if these things are true, so that I would not ever spread such untrue rumors.

These questions and suggestions imply a double standard.

The INC regularly attacks the beliefs of other groups. Much of their material contrasts the INC with Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. It's not fair to say that the INC is being respectful when they do this, but others are not when they do likewise.

Jesus commanded us to spread the gospel to all people.

As Jesus told the disciples, we are to proclaim the gospel to all people.

Mark 16:15 (ESV) - 15 And he said to them, "Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.

INC members wish that I would cease to proclaim this gospel to them. I cannot stop, because I am commanded to preach the gospel to all people, even if others don't want me to preach that gospel.

I love INC members.

The reason I have made this site is because I love INC members and the Filipino people at large. I do not want all INC members to perish without ever hearing the truth about Jesus Christ, and his gospel; that we do not receive salvation through church membership, but directly through faith in Christ.

Soli Deo Gloria,
~Conley