This is Christianity as laid out in the Bible. What the Bible says is truth. It is the tool God left us by which we can know Him and by which we measure the truth of anything we encounter. Please see The Bible. I cannot change the truth of what the Bible says, nor will I speak against any church or denomination except where I see a conflict with Scripture. Where any church departs from it, to that extent have they departed from the truth. You need to read the Bible and decide for yourself how each denomination measures up to it. Pray for wisdom, and God will grant it to you. Seek Him out, and He will find you. Don’t let any human (including me) try and force you to believe anything about God that they can’t prove by way of the Scripture, which is His Word.
What you have to believe as a Christian:
-The inerrancy of the Bible. Please see The Bible.
-Christianity as expressed in the Nicene Creed or Apostles Creed. All Trinitarian Christians (who believe that God is three and one at the same time) accept this view of Christianity. This includes the Catholic Church and most protestant denominations. Any denomination that doesn’t hold to these creeds should be approached with great caution, as the creeds are entirely based on commonly accepted Scripture, and contain the fundamental underpinnings of Christian faith. Please see The Creeds.
-That sin = death. A good case can be made that all sin is the same, which is to say that it is rebellion against God’s will. “The wages of sin is death.” If you sin, you die. The Old Testament sacrificial system was a means of providing that death to pay the penalty for sin. This sacrificial system was made obsolete with the once-and-for-all sacrifice on the cross. Please see What is sin and Salvation.
-That God is holy and hates sin. God is sometimes viewed as a kindly old man in heaven, watching benignly and overlooking rebellion and sin. He is not. God is just, honest, honorable, morally inflexible and hates sin. If you don’t take refuge in the blood of Jesus, you will be condemned to hell for eternity. Period. God is entirely self-consistent, and will never waver. This is why He provided a way for us to be saved. He literally killed His son to pay the debt rather than act against His nature. Please see Who is God and Salvation.
-That Jesus’ substitutionary sacrifice was complete and sufficient. Paul makes an eloquent argument for this in Romans. I suggest you read this. This is significant because if His sacrifice is complete and significant, there is nothing you can add to it, and nothing more is necessary for salvation. He either paid the whole price or He didn’t. This is one of the primary doctrines on which Catholics and Protestants part ways. This difference is based on a false New Testament canon and Papal decrees, and not true Scripture. The doctrine of confession and penance didn’t come into being until about the 10th or 11th centuries AD, and seems to have been a power play on the part of the church. Read it for yourself and decide. Please see Salvation.
-That Hell is a real place, and is the consequence of sin. Please see Death, Heaven and Hell.
-That you have to do what the Bible says. This is addressed by Paul in Romans. Throughout the epistles, the apostles use the language of slavery in describing man in relation to God. It is usually softened to “servant” in translation, but is a key element in understanding how we are to relate to God. We are described as “bought with a price.” If God owns us, as a man owns a slave, or is the King, to whom all humans owe obedience, then we have a duty to obey. This is not an option, nor something that only the “best” Christians do. This is what all Christians are supposed to do. There is a heresy rampant in Christianity today that you can live as you like and confess and be forgiven on Sunday. This is commonly known as cheap grace, and is addressed in several places in the New Testament.
Hebrews 10:26
“For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the enemies of God.”
The parable of the sower and the seed addresses the need for living out the Christian life, lest the Spirit of God within us be neglected and die. The “big issues” today of lifestyle and personal choice fall squarely into this category. Read what the Bible says, and do it. It isn’t that people don’t know what it says, they just don’t want to do it. Then they come up with all sorts of rationalizations for ignoring what God has told them to do, and why He will excuse them for not doing it. A thing is either right or wrong. There is no middle ground. Do what you will, but ignore God at your own peril. Ideally, you do what God says because you love Him and want to please Him, not out of fear of punishment. The rules are there to show you what a rightly-lived life is supposed to look like.
What you don’t have to believe:
-Any human interpretation of the Bible or its teachings. No human is perfect or can be perfect. Only God knows the truth of it all.
-Any particular understanding of creation. God created everything. He didn’t tell us how He did it. It could have been special creation, evolution or some combination of the two. The important thing to remember is that He did it, and remains in charge of it.
-Any particular interpretation or understanding of the end of the world. It’s a mystery, written as a mystery. It’s OK for it to remain a mystery.
-Any concept of predestination versus foreknowledge. Only God knows who can or will be saved. All we can know is that we have to treat everybody as if they can be saved. Everything else is a waste of time.
-The role of angels. There are several kinds of angels, all of which are messengers or servants of God. Their names, what functions they serve and so on are somewhat murky, based on which Scriptural canon you accept. Their role is interesting but not essential to salvation.
“Optional” denominational beliefs (in no particular order):
-The style or form of baptism. Baptism comes from the Greek baptizo, which simply means to wash or cleanse, like you wash your clothes or wash in the shower. The baptisms in the Bible used water, in a river, and followed a profession of faith (believe and be baptized). There is no Biblical description of how much water is required or how far under you have to go. Some allow for infant baptism, some do not. Either view can be supported by Scripture. Please see The Sacraments.
-The amount or form of your direct access to God. In this, the Bible is pretty straightforward, but people still seem to be somewhat confused about it. Jesus told us to speak directly to the Father. Jesus said that we can call the Father “Abba.” This is an Aramaic word which means “Dad” or “Daddy” in its most intimate usage, but has overtones of great respect – think “Daddy Sir”. Clearly, He was saying that we humans can go directly to the Father with any comment, request or complaint. There is nobody between us and God. We also have a duty to praise and worship Him. “Praise” means reaffirming His power and majesty through song and prayer. “Worship” means dedicating your whole life to Him. It means giving to others and the church, and following His commands. The Israelite structure required the priests and the high priest to act as a go-between or intermediary between man and God. We no longer need that. Priests in the early church were called pastors. A pastor is one who keeps sheep from straying and guides them. Early church pastors led the people in understanding what Jesus said, and chastised them when they departed from the Word, but were not necessary for salvation, nor did they come between men and God. The first-century church accepted the doctrine that Jesus had bridged that gap permanently. Going through a priest or saint is unnecessary, but not catastrophic. If you choose to go through a priest rather than go directly to God, you are making your life more complicated than is necessary, but it won’t impact your salvation, all other things being equal. It does, however indicate a lack of trust in what Jesus said that you should seriously consider.
-Asking dead people for help. Catholic doctrine indicates that you can ask people who have died for help (the saints). This may be help with something on earth or access to God. They say that you can do this because the people are not truly dead, but are alive in heaven, and you can ask them for help like you ask your neighbor for help. The Protestant view on this is that it is Biblically unfounded. Read the story of Saul in the Old Testament, where he got into trouble for summoning up the spirit of Samuel to ask him for help (1 Samuel 28). See also the story Jesus told in Luke 16:19-31. Jesus made it very clear that we should go straight to God with all of our issues.
-Mary. This directly relates to what you accept as Scripture. The Protestant New Testament canon includes very little about Mary, other than the accounts in the gospels of her conception and birth of Jesus, the wedding at Cana and a few other incidents. The Catholic New Testament canon includes much more about her. The nature of that content leads to different conclusions about who she was and how she should be treated. Please see The Bible. Conventional Protestant teaching is that she was a normal human woman, descended from King David, specially touched by God, giving birth to Jesus. She and Joseph had other children, and seem to have led a normal life. She was not venerated or revered in the early church until the First Council at Ephesus in AD 431, when the council declared her to be the Mother of God. This statement was designed to fight the Nestorian heresy concerning the God-man nature of Christ, the unintended consequence of which was the near-deification of Mary. Please see Nestorians in Classical Heresies. This is the history. You should read the Scripture and decide for yourself.
Deciding how you want to relate to God is a very significant issue. It actually should come before you decide which denomination you follow. The New Testament describes a relationship with God, and how that plays out in your life. The denomination you choose to follow should reflect your view of God, and should be based on their stance regarding Scripture. If they are willing to compromise the message for political correctness, or because they think that they know better than the God who wrote it, you probably ought to move along. When you find a church, continually question whether what they are saying is correct, and be willing to move along if they depart from Biblical truth.