What We Believe…
Orthodox Christians may hold varying opinions on secondary or peripheral doctrine. Within the Church of God there is no insistence that everyone conform their ideas on minute points. Allowing people with honest hearts and minds to search the Scriptures can lead, with the Holy Spirit's help, to an amazing unity.
Experience has shown that formation of the historic creeds of the church served a purpose in identifying orthodoxy from heresy. Experience has also shown that creed formation has sometimes emphasized divisions between Christians when it was not necessary.
For this reason, in the interest of unity, the Church of God Movement has shied away from the drafting of an official statement of beliefs. The Church of God Reformation Movement (Anderson, IN) has preferred to confine itself to the divinely-inspired Bible, treating our own interpretation of it with humility and those of others who differ with charity.
The Church of God is rooted in the Wesleyan-holiness tradition.
For the sake of simplicity, we can affirm that the Church of God does hold to many of the teachings within historical Christianity, much of which is found in the “Apostles Creed” and “Nicene Creed”.
Doctrines such as:
- The Trinity (God as Father, Son = Jesus, Holy Spirit)
- The Bible as God's written word, the revealing of truth for faith and practice.
- The Birth, Life, Death, Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus Christ as recorded in the New Testament
- Salvation by faith in Jesus and His atoning death on the cross.
- The gift of the Holy Spirit to those who receive Jesus as Lord and Savior.
- The return of Jesus Christ at the end of time.
- The eventual Judgement of all people with eternal consequences.
Some Distinctive Church of God beliefs are:
- Women in Ministry - From our start we believe God calls and equips women for ministry
- Ordinances - An act instituted by Christ, practiced by the early church and taught in God’s Word. (Believer’s Baptism, Communion, Foot Washing)
- Second Coming/Eschatology - We hold an A-millenial view of the end times
CLICK HERE FOR VIDEOS on understanding Wesleyan Theology and how it differs from Reform Theology.