Examining The Iglesia Ni Cristo Cult

Everybody to Apologia TV. My name is Jeff Durbin. They call me the Ninja. That is Luke the Bear Pearson right there. And Joy the Girl Timby. And we are doing a show today. You can catch more episodes at ApologiaRadio .com.

Doing a show today on an interesting movement. Dr. James White recently had a debate with a man that goes by the title of Brother Joe Ventilacion. Ventilacion. I always say ventilation like Ventilacion.

And he is part of a movement, an interesting group, Iglesia Ni Cristo. And it's an interesting movement, a debate, I actually really enjoyed because it was very entertaining. And we're gonna do a show on this movement today with Conley Owens.

He heads up trueiglesia .org. That's true. I-G-L-E-S-S-A? S-I-A? S-I-A. S-S-I-A. Okay, dot O-R-G. Let's go ahead and pull Conley on right now. Conley, welcome to Apologia TV. Hi, thanks for having me.

Absolutely. So how do we, make sure you spell it.

Right. How do you spell it? T-R-U-E-I-G-L-E-S-I-A. S-I-A. Say one S. Okay, there you go. Iglesia, just like Iglesia in Spanish, except for it's pronounced Iglesia.

In Tagalog. Okay, Tagalog. Okay, so let's let's get right into it. We're gonna play some clips in this episode today from the debate. Go ahead and introduce us to Iglesia Ni Cristo. What is it? Where did it come from?

Why do.

You have a website? So to begin in the, at the very beginning, the Philippines was under Spanish rule for 333 years. And so you have Roman Catholicism, but this is long before people were allowed in Roman Catholicism to read the Bible in their own language.

So you have people developing a very, very high respect for the Bible, but having very little literacy. And so when Protestantism shows up at the turn of the, you know, around 1900, suddenly, all someone has to do is point out a verse, say what, say what it means, and they've got their own organization.

So the Philippines is kind of this right place for cults. And one of these cults, Iglesia Ni Cristo, started in 1914, by someone who, very similar to the, you know, Joseph Smith story, he went around all the different religions, was dissatisfied with them all, and then he locked himself in his room for three days and three nights, and he came out with, you know, God's truth.

And that's pretty much how it all started. And then why I made the website, I made the website because there are very little resources to deal with them. You know, if you have friends who are Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses, there's all sorts of places you can go to get resources to learn about them.

You know, you all, apology, I have a lot of stuff on Mormonism, but if you want to witness to your Iglesia Ni Cristo friend, there's nothing out there except for just a lot of ad hominem or things that are not focused on the gospel.

Yeah, interesting. Well, just an interesting thing here, too, Conley. We are planning a church on the island of Kauai, and we were completely unfamiliar until we actually chatted with Dr. White outside the Mormon temple.

We're doing some evangelism. We were unfamiliar with Iglesia Ni Cristo. When we were there, it's just a hotbed of cults and isms. I mean, there's Mormonism, the Watchtower, Church of Christ, Roman Catholicism, the New Age, Buddhism, all that stuff is there.

And there's this one little hotbed area where, I mean, I'm telling you, Conley, it is like every couple of feet is some cult, literally door-to-door, door next door. And there is, on this one street, we actually assumed it was the one real Christian church on this corner in this town.

It was Iglesia Ni Cristo. And we thought it was maybe just like a Spanish-speaking church or something like that. Well, maybe there's one Christian church there. But it turns out that is one of the most amazing street corners anywhere in the world.

I mean, you've got like Roman Catholicism next door to the Watchtower, across the street from Latter-day Saints, Iglesia Ni Cristo, Church of Christ. It's crazy. It's gonna be a whole different perspective next time we go.

This is a very serious... It's bad. It's really bad. So we didn't know much about him, and we were outside the Mormon temple this past Easter pageant doing some evangelism. And Dr. White had mentioned that he was doing a debate with Brother Joe Ventilacion.

Am I saying that right? It's Ventilacion. The I in the next letter get, you know, jumbled together into a diphthong in Tagalog. Okay. What's also interesting about his name is, up until this debate, he was never Joe.

He was always Jose. And so I don't know what changed. I think they're trying to rebrand to be more friendly to different cultures. Okay. They had a lot of trouble in Hispanic cultures, because Iglesia Ni Cristo, you know, Ni means, like, accept, and so people, or neither, and so people think that it sounds like, you know, church without Christ.

And so they had to rebrand a lot, and I'm seeing them more and more just say Church of Christ instead of Iglesia Ni Cristo. So I think him being called Joe is even part of this rebranding. Yeah. Well, what was.

Interesting about it is Dr. White knew what he was getting into in terms of the kind of hostilities that can happen in debates with Iglesia Ni Cristo, but I think all of us were in a place where we're saying, but where do we go to find out what they actually believe?

What do they actually believe? And so I'm really I'm really glad to hear about your website. So let's just, we have about two minutes left in this segment. We'll get a little bit of background here, a little bit understanding as to why this episode is taking place today, but let's just talk from your perspective.

Why did you get into this? What connection do you have with Iglesia Ni Cristo, and why would you invest your.

Life in a website like this? Right. So I'm part Filipino, and when I visited my grandfather for the first time back in 2012 or 2013, I saw all these churches, and I was, you know, as a Christian who wants to share the gospel, I went looking around and realized there is not much written about them.

They haven't written much about themselves that they publish, and so the only way to learn about them was to go to their Bible studies. So I went to their Bible studies for six months and was pretty, pretty passionate about making sure that that they heard the truth, because the way this organization works, the people inside don't really hear much of what the Bible really has to say, and that was something.

That I wanted them to be able to have access to. Good. Yeah. So Pinoy pride, right? Yeah. Yeah, see? I have no idea what you're saying. My master instructor growing up was Filipino, and so, which basically meant that I got introduced to the entire Filipino culture.

So I know about adobo and pancet, and that's like, that's what I ate every weekend. Have you eaten balut? I refused to eat balut, and I know that I offended a few people by doing so, but I just can't do it.

Have you eaten the big, have you eaten balut? And okay, do you like it? I think it's, I think it's.

Pretty good. I think they're worse things to eat in the Philippines. I don't know.

How there could be anything worse than a half-made, what is it, duck, right? Is it duck? Yeah, it's a fertilized duck egg. It's a fertilized, so you're eating like this, this basically almost made little duck, and you're eating, you're eating it.

Like, it's, it's really amazing, and yeah. What's the difference between that and a chicken egg? Because it's, it's actually like, it's got a, it's looking at you.

Oh, so there's actually, it's fertilized, so there's an actual commercial duck in it.

And with that, we're gonna go to a commercial break. We'll catch you guys on the other side. Apologiaradio .com is where you get us. Stay with us.

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Welcome back to ApologiaTV. I'm Jeff the Culminator Ninja with Luke the Bear and Joy the Girl. On today with Conley Owens, talking about trueeglesia .org, and that is eglesia, I-G-L-E-S-I-A .org.

It's all the information concerning, related to bringing the gospel to Iglesia Ni Cristo. If you see it on a street corner in your area, just know it is not an orthodox Christian communion, and they do not hold the biblical orthodoxy, the trinity, and, and what the, the, the biblical explanation of the gospel and justification through faith.

So it is interesting, especially in, in like Arizona and California, where people do have sort of a basic idea of Spanish. They see Cristo and they see iglesia, and they think, oh, Spanish speaking church.

Yeah. So especially in the area that we're in, it could be, there could be a misunderstanding and people walk in and they're part of a cult.

And there you go. You don't even realize. So let's talk about that. Joy just said the word, she just said the word, cult. Okay. So when, when we say at Apologia Church, cult, what we generally mean is that the Christian definition of a cult is any individual or, or group movement that purports to be standing on the word of God, historic Christianity, and ends up redefining the message of Jesus, the doctrine of God.

So what we would say is, is, is a cult is a person or an organization that essentially apes Christianity, but distorts its message. And so let's, let's talk about that. Conley, how, why is Iglesia Ni Cristo spiritually dangerous?

How is it not Christian?

Right. So you mentioned some of the key things already. They deny the Trinity. They deny the deity of Christ. They deny salvation through faith alone. However, I'd say that probably the biggest issue with the Iglesia Ni Cristo is that they deny that you can understand the Bible by reading it on your own.

You have to have a messenger explain it to you. And by messenger, that means one of their ministers. And also their, their first messenger is considered God's last messenger, God's messenger in these last days.

And his name was Felix Y. Manalo. And he lived, he started this church around 1914. And I find that it's incredibly harmful for many reasons, but it's really sad the way they replace Christ, because, you know, Hebrews 1 says that Jesus is our, is God's messenger in these last days.

You know, it even uses that phrase in these last days. And, and yet they want to replace it with this mere man. Felix. Right. Felix.

Okay. So how, I had asked Dr. White this question. He didn't really know the answer to it. Do they have some sort of, you mentioned the last days, if they have an eschatology, they've based this off of at all, or do you know?

Right. So yeah, using, you know, Matthew 24 and.

Stuff like that, you know, they find significance in the year 1914, sort of like Jehovah's witnesses do, but different way of arriving at that number. That's interesting. And beyond that, you know, they do believe that there, there is an end that Jesus is coming, but it's not as there's, you know,.

No Larkin charts or anything. So well, let's do this. I'll play a portion, best time to do it right now. I'll play a portion of the debate where Dr. White engaged with the Glacier New Cristo. This is after Dr. White's opening statement.

This is the first contact right now. So it was like guns blazing. Very, very entertaining. But this is right when the debate cross-examination happens.

First cross-examination. Here we go. How would I address you, Dr. White? That's fine. Okay. Dr. White, the first verse you used was John 17, three, am I right? Yes. Okay. In John 17, three, who's the one speaking at that verse?

Jesus addressing the father. Okay. He was addressing the father. Yes. Now when he addressed the father, okay. What did he say to the father concerning God? He addressed him as the only true God. The what?

The only true God. Okay. So if the one that is talking to the father is saying, you are the only true God, how would you understand the word only? Could there be another God? No, I'm a monotheist, sir.

I don't assume Unitarianism. I will repeat the question. He said, you are the only. When he said, you are the only, is he referring to himself or to the father? No, he's referring to the father, obviously.

He was referring to the father. Yeah. So you believe what Christ said that the father is the only true God. You believe that? I certainly do because I'm a monotheist. I've said that from the start. I just don't assume Unitarianism, sir.

So did Jesus say that they will believe you and me as the only true God? Did he say that? No, they said to have eternal life. They have eternal life in only knowing the father and the son. So to Jesus the only true God is the father, right?

There's only one God, sir. Yes. To Jesus in John 17, three. Yeah, you're arguing a point that is not in dispute. You do not tell me what I have to do at Georgetown, Dr. Wright, please. I am repeating my question.

Jesus said the father is the only true God. You believe that? Yes, I do. So to Jesus the father is the only true God? Yes. How do you understand the word only? Could there be another one? No, I understand it in light of what Jesus goes on to say when He talks about the time in eternity when He was glorious in the presence of the father.

And since there's only one glory of Yahweh, then Jesus will identify Himself as Yahweh. That's not my question. I will repeat again, Dr. Wright. I can't answer a question by looking at the verse after this?

You can do that, but that will be...

So there you go. Off to a rough start there. So, I mean, the debate is up online. You guys can watch that. Just look up Dr. James White debate in Gleisini Christo and you'll find it's three hours long.

It's really, really important to see that. So let's talk about that first point, Conley. He's doing what most Unitarians do and they go to John 17. Dr. White actually said in his opening statement, if you go to John 17, you're demonstrating you don't understand the doctrine of the Trinity.

But he goes to John 17 because he is a Unitarian and Gleisini Christo doesn't believe that Jesus Christ has eternally existed alongside the father. Can you talk about their.

Denial of the Trinity? Yeah, sure. Dr. White did an excellent job at the opening statement where he basically short-circuited all the arguments that they were going to have. That's right. Yet Vintalatio decided to go there anyway.

So yeah, they deny the Trinity, but they deny it even more severely and more awkwardly and inconsistently than other Unitarians do. How so? So for example, they would even deny that Jesus had any pre-existence before his birth and not even the Jehovah's Witnesses would say that.

And they also say that it's okay to worship Jesus, which is mind-boggling given that the Bible is pretty clear you shouldn't worship anyone other than God. So yeah, they take that verse and they pretend that the word only modifies father when it really just modifies God.

There's one God, yes.

But it does not say that only the Father is God. That's right. So in terms of their doctrine of God, they seem difficult to manage and grab hold of in terms of exactly what they believe about Jesus. From my perspective, he essentially identified what Dr. White was saying as misrepresentation throughout the debate, right?

Right. And so I'm curious, where do we go to find out what do you believe about Jesus?

Right, well unfortunately they don't have much published material about themselves. They have a magazine that they run, but you'd have to wade through a lot of material to really get much out of it. In order to really learn, you have to sit in their Bible studies, which is what I did.

And the other problem is that they don't have much of a positive doctrine of Jesus. Most of their material is spent denying that he's God or asserting that the church must go by his name. But beyond that, they don't have much to say.

So in terms of positive construction of theology about Jesus Christ, there's not much there. But in terms of their denials of what they don't believe, I mean, they're denying the Trinity and maligning Christians throughout history, but there's not a positive construction of this is who Jesus is, this is what we believe exactly about him.

There's not like a catechism out there you can grab hold of and say, okay, this is their confession of faith, their catechism.

Right, they have a document that only the ministers have access to. And South Dakota Apologetics managed to get a copy, and that's been floating around. They're the organization that put on this debate.

They managed to get a copy of this book, The Fundamental Beliefs of the Iglesia Ni Cristo. And so some people have access to that, and we've been able to explore what they believe a little more. But this is also just the book that they use in the Bible study.

It's nothing too much deeper than that.

Well, I'd like to ask you about your six months and going into this organization to listen. I'd like to ask you questions about what was it like? Because I just have questions in terms of, there seems to be a very, very domineering spirit to much of what I've seen, at least, in Iglesia Ni Cristo.

I'd like to ask you about what it was like to interact with them and the kind of abuses that you saw there. And so what we're gonna do is we're gonna go to a break right now, and when we come back, we're gonna talk to you a little bit more about that, what your experience was when you went.

And I would also like to talk to you about their doctrine of salvation and what they believe about that. So we'll be right back, guys. Stay with us, ApologiaRadio .com or ApologiaStudios .com. You can sign up for all access, guys.

Get every TV show, every after show, including Apologia Academy. Stay with us. We'll be right back.

I want their faith to not just be something that stands, but something around which culture can.

Be built. We want students who can think critically about arguments, but also about the culture around them, that can then speak clearly to it, and that also have the ability to influence and shape because of the power of their message.

Because that's really what the gospel does. The gospel throws down all the arguments against it. It speaks to the hearts.

Of people, it influences, and it changes. Welcome back, everyone, to Apologia TV. Today,.

We're talking about Iglesia Ni Cristo. If you have paid attention to Apologia Church for any number of years, you've seen that we have a lot of evangelism and outreach that we've done to people of various different worldviews, cults, religions.

We have stuff online at Apologia Studios on YouTube. You can see live interaction with atheists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons. We have discussions by the hundreds, I think now, that you can listen to and actually see.

We do a lot of time doing a lot of ministry to the cults, and one cult in particular we actually haven't had a lot of interaction with is Iglesia Ni Cristo. So we actually know very little about this cult personally, except for the major point of the debate between Dr. White and one of the representatives.

So I'd like to ask you, Conley, about your time invested in getting to know the members of this religion and seeing the interaction. I would like to hear about what Dr. White has addressed, and that's this very, very strong sort of overwhelming control in this group.

So talk.

About that. Sure. So almost every member has the same testimony where anyone that came from the outside anyway. They always say that, you know, they had all these questions about the Bible. No other church answered their questions from the Bible.

And they went here, and they did, in the Bible studies, you ask a question, they give you an answer, always from the Bible. But when I went and I asked questions, they were very often stumped by some really basic things.

And I mean, when I would talk to the ministers personally, you know, even just after the Bible studies, and I would ask them some really basic things like, you know, how often do you read the Bible? Or what's the, could you tell me what the theme of the book of Galatians is?

Or what makes John different from the other gospels? They would, they don't even understand the Bible at that level. I asked one minister, how often he read the Bible a whole chapter at a time, they'll all tell you that they read the Bible every day.

But what they mean by that is that they read the proof texts that they have to study for the lessons that the administration hands them down. But I asked him, you know, how often do you read a whole chapter?

And he said, you know, after after hesitating for a bit, he said, you know, 10 to 20 times a year. Wow. So they do not understand the Bible. Well, they have a lot of mechanisms in place to get people to, you know, keep nodding their heads at things like you saw this in the debate.

You know, he asked the question, everyone goes, Yes, no. Yeah, they pray like that, too, actually, they they pray. And if you, since he's praying to Jesus, you say, Yes, Lord. And if he's praying to the Father, you say, Yes, Father.

And then you say amen at the end of each phrase. And so they all stand, they all kind of just nod there and, and, you know, kind of hum along. Wow, very interesting. Interesting. Yeah. So you said that they get proof texts.

So the day not are they they're not obviously not necessarily encouraged to read their Bible, but they're actually given literature that kind of takes the place of reading their Bible. Is that what am I misunderstanding?

I don't know. That's correct. The ministers get their lessons and they even get their the material for the worship service. You know, they have some freedom in how they present it. But every iglesia ni Cristo churches is every chapel is preaching the exact same sermon, you know, maybe not word for word like the Watchtower.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And it's it's never about, you know, a particular text is always on a particular topic. So it leaves them free to jump around quite a bit. However, for the members themselves, you know, they feel even less of a reason to read their Bible, given that what I said earlier, they don't feel that they can understand it without the minister explaining it.

So why would you do anything other than the most they do is they write down the verses and they look them up and they said, Oh, yes, it says exactly what he said, you know, that like the words said that, okay, not necessarily.

The meaning and context. Right. One thing though, I wanted to ask you about is we have this problem of having like a book, a solid book that really explains their doctrine of God and their soteriology and those sorts of things in a way that is meaningful that can be interacted with.

So we don't really have that. You mentioned the magazine, the publication, that sort of a thing, but not much else. So it's all coming from these Bible studies and the actual time inside the movement.

Right. It appears though, that there is a very, very systematic or precise way of them handing down the doctrine of their church though, because at least even in the debate, you have obviously a very rambunctious group of people that are amening and who, and, and, and yessing all that he's saying and cheering them on very, very excited about their leader.

It seems at least they know what they believe and they know the proof texts and they know those sorts of things. So is there a very strong systematic way of handing down their beliefs?

Well, it's, it's the same set of proof texts every time. So it's you know, you hear that for a large portion of your life and it's, it sinks in.

Okay. All right. That helps.

How do they recruit? And I'm wondering, do they go outside of the Filipino community or is it pretty much all Filipinos? How does that work?

So most of the people who I've seen involved in it that are not Filipino are married to a Filipino. I've, I haven't seen them break out much outside of that. Interesting. However, they do, I think they do do some door to door recruiting, mostly in, mostly in the Philippines, not so much around here.

And they believe that bearing fruit, you know, the Bible talks about bearing fruit. They believe that is inviting people to church because it couldn't possibly be, you know, actually telling someone about the gospel.

It couldn't be actually explaining verses because, you know, only the minister can do that. So they, they harp a lot on bearing fruit and bearing fruit is, you know, handing out little business cards that invite, invite them to church.

Interesting. All right. So we're about to go finish the show up here. We're going to continue this discussion for our all access in our after show. You guys can get that at apologiaradio .com or apologiastudios .com.

We're going to continue this discussion with Conley. I'd like to ask Conley about their doctrine of salvation, how a person is reconciled to God, how that works out. And then just a couple minute discussion.

We're going to talk about from Conley, from your perspective, what the best way is to go about reaching people who are lost in Iglesia Ni Cristo. So let's just have about a minute and a half left here.

Let's go ahead and finish with this. Conley, can you give me just a brief summation of what Iglesia Ni Cristo teaches about salvation, reconciliation with God? Sure. They teach that the way to salvation is.

Through the church. And the reason this is, is because in Ephesians 2, you have this, you have the Jews and the Gentiles coming together as one new man. They take that as, they don't believe that's the Jews and the Gentiles.

They believe that's Jesus and the church. So when Jesus and the church come together as one man, that means when Jesus died on the cross, he was, he was dying for, for the church being, being one man.

This is different than what Christians believe about Jesus representing the church. Yeah. And so, so it is through membership in the church, formal membership, you know, your name being written in a, in a physical book that, uh, that.

You can have, uh, any security at all. Oh wow. That, that maintains some serious control over people. Oh yeah, for sure. Oh yeah. I'm worried about that eraser for sure. Oh wow. Okay. So we're going to continue the discussion again at apologiastudios .com.

That's where you go to get the after show with Conley Owens. Don't forget to check them out at trueeglacia .org. Sign up for all access guys. Partner with Apologia Church as we bring the gospel around the world.

That's Luke the Bear. Peace out. Joy the Girl. See ya. I'm Jeff and we'll see you in the after show with Conley Owens. The conversation is going to continue at apologiaradio .com. That's where we're going to have our after show.

We're going to have more content, more conversation, some really great stuff. You go over there to get it at apologiaradio .com by becoming all access. Go check it out.