In this chapter about Other Churches and Religions we would like to inform you about some of the beliefs and goals of other Churches, so you know why we do not agree with their view of GOD, the world and your money.

Even though we are close to the Catholic Church and the Christian Church in parts of their basic beliefs, we also differ in important parts.  We agree with the pope that creation happened through evolution and that the message of the Bible is that of the New Testament: LOVE.  We agree with the Christians, that not all things of the Catholic Church are right.  More detailed beliefs can be found by clicking on "We believe".

So here some info about several Churches which is actually a work in progress...

Catholic Church - how Martin Luther "happened"

Why the Catholic Church is in reality a church for the Jews.

Here some of the different Churches that were founded during the Reformation

• The Anabaptists, who appeared in Germany and German Switzerland shortly after the appearance of Luther and Zwingli, wished to trace back their conception of the Church to Apostolic times. They denied the validity of the baptism of children, saw in the Blessed Eucharist merely a memorial ceremony, and wished to restore the Kingdom of God according to their own heretical and mystical views. Though attacked by the other Reformers, they won supporters in many lands. From them also issued the Mennonites, founded by Menno Simonis (d. 1561).
• The Schwenkfeldians were founded by Kaspar of Schwenkfeld, aulic councillor of Duke Frederick of Liegnitz and canon. At first he associated himself with Luther, but from 1525 he opposed the latter in his Christology, as well as in his conception of the Eucharist, and his doctrine of justification. Attacked by the German reformers, his followers were able to form but a few communities. The Schwenkfeldians still maintain themselves in North America.
• Sebastian Franck (1499-1542), a pure spiritualist, rejected every external form of ecclesiastical organization, and favoured a spiritual, invisible Church. He thus abstained from founding a separate community, and sought only to disseminate his ideas.
• The Socinians and other Anti-Trinitarians. Some individual members of the early Reformers attacked the fundamental doctrine of the Blessed Trinity, especially the Spaniard Miguel Servede (Servetus), whose writing, "De Trinitatis erroribus", printed in 1531, was burned by Calvin in Geneva in 1553. The chief founders of Anti-Trinitarianism were Laelius Socinus, teacher of jurisprudence at Siena, and his nephew, Faustus Socinus. Compelled to fly from their home, they maintained themselves in various parts, and founded special communities. Faustus disseminated his doctrine especially in Poland and Transylvania.
• Valentine Weigel (1533-1588) and Jacob Böhme (d. 1624), a shoemaker from Gorlitz, represented a mystical pantheism, teaching that the external revelation of God in the Bible could be recognized only through an internal light. Both found numerous disciples. Böhme's followers later received their name of Rosenkreuzer, because it was widely supposed that they stood under the direction of a hidden guide named Rosenkreuz.
• The Pietists in Germany had as their leader Philip Jacob Spener (1635-1705). Pietism was primarily a reaction against the barren Lutheran orthodoxy, and regarded religion mainly a thing of the heart.
• The Inspiration Communities originated in Germany during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with various apocalyptic visionaries. They regarded the kingdom of the Holy Ghost as arrived, and believed in the universal gift of prophecy and in the millennium. Among the founders of such visionary societies were Johann Wilhelm Petersen (d. 1727), superintendent at Luneberg, and Johann Konrad Duppel (b. 1734), a physician at Leiden.
• The Herrnhuter were founded by Count Nicholas of Zinzendorf (b. 1700; d. 1760). On the Hutberg, as it was called, he established the community of Herrnhut, consisting of Moravian Brethren and Protestants, with a special constitution. Stress was laid on the doctrine of the Redemption, and strict moral discipline was inculcated. This community of Brethren spread in many lands.
• The Quakers were founded by John George Fox of Drayton in Leicestershire (1624-1691). He favoured a visionary spiritualism, and found in the soul of each man a portion of the Divine intelligence. All are allowed to preach, according as the spirit incites them. The moral precepts of this sect were very strict.
• The Methodists were founded by John Wesley. In 1729 Wesley instituted, with his brother Charles and his friends Morgan and Kirkham, an association at Oxford for the cultivation of the religious and ascetic life, and from this society Methodism developed.
• The Baptists originated in England in 1608. They maintained that baptism was necessary only for adults, upheld Calvinism in its essentials, and observed the Sabbath on Saturday instead of Sunday.
• The Swedenborgians are named after their founder Emmanuel Swedenborg (d. 1772), son of a Swedish Protestant bishop. Believing in his power to communicate with the spirit-world and that he had Divine revelations, he proceeded on the basis of the latter to found a community with a special liturgy, the "New Jerusalem". He won numerous followers, and his community spread in many lands.
• The Irvingites are called after their founder, Edward Irving, a native of Scotland and from 1822 preacher in a Presbyterian chapel in London.
• The Mormons were founded by Joseph Smith, who made his appearance with supposed revelations in 1822. Joseph Smith, the founder and first president of the sect, was the son of a Vermont farmer, and was born in Sharon township, Windsor County, in that state, on 23 December, 1805. In the spring of 1820, while living with his parents at Manchester, Ontario (now Wayne) County, New York, he became deeply concerned upon the subject of his salvation, a condition partly induced by a religious revival which proselytized a few of his relatives to the Presbyterian Faith. Joseph himself was inclined toward Methodism; to satisfy his mind as to which one of the existing sects he should join, he sought Divine guidance, and claimed to have received in answer to prayer a visitation from two glorious beings, who told him not to connect himself to any of these Churches, but to bide the coming of Church of Christ, which was about to be re-established. (more)