Converge (Baptist General Conference)

The Son is the first and highest created being, brought into existence by the Father before all else, and therefore had a beginning.

God exists from himself (a se), depending on nothing outside himself for his being or his perfections.

The Godhead consists of two divine persons (Father and Son), with the Holy Spirit not being a distinct third person.

Every creaturely act is simultaneously fully the creature's own act and fully caused by God concurring as primary cause through the creature as secondary cause.

God created the world with its laws and now largely refrains from intervening; the world runs on its own.

God was entirely free to create or not create; creation adds nothing to and is not necessary for God's perfection or happiness.

The Son is eternally begotten of the Father: a timeless, necessary relation, not an event in time.

God infallibly and exhaustively knows the entire future, including all future free choices, as settled certainties.

A personal God who is the creator and sustainer of all things truly exists, independent of human belief.

Love is essential to who God is in himself, grounded in the eternal love among the persons of the Trinity, not merely something God does toward creatures.

God genuinely hears and responds to petitionary prayer, sometimes acting differently than he otherwise would have.

The Father is an exalted being who once lived a mortal life and progressed to godhood, and humans can likewise progress toward divinity.

The Son is of the very same essence (consubstantial) as the Father, not merely of a similar essence.

God's essential nature, character, and purposes never change.

The external works of God (creation, providence, salvation) are works of the whole Trinity acting inseparably, distinguished only by appropriation to a person.

The divine essence shared by the three persons is one numerically identical essence, not three instances of a common kind.

God is omnipotent: able to do anything that is logically possible and consistent with his nature.

God is fully present everywhere in his being, not merely in knowledge or power.

God knows all true propositions, including all of the actual past and present, exhaustively.

There is exactly one God, numerically a single divine being.

"Father," "Son," and "Holy Spirit" name three successive or simultaneous manifestations of one indivisible divine person, not three persons.

The Son is genuinely lesser than the Father in being or rank, not merely in origin or role.

God and the totality of the universe are identical; "God" is just another name for the whole of reality.

Father, Son, and Spirit are genuinely distinct persons, not merely three modes, masks, or roles of a single person.

There exist or may exist other true gods, even if humans worship and are accountable to one God (a plurality/henotheism).

God ordinarily works through real secondary causes (natural laws, human agency) rather than acting directly, without those secondary causes being mere illusions.

God and the world are mutually dependent and evolving together; God has a changing "consequent" nature shaped by the world and works by persuasion, not coercion.

Using the correct Hebrew form of the divine name (and of the Son's name) is important or required for proper worship and right relationship with God.

The Holy Spirit is God's active power or influence, not a distinct divine person.

The three persons are fully equal in deity, power, and glory, with no person greater or lesser than another in being.

God is one being who eternally exists as three co-equal, co-eternal persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) sharing one undivided essence.

The one God exists eternally as three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Father, Son, and Spirit are best understood as three distinct divine beings or gods who are united in will and love.

God is a single divine person (the Father), and the Son and Spirit are not coequal divine persons of the one God.

God's wrath against sin is a real and proper disposition of his holy character, not merely a metaphor or an absence of relationship.

God is best described as the simple, immutable, impassible, timeless, pure-act being of classical theism.

Moral goodness is ultimately grounded in God's own nature, so the good is not independent of God nor merely arbitrary divine command.

God is metaphysically simple: without parts, and identical with his own attributes (God does not "have" goodness, God IS goodness).

God is an immaterial spirit, without a physical body of any kind.

God knows all things by knowing his own essence (as the cause and exemplar of all), not by observing the world.

God's holiness (his transcendent moral purity and otherness) is the controlling attribute that orders all the others.

The world exists within God (all is "in God"), so God includes and transcends the world rather than being wholly separate from it.

The three persons mutually indwell and interpenetrate one another (perichoresis/circumincession) so fully that each is in the others.

God undergoes no real change whatsoever, even in his relation to the world; what changes is the creature, not God.

God exists wholly outside of time, in a timeless "eternal now," with no before or after in his own being.

Human language about God is analogical: true but never capturing God univocally as it captures creatures.

What God is in himself is ultimately beyond human comprehension, so negative ("God is not...") statements are more reliable than positive ones.

The Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father AND the Son (the Filioque).

God is pure actuality with no unrealized potential: never moving from potential to actual.

God's existence and some of his attributes can be known with confidence by unaided human reason apart from special revelation.

God knows, prior to his creative decree, what any free creature WOULD freely do in any possible circumstance (counterfactuals of creaturely freedom).

The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father THROUGH the Son (per Filium), a formula distinct from both "and the Son" and "from the Father alone."

"Only-begotten" (monogenēs) means the Son was brought into existence/created.

Jesus rose bodily in the same (transformed) body that was crucified.

The divine takes flesh in many figures across history; Jesus is one such manifestation among others.

The heavenly "Christ"/divine power descended on the man Jesus temporarily (e.g. at baptism) and departed before the crucifixion.

Christ "pre-existed" only in God's plan/idea, not as an actual personal being before his birth.

Jesus committed no sin during his life.

The "Christ" is a cosmic principle or consciousness distinct from the historical man Jesus.

After his death Christ "descended" to the realm of the dead (Hades/Sheol), as the creed affirms.

The divine nature underwent no change or loss in the incarnation; God remained fully himself.

In Christ the divine Word took the place of a human rational mind/spirit.

The Son is eternally "begotten" of the Father: eternally generated, without beginning.

The second person is eternally the Son: his Sonship is not merely acquired at the incarnation.

Right relationship with God comes specifically through Jesus Christ and not through any other name/mediator.

When Scripture says "the Father is greater than I," this refers only to Christ's incarnate/economic state, not his divine nature.

Father, Son, and Spirit are one single person manifesting in three modes or roles.

Material flesh is inherently corrupt, so a truly divine Christ could not assume real flesh.

Jesus genuinely experienced human limitation: hunger, fatigue, suffering, growth.

Jesus had a complete, real human body of flesh.

Jesus possessed a complete human soul/mind, not merely a human body animated by the divine Word.

Christ's body only seemed physical; he did not truly have material flesh.

Christ's humanity was absorbed into or swallowed up by his divinity, so the human nature does not fully persist.

Christ's human will freely and always submitted to his divine will, never opposing it.

Deity and humanity are united in one single person (hypostasis) in Christ.

Jesus was a man who became/was adopted as God's Son (e.g. at baptism, resurrection, or exaltation) rather than being the Son by eternal nature.

The New Testament directly identifies Jesus as "God" (e.g. John 1:1; 20:28; Titus 2:13).

Whatever divine status Jesus has was conferred/exalted by the Father after his earthly life, not possessed eternally.

Jesus Christ is identified with the LORD (YHWH) of Israel.

Jesus is best understood as the supreme prophet/teacher and moral exemplar, not as God incarnate.

Jesus was not actually crucified and killed; another was substituted or he was taken up beforehand.

In the union the two natures are joined without mixture, confusion, or blending into a third kind of thing.

Christ's resurrection was spiritual (a spirit being / changed essence) rather than a raising of his physical body.

The Son was created/originated by God and is therefore a creature, however exalted.

All things were created through the Son (he is the agent of creation).

The Son is a distinct divine person from the Father (not merely a mode or role of one person).

The Son is of a similar but not identical essence to the Father.

The Son is "of the same essence" (homoousios) as the Father, not merely of a similar essence.

Jesus Christ is fully and truly God, sharing the one divine essence with the Father.

The Son existed as a divine person before his human birth, prior to and apart from creation.

Jesus is rightly given the worship due to God.

The Son is essentially/ontologically subordinate to the Father (lesser in being, not merely in role).

There was a state or "time" in which the Son did not exist.

The titles given to Jesus ("Lord," "Son of God," "Word") connote true deity, not merely a high human office.

After the incarnation Christ exists "in two natures," divine and human, each retaining its own properties.

In Christ there are two distinct persons/subjects (the divine Son and the human Jesus) conjoined in will and honor.

The union of divine and human in Christ occurred at the moment of conception, not at a later point such as baptism.

The virgin conception is an essential, non-negotiable article of the faith.

Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the Virgin Mary, without a human father.

Christ assumed a fully fallen human nature (subject to the effects of the Fall) in order to heal it from within.

Christ assumed an unfallen, sinless human nature, untouched by original sin/corruption.

The Son remains permanently incarnate: he retains a glorified human nature forever.

Christ was not able to sin (impeccable): sinning was metaphysically impossible for him.

The properties of each nature may be truly predicated of the one person (e.g. "God suffered," "the man is omnipresent in his person").

In the descent Christ proclaimed victory / liberated the righteous dead (the "harrowing of hell").

In the incarnation the Son actually surrendered or set aside divine attributes (e.g. omniscience, omnipotence).

Everything Christ did and suffered is attributable to the one divine person of the Son as the single acting subject.

After the union there is one incarnate nature of the Word, in which divinity and humanity are united without separation, confusion, or change.

Christ has only a single will.

Christ has two natures and two hypostases (qnome) united in one prosopon/parsopa, without becoming two separate persons.

Christ has two wills (a divine will and a human will) corresponding to his two natures.

Christ's human body can be present everywhere (ubiquitous), grounding his bodily presence in the Lord's Supper.

In his human nature Christ had genuinely limited knowledge and could grow in understanding.

During his earthly life Christ lived by faith and trust, not by constant possession of comprehensive divine knowledge.

In becoming human the Son "emptied himself" by veiling or not independently using certain divine prerogatives, while remaining fully God.

Mary should be called "Christ-bearer" (Christotokos) but not "God-bearer," since she bore the man united to God.

The Son is subordinate to the Father in role/authority even while equal in divine essence.

Even during his earthly life Christ's human soul enjoyed the beatific vision / immediate knowledge of God.

Mary may rightly be called "Theotokos" (God-bearer / Mother of God) because the one she bore is God.

Every sin, however small, deserves God's condemnation/death: there is no class of sin that does not by nature merit it.

Infants who die are (at least the elect among them) certainly saved by Christ apart from any work or profession of their own.

Evil is a real, independent principle or power, in some sense co-eternal with or independent of the good God.

Evil and sin have no genuine reality; they are errors of perception or illusion to be dispelled by truth.

There was a real, primeval historical event ("the Fall") in which the first humans disobeyed God and lost an original state of integrity.

The Genesis Fall narrative is best read as a symbolic or mythic depiction of the universal human condition, not a report of a singular past event.

God is in no way the author or cause of sin, even while sovereign over all things.

Adam and Eve were real, historical individuals from whom humanity descends.

Human beings are by nature fundamentally good, and wrongdoing is chiefly the result of ignorance, environment, or unmet needs rather than an inner corruption.

The Virgin Mary was, by special grace, preserved free from original sin from the moment of her conception (Immaculate Conception).

Humans can live righteously and attain salvation by free will and effort without a special interior grace beyond creation, law, and example.

Before the Fall, humanity possessed an original righteousness / supernatural endowment of grace and integrity that was subsequently lost.

Satan is a real, personal spiritual being who tempts and opposes God, not merely a symbol or personification of evil.

After the Fall sin is so deep that it has become the very substance/essence of fallen human nature.

Sin is fundamentally the transgression of God's law/command (an offense against a divine standard).

No one in this life (apart from special exception) is wholly free from sin; the regenerate continue to sin.

Physical death entered the human race as a consequence of Adam's sin; humans were not originally subject to death.

Before God all sins are fundamentally equal: there are no greater or lesser sins.

All people have an innate moral conscience/knowledge of God's law (written on the heart), so none sin in total ignorance.

Adam's sin disordered not only humanity but the wider created order (a "cosmic fall" affecting nature itself).

Moral evil entered creation first through the prideful fall of angels (Satan/the devil) prior to humanity's fall.

Humanity was created immature and the "Fall" was part of a developmental ascent toward maturity rather than a catastrophic loss.

The image of God in humanity, though damaged by sin, is genuinely retained and is the basis of human dignity and capacity for relationship with God.

Adam's first sin has real, inherited consequences for all his descendants (an "original sin"), not merely a bad example.

The guilt of original sin is truly removed/remitted by baptism (concupiscence may remain, but the guilt is taken away).

Sins committed deliberately/high-handedly are more culpable than sins of weakness, ignorance, or passion.

Sins genuinely differ in heinousness and in the degree of guilt and punishment they incur.

"Structural sin" is ultimately reducible to the sum of individual personal sins and has no independent reality.

Sin has corrupted every part of human nature (mind, will, affections, body) so that no faculty is left untouched ("total" in extent, not necessarily in degree).

The fundamental sin is unbelief (failure to trust God's word) from which other sins flow.

There is a sin (blasphemy against the Holy Spirit) that will not be forgiven, in this age or the next.

Believers can, by grace, reach a state in this life in which they are freed from all willful/known sin (Christian perfection / entire sanctification).

Evil has no positive substance of its own; it is a privation or corruption of good (evil = the lack of a due good).

Even without saving grace, the unregenerate can perform genuine civic/external good (justice, kindness) that is truly good on its own level.

Infants are born morally innocent and become guilty only by their own actual sins once capable of moral choice.

Some sins are "mortal" (gravely severing the soul from grace/eternal life) while others are "venial" (wounding but not destroying the relationship with God).

Infants who die unbaptized are, because of original sin, deprived of the beatific vision (whatever their further state).

Moral evil arises necessarily from the gift of genuine creaturely free will, which God could not give without the possibility of its misuse.

The transmission and locus of original sin is especially bound up with sexual concupiscence/generation (sin is propagated through the disordered act of generation).

The Fall, though evil, was a "happy fault" because it occasioned a greater good (the incarnation and redemption) than would otherwise have been.

Original sin consists essentially in the loss/privation of original righteousness (a lack), rather than a positively infused evil.

The root of all sin is pride / inordinate self-love (turning from God to self).

Properly speaking, something counts as sin only if it is voluntary (chosen knowingly and willingly).

The "unforgivable sin" is best understood as persistent, final impenitence/rejection of grace until death, not a single past utterance.

Sin is most fundamentally a rupture of relationship/covenant with God and neighbor, more than law-breaking or substance-corruption.

Christ's lifelong law-keeping (his "active obedience"), not only his death, is imputed to the believer as their positive righteousness.

Assurance rests on Christ's finished work and God's promise, not on the believer's own works or sacramental performance.

A believer can have a settled present assurance that they are saved.

Baptism is a symbol/ordinance that publicly signifies a salvation already received by faith and does not itself convey saving grace.

Water baptism is ordinarily necessary for salvation; one is not normally saved apart from it.

Baptism itself effects regeneration / the washing away of sin, conferring saving grace through the act.

Baptism is valid only when received by a person old enough to personally profess faith.

The good works a believer does in grace genuinely merit an increase of grace and eternal reward before God.

Salvation is received by making a deliberate personal decision for Christ (e.g. praying to receive him / answering an altar call).

The finally unsaved suffer conscious punishment in hell that never ends.

Conscious, explicit faith in Jesus Christ is necessary for salvation; there is no salvation for those who never come to such faith.

Human beings retain, even after the fall, a natural ability to take the first step toward God or to choose salvation without prior special grace.

It is right to baptize the infants/children of believers (or of the faithful community).

Justification admits of degrees and can increase through subsequent works and the sacraments.

Saving faith necessarily includes submission to Christ as Lord and a commitment to repent/obey, not mere intellectual assent.

No human work has any merit before God; salvation and reward are entirely of grace.

On the cross Christ bore the penalty/punishment that sinners deserved, satisfying God's justice in their place (penal substitution).

After death, many of the saved undergo a purifying state ("purgatory") before entering full glory.

Repentance (a real turning from sin) is required for salvation.

The righteousness of justification is infused into and becomes intrinsic to the believer, growing as they cooperate with grace.

The righteousness by which a believer is justified is Christ's own righteousness credited/imputed to them, external to and not produced by the believer.

A person is incorporated into salvation chiefly through the Church's sacraments of initiation (baptism, confirmation/chrismation, Eucharist) rather than a personal decision.

After conversion the believer grows in holiness gradually over a lifetime (progressive sanctification).

The Church can apply the superabundant merits of Christ and the saints (the "treasury of merit") to remit temporal punishment, e.g. through indulgences.

In the end God will reconcile and save all people (and possibly all creatures), so that none are finally lost.

Good works are the necessary fruit and evidence of saving faith but contribute nothing to the ground of one's justification.

Salvation centers on an identifiable, often datable moment of conversion / being "born again."

Believers can attain, in this life, a state of entire sanctification / Christian perfection in which the heart is cleansed of inbred sin.

The Lord's Supper / Eucharist conveys real saving or sustaining grace to the worthy recipient, not merely a memorial.

The cross cleanses/cancels sin (expiation) but does not appease divine wrath (propitiation), because God needs no appeasement.

Both faith and good works (cooperating with grace) are jointly necessary as the means by which one is finally justified before God.

A future/final justification will be rendered "according to" the whole life lived in the Spirit, not on the basis of present faith alone.

People who never explicitly hear of Christ can nevertheless be saved through Christ on the basis of responding to the grace/light they have.

Justification is a forensic, declarative act in which God legally pronounces the sinner righteous, distinct from the inner process of being made holy.

A person is justified by faith alone (sola fide), apart from any contribution of their works to the ground of justification.

Someone who has fallen from grace can repent and be restored to salvation.

The cross saves chiefly by demonstrating God's love and so moving sinners to repentance and moral transformation, not by paying a penalty.

There is some real cleansing, growth, or change in the soul's condition after death (apart from a juridical "purgatory").

Prayers, Masses, or almsgiving by the living can benefit the salvific state of the dead.

A rightly performed sacrament conveys its grace by the very fact of being performed (ex opere operato), not depending on the worthiness of the minister or recipient's merit.

Salvation is ordinarily found only within the one true visible Church; to be saved one must belong to it.

The human can make the first move toward God (e.g. an initial desire or assent), after which God supplies the grace to complete salvation.

Baptism in the Holy Spirit is a distinct experience subsequent to conversion, evidenced by speaking in tongues.

Fallen humans are so corrupted that, apart from grace, they are entirely unable to turn to God or choose saving good (total inability).

The preached/read Word of God is the primary means by which saving grace is given, with sacraments subordinate or secondary.

The atonement's deepest purpose is to heal and divinize human nature (joining humanity to God), more than to settle a legal account.

The atonement is principally Christ's victory over sin, death, and the powers of evil, liberating humanity from bondage.

Who is among the elect cannot be known with certainty in this life.

A person who is genuinely saved can never lose their salvation ("once saved, always saved").

Good works/holiness are necessary not merely as evidence but as a real condition of final salvation.

Saving grace is a created, habitual quality infused into the soul that elevates and heals it.

Justification is fundamentally a real inner transformation (the infusing of righteousness that actually makes a person righteous) not just a verdict.

Christ saves by "recapitulating": living out and reversing in himself every stage of human life that Adam corrupted, healing human nature from within.

God ordinarily dispenses saving grace through material sacraments/mysteries as effective channels.

A genuine believer can fall away and forfeit salvation (apostasy / conditional security).

Salvation is fundamentally a lifelong process of being saved rather than a single completed event.

Christ's death rendered satisfaction to God's offended honor/justice for the debt of sin (Anselmian satisfaction).

There is a definite "second work of grace" subsequent to conversion that empowers/cleanses the believer.

Salvation is best understood as participation/union with Christ, from which both justification and sanctification flow, rather than as a primarily legal transaction.

Salvation is accomplished by God alone working in the person (monergism); the human will does not cooperate in the new birth.

The Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father AND the Son (filioque).

The Spirit's indwelling is conferred chiefly through the sacrament of baptism (and/or chrismation/confirmation).

Recognized prophets today can speak with binding, Scripture-level authority over the church.

The governing offices of apostle and prophet have been restored and should lead the church today.

God is one indivisible person who manifests successively or simultaneously as Father, Son, and Spirit, rather than three eternally distinct persons.

Public tongues-speaking in the gathered assembly must be accompanied by interpretation or remain silent.

Sanctification is the Spirit's ongoing work in which the believer actively cooperates ("walk by the Spirit").

Baptism in/with the Holy Spirit happens at conversion and is identical with becoming a Christian: not a separate later event.

The Spirit is a distinct hypostasis/person, genuinely other than the Father and the Son, not merely a mode or aspect of the one God.

The new birth (regeneration) is a work the Holy Spirit accomplishes in the believer.

The Spirit gifts and empowers every believer for ministry (priesthood of all believers), not a clerical class alone.

The Holy Spirit is eternal, without beginning, and shares the one uncreated divine nature.

The Spirit gives believers a direct inner witness assuring them they are God's children.

The Spirit so guides the Church's official teaching that it can be preserved from error (infallibility) on matters of faith.

Any present-day prompting attributed to the Spirit must be tested by and remain subordinate to the written Scripture.

The Spirit is of the same essence (homoousios) as the Father and the Son.

The Spirit must internally illumine a reader for Scripture to be rightly understood and received as God's word.

What Scripture calls "the Holy Spirit" is best understood as God's impersonal power or presence-in-action rather than a third "who."

Every true believer is permanently indwelt by the Holy Spirit from the moment of conversion.

The Holy Spirit is the divine author who inspired the writers of Scripture.

The Holy Spirit is a created being or the highest creature, not eternal and uncreated.

The Holy Spirit is fully and truly God, equal in divine essence to the Father and the Son.

The Holy Spirit is a distinct personal agent (who can be grieved, speaks, wills, and intercedes), not merely an impersonal force or energy.

The Holy Spirit is genuinely at work within non-Christian religions as such.

The Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father.

The Spirit continues to give new authoritative revelation today, beyond the closed canon of Scripture.

The Spirit is genuinely subordinate to the Father and the Son in rank or authority, not merely distinct in role.

The Spirit works savingly in people who are outside the visible institutional church, including beyond explicit Christian profession.

The Holy Spirit is rightly worshiped and glorified together with the Father and the Son.

Spiritual gifts exist primarily to build up the gathered body, not for individual display or status.

Speaking in tongues is the initial physical evidence that a person has been baptized in the Holy Spirit.

All the spiritual gifts described in the New Testament, including the miraculous ones, continue and are normative for the church today.

Settled assurance of salvation is normal and to be expected for genuine believers in this life.

There is a specific sin against the Holy Spirit that is unforgivable.

There is a second, instantaneous work of grace after conversion in which the Spirit purifies the heart from the sin nature (entire sanctification / Christian perfection).

The fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, etc.) is the truest evidence of the Spirit's presence, more than the spectacular gifts.

The Spirit's direct inner light within each person is a primary and sufficient source of religious truth and direction.

The gift of prophecy is given to believers today.

By the Spirit, a believer may reach a state of entire freedom from conscious/willful sin in this life.

The Holy Spirit was personally active in the creation of the world.

Baptism in the Holy Spirit is a definite experience subsequent to and distinct from conversion (a "second blessing").

The Spirit distributes gifts sovereignly as He wills, so believers cannot simply claim or work up a particular gift.

The Holy Spirit is essentially the immanent divine presence pervading nature and the cosmos (a world-indwelling Spirit) more than a transcendent personal third.

The gift of speaking in tongues is given to believers today.

The sign gifts ceased specifically because the completed canon of Scripture made them unnecessary.

Being "filled with the Spirit" is a repeatable, commanded experience distinct from the one-time indwelling.

Miraculous gifts functioned only to authenticate new revelation and have no ongoing purpose now that revelation is complete.

When prayed-for healing does not occur, the usual explanation is insufficient faith on the part of those involved.

The Spirit's primary present work includes empowering movements of social justice and liberation in history.

The Spirit proceeds from the Father THROUGH the Son (per Filium), not from the Son as a co-cause.

The Spirit is characteristically imparted or stirred up through the laying on of hands.

Ordination/consecration confers a specific charism of the Spirit for church office (priest, bishop, presbyter).

Spirit-baptism is primarily for power/empowerment for witness and service, distinct from the saving work that makes one a believer.

The Spirit "seals" the believer as a permanent guarantee of final salvation that cannot be undone.

When exercised genuinely, tongues are real, existing human languages (xenoglossy), not unintelligible utterance.

The Spirit's saving, regenerating grace is ultimately irresistible in those God has chosen.

Apostolicity consists primarily in fidelity to apostolic DOCTRINE, not in an unbroken chain of ordinations from the apostles.

The bishop of Rome (the pope) holds a divinely instituted primacy of jurisdiction over the whole church.

The baptized children of believers are already members of the visible church/covenant community, not outsiders awaiting conversion.

The church should formally practice corrective discipline, up to exclusion, against unrepentant serious sin among members.

The church is apostolic: it must stand in genuine continuity with the apostles' teaching and mission.

The church is the mystical Body of Christ, organically united to him as its head.

The church is catholic (universal): the whole company of Christ's people across all times and places, not confined to one nation, culture, or congregation.

The church is a divine institution founded by Christ, not merely a voluntary human association of like-minded believers.

The church is holy (set apart and sanctified by Christ) even though its members remain sinners.

The true church is essentially ONE (a single body) despite outward divisions.

The church should be institutionally separate from the civil government: no established or state church.

Those in the (higher) ordained ministry should be unmarried/celibate.

Each local congregation is self-governing and autonomous under Christ, answerable to no higher ecclesiastical authority.

Church councils and creeds have real authority but may err and remain subordinate to Scripture.

The goal of church discipline is the restoration of the offender, not merely punishment or protecting the church's purity.

Government by bishops in apostolic succession is the divinely intended and necessary form of church order (jure divino episcopacy).

God works and dispenses truth/salvation today through ONE specific visible organization, and being rightly related to it is essential.

A living teaching office (magisterium) authoritatively and bindingly interprets Scripture and Tradition for the whole church.

Church membership should be limited to those who give a credible personal profession of faith (a regenerate/believers' church).

The ordained minister functions as a priest who offers a sacrifice (the Eucharist) on behalf of the people.

The church's central mission is to proclaim the gospel and make disciples (the Great Commission as its defining task).

A true church need not practice outward water-baptism or the Lord's Supper at all; the inward reality suffices.

Even granting the priesthood of all believers, an ordained ministry remains a distinct, divinely warranted office, not merely a functional convenience.

Christ's commission to Peter ("upon this rock") established a perpetual office continued in the bishops of Rome.

The pope, under defined conditions (ex cathedra, on faith and morals), teaches infallibly.

Every believer is a priest with direct access to God, with no need for a mediating human priest.

The true church is identified by the right administration of the sacraments (alongside the right preaching of the Word).

Scripture is the sole final authority for the church's faith and practice (sola scriptura); all other authorities are subordinate and fallible.

The church should be led directly by Spirit-anointed apostles/prophets whose governance carries divine authority over the congregation.

Sacred Tradition stands alongside Scripture as a co-equal source of binding revelation.

The church's God-willed unity must be a VISIBLE, institutional, communion-and-sacramental unity, not merely a spiritual bond among believers.

The offices of elder/pastor and the authoritative teaching of men in the gathered church are reserved to qualified men.

Women may be ordained to the pastoral/priestly office on the same basis as men.

Baptism is the rite of entry/incorporation into the visible church.

Local churches are properly bound together under a wider connectional structure (conference, synod, communion) with real authority over them.

The decisions of genuine ecumenical councils are infallible and irreformable for the whole church.

The validity/efficacy of sacraments does not depend on the personal holiness of the minister (against Donatism).

Lawful excommunication actually binds in heaven: it carries real spiritual consequences, not merely social ones.

The church should have a defined, formal membership that one joins by a deliberate covenant or profession.

The "real" church is the invisible company of all the elect/truly regenerate, known certainly only to God, of which any visible body is an imperfect expression.

Each rightly-gathered local church is fully and not merely partially "the church": the whole church is present where the people gather with the Word and sacraments (or, for some, the Eucharist with the bishop).

Belonging to the visible, organized church is normally necessary for the Christian life, not an optional add-on to private faith.

The papacy is a later, illegitimate human development: a corruption rather than Christ's design.

In the New Testament "bishop" (episkopos) and "elder" (presbyteros) name the same office; there is no separate higher order of bishop.

Christ's true church has existed continuously and visibly in every age since Pentecost, never wholly apostatizing.

In this age the visible church is a mixed body containing both genuine believers and the unregenerate (wheat and tares, sheep and goats together until the end).

The institutional church is a provisional, this-age reality that will give way to the consummated Kingdom, rather than itself being the final goal.

Working for social justice and the transformation of society is an integral, not optional, part of the church's mission.

There should be no distinct ordained clergy class; all believers minister equally without a separate office of pastor/priest.

The church should be governed by presbyters (elders) acting collectively through graded courts (session, presbytery, synod, assembly).

Members must socially shun/avoid those placed under the ban, including in ordinary daily relations.

Christians are obligated to pursue the visible, organic reunion of the divided churches.

The church is essentially a single concrete, visible communion; "invisible church" is a misleading abstraction.

In the New Testament "church" refers primarily to the local visible congregation; the "universal church" is at most a future/heavenly assembly.

The church rightly seeks to shape law, culture, and the civil order according to Christian principles (a Christianized society as a goal).

The faithful church should remain a distinct, separated community withdrawn from the institutions and entanglements of worldly society.

Baptism should wait until a person reaches an age of accountability and can repent and believe for themselves.

Baptism by pouring water over the head (affusion) is a fully valid mode.

Valid baptism requires full immersion of the body in water.

The mode of baptism (immersion, pouring, or sprinkling) is a matter of indifference and does not affect validity.

Baptism is necessary for salvation (ordinarily required to be saved).

Baptism conveys no grace whatsoever; it is purely a symbolic public testimony of an inward change.

In baptism God regenerates the recipient: the new birth/washing away of sin actually occurs in the rite.

Only those who personally profess faith should be baptized; infant baptism is not true baptism.

The laity should receive both the bread and the cup (not bread alone).

Confession of sin directly to God is fully sufficient for forgiveness; no human mediator is needed.

A sacrament benefits the recipient only when received with faith; without faith it conveys no grace (or conveys judgment).

A validly performed sacrament conveys grace by virtue of the act itself (ex opere operato), independent of the worthiness of the minister.

There are exactly two ordinances/sacraments instituted by Christ: baptism and the Lord's Supper.

Indulgences can remit the temporal punishment due to forgiven sins, drawing on the Church's treasury of merit.

Infants and young children of believers should be baptized.

Marriage is a sacred, God-ordained covenant, but it is not a sacrament that conveys grace.

The Eucharist is a true and propitiatory sacrifice offered for the living and the dead.

The Supper is purely a memorial; the bread and wine remain only symbols that prompt remembrance, with no presence or reception of Christ.

No outward physical rites are necessary; the only true baptism and communion are inward and spiritual.

Because all believers are priests, there is no distinct sacrificing/sacramental priesthood set apart from the laity.

A true sacrament must have been directly instituted by Christ himself.

The penitent must perform acts of satisfaction (penance) assigned by the confessor as part of reconciliation.

There are seven sacraments: baptism, confirmation/chrismation, Eucharist, penance, anointing of the sick, holy orders, and matrimony.

In consecration the bread and wine are changed in substance into the body and blood of Christ, the appearances alone remaining.

Only men may be validly ordained to the priesthood/presbyterate.

Baptism is the New Covenant sign of membership corresponding to circumcision, hence applied to covenant children.

Through anointing with chrism the recipient receives the seal/gift of the Holy Spirit not given in water baptism alone.

Confirmation (chrismation) is a distinct sacrament that completes baptismal initiation and imparts the Holy Spirit.

Confirmation is properly an occasion for a baptized person to profess for themselves the faith into which they were baptized.

The consecrated host may rightly be adored and worshiped as Christ himself.

Apostolic "household" baptisms warrant baptizing the whole family, including its children, on the faith of the head.

Marriage between two baptized Christians is a sacrament conveying grace.

The personal sin or unbelief of the minister invalidates the sacrament he administers.

Baptism and the Supper are primarily acts of human obedience and public testimony rather than channels of divine grace.

Ordination imprints an indelible character on the ordained that cannot be lost.

Baptized infants and young children should receive communion before a profession of faith or first confession.

Christ's presence in the Supper exists only in the act of distribution and reception, not in elements set aside afterward.

Christ is truly and really present in the bread and wine of the Supper, not merely symbolized.

Fermented wine, not grape juice, should be used in the Supper.

A person validly baptized in the name of the Trinity should never be rebaptized.

The sacraments/ordinances are not merely symbols but are means through which God actually conveys grace.

Anointing of the sick with oil is a sacrament conveying grace, healing, and forgiveness to the seriously ill.

Those who die unbaptized may still be saved through "baptism of desire" or martyrdom ("baptism of blood").

Baptism should be administered by three immersions, one for each person of the Trinity.

Baptism performed outside the one true Church is invalid and must be redone upon entry.

Chrismation/confirmation should be administered immediately with baptism, even to infants.

A consummated sacramental marriage is absolutely indissoluble; no divorce can break the bond before death.

Valid baptism must use the Trinitarian formula "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."

For a sacrament to be valid the minister must intend "to do what the Church does."

A sacrament is rightly defined as a visible sign of an invisible grace: a "visible word."

Sacraments function chiefly to confirm, seal, and strengthen a faith already given, rather than to originate grace.

A public invitation/altar call inviting people to come forward to receive Christ or rededicate is a fitting close to worship.

Icons of Christ and the saints should be venerated (honored with bows, kisses, candles, incense) in worship.

A sermon is not an essential element of worship and may be brief or omitted.

The second commandment forbids making any image of God or using images in worship.

Statues, crucifixes, and religious images are proper aids to devotion in the place of worship.

Worship should be conducted in the everyday language of the people.

Bowing, prostration, or full physical reverence before the altar, icons, or sacrament is fitting in worship.

The miraculous sign gifts (tongues, prophecy, healing) ceased with the apostolic age and have no place in worship today.

Communion seasons (a few solemn observances a year with extensive preparation) are the fitting pattern.

Only the inspired Psalms (or canonical biblical songs) may be sung in worship: no uninspired hymns.

Public prayer should be extemporaneous and from the heart rather than read from a book.

The biblical feasts of the Hebrew calendar (Passover, Pentecost/Shavuot, Tabernacles) should be observed by Christians in worship.

No images or visual representations should be present in the worship space; worship is by word and sacrament alone.

Men should worship with heads uncovered as a matter of reverence and biblical instruction.

A formal exchange of the peace (greeting one another with a sign of peace) is a fitting liturgical act.

The preaching/exposition of the Word is the central act and high point of corporate worship.

The worship space should be ordered around a central, elevated pulpit as its focus.

A fixed sacred or traditional liturgical language (Latin, Church Slavonic, Koine Greek, classical Syriac, Ge'ez) is fitting and preferable for worship.

A substantial, lengthy sermon (30+ minutes) is a normal and expected feature of worship.

The sermon should be primarily an exposition of a biblical text rather than topical, exhortatory, or homiletic reflection.

Standing is the fitting posture for prayer and for hearing the Gospel/Scripture read.

The Lord's Prayer should be recited corporately as a regular part of worship.

The collection of tithes and offerings is itself an act of worship within the service.

The received liturgical tradition of the church carries binding authority over the form of worship alongside (or beyond) explicit Scripture.

A primary purpose of the worship service is evangelism and calling outsiders to conversion.

Only feasts directly commemorating events in Christ's life (Christmas, Easter, Pentecost) are warranted; saints' days are not.

Spontaneous prophetic words may be spoken in the worship service as direct messages from God to the congregation.

Prepared, written prayers (collects, the prayer book) are a proper and preferred form of corporate prayer.

Congregational singing is a divinely required element of corporate worship.

A private or corporate "prayer language" of tongues is a valid mode of addressing God in worship.

Speaking in tongues during the gathered worship service is a legitimate and welcome practice.

The outward form and style of worship is largely a matter of indifference (adiaphora) to be decided by culture, pastoral wisdom, or preference.

Contemporary worship music (CCM, praise-and-worship bands, modern choruses) is fitting and desirable for the gathered church.

The church year (Advent, Christmas, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, Pentecost, and saints'/feast days) should structure the worship of the church.

The Lord's Supper should be celebrated every Lord's Day.

Worship is fittingly conducted in homes or simple gatherings without a dedicated sacred building.

Worship should be deliberately shaped to feel familiar and accessible to outsiders and the unchurched.

Jesus Christ will return personally, visibly, and bodily to the earth at a future point in history.

At death the believer's soul consciously enters the presence of Christ and remains aware while awaiting the bodily resurrection.

There will be a final judgment at which all people are judged by Christ and assigned their eternal destinies.

There will be a future, literal resurrection of the body: the dead raised with transformed physical bodies.

The finally unrepentant suffer conscious punishment in hell that continues without end.

Prayers, almsgiving, or the Eucharist offered for the departed can benefit them in the intermediate state.

Many of the saved undergo a purifying process after death (purgatory) before entering the fullness of heaven.

The decisive "coming of the Son of Man" prophesied in the Gospels was fulfilled in the events surrounding the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, not a still-future event.

Language about Christ's "return" is best understood symbolically (as the ongoing triumph of his cause or spiritual presence) rather than as a single future historical event.

It is possible, by study of prophecy, to calculate or closely estimate the time of the end.

While not asserting it as doctrine, one may legitimately hope and pray that all may ultimately be saved.

Final hope is essentially the immortality of the soul in a spiritual realm, not the raising and transformation of the physical body.

Unbaptized infants who die occupy a state of natural happiness apart from the beatific vision (the "limbo of infants").

There is no distinct "rapture" doctrine at all; the New Testament describes one return of Christ at which the living and the dead are gathered together.

Christ's return will be accompanied by literal cosmic upheaval: darkened sun, falling stars, and visible glory seen by all.

The resurrection body is a real, physical body in genuine continuity with the body that died, though glorified and incorruptible.

We are currently living in the biblically described "last days."

The age will end in increasing apostasy, deception, and tribulation rather than in a Christianized golden age.

A literal future "mark of the beast" will be imposed as a condition of economic participation.

The supreme reward of the redeemed is the direct, face-to-face vision of God himself (the beatific vision).

The eternal destiny of the redeemed is embodied life on a renewed earth, not a disembodied existence in a non-material heaven.

Believers will be judged for their works to determine differing degrees of reward (while their salvation itself is secure).

The prophecies of Daniel and Revelation should be read primarily as literal predictions of still-future events.

Christ returns bodily before the millennial kingdom and personally inaugurates it on earth.

The thousand-year reign of Christ (Revelation 20) denotes a literal, future, earthly period of roughly a thousand years.

Identifiable signs (wars, earthquakes, gospel preached to all nations, rise of deception) will mark the approach of the end and can be discerned.

A specific future seven-year period of unprecedented tribulation (often tied to Daniel's seventieth week) remains to be fulfilled.

Christ's return could occur at any moment, with no remaining prophecy that must be fulfilled first.

Scripture is rightly read only within Holy Tradition: the Fathers, councils, liturgy, and consensus of the Church.

The authentic interpretation of Scripture is entrusted to the Church's living teaching office (Magisterium), whose judgments bind the faithful.

Scripture and apostolic Tradition together form one deposit of God's Word, both to be received with equal devotion.

Scripture is the sole infallible rule of faith and practice for the Church.

The Church recognized the canon that God had already constituted, rather than creating or conferring canonicity.

The canon of Scripture is permanently closed; no new books can be added.

The deuterocanonical/apocryphal books (e.g., Tobit, Wisdom, Sirach, 1-2 Maccabees) are fully canonical Scripture.

Books such as 1 Enoch and Jubilees belong in the biblical canon.

The Old Testament should be rejected or radically subordinated because its God differs from the God revealed in Jesus.

Scripture includes additional latter-day revealed books beyond the Bible (e.g., the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price).

The Old Testament is fully and equally Scripture alongside the New Testament.

The canon of Scripture is open in principle: God may add new authoritative written revelation in the present or future.

Books beyond the Roman Catholic canon (e.g., 3 Maccabees, Psalm 151, 1 Esdras, and in some churches 4 Maccabees or Enoch) are rightly received as Scripture.

The canon of Scripture consists of exactly the 66 books of the Protestant Bible.

The canonical books are self-authenticating: believers recognize them as Scripture through the internal witness of the Holy Spirit, not by the Church's decree.

Every doctrine the Church teaches must be testable by, and answerable to, Scripture.

The proper method of interpretation seeks the single intended meaning of the human author in his historical and grammatical context.

The literal sense (the plain, intended meaning) is the foundation and control for all other senses of Scripture.

All of Scripture finds its unifying meaning in Christ and the unfolding plan of redemption, and should be read Christocentrically.

Obscure passages of Scripture should be interpreted in light of clearer passages ("the analogy of Scripture").

The Bible contains real errors and contradictions, and Christian faith does not depend on its factual accuracy.

Scripture in its original manuscripts is entirely without error in all that it affirms, including matters of history and the natural world, not only faith and morals.

The early chapters of Genesis (creation, the fall, the flood) are intended as real history rather than primarily theological symbol or ancient myth.

Apparent discrepancies among the four Gospels can in principle be harmonized without conceding any actual error.

The historical narratives of Scripture (e.g., the exodus, the conquest, the bodily resurrection) record events that actually happened in space and time.

God so worked through the human authors that their own personalities, vocabulary, and circumstances genuinely shaped the text while it remained God's word.

Inspiration extends to the actual words of the original text, not only to the general ideas or concepts.

The Holy Spirit is properly called the divine author of Scripture.

"Inspiration" refers only to the heightened spiritual insight of gifted human authors, comparable in kind (if not degree) to other great religious writing.

All parts of Scripture are equally inspired, not merely the doctrinally central or "religious" portions.

The Christian Scriptures originated through a genuine act of God, not merely human religious reflection.

Individual believers, illumined by the Spirit, are competent to interpret Scripture for themselves.

Scripture is necessary for a saving and reliable knowledge of God that nature alone cannot provide.

The essential teachings of Scripture, especially the way of salvation, are clear enough that ordinary believers can understand them without a specialized interpreter.

Scripture is sufficiently obscure that private readers will go astray without the Church's authoritative guidance.

Some of Scripture's moral teachings are culturally conditioned and may be revised or set aside in light of contemporary moral insight.

Every believer should read the Scriptures directly in their own language.

Through the Holy Spirit, Scripture speaks directly and personally to the believer today, not merely as an ancient record.

The Christian Scriptures are uniquely God's word in a way that the sacred texts of other religions are not.

Scripture contains all things necessary for salvation and for the faith and life of the Church; nothing essential is lacking.

The Church should bind conscience to "no creed but the Bible," rejecting man-made confessions as tests of fellowship.

An individual believer may rightly stand on Scripture against the consensus of the Church when conscience so requires.

The Church, exercising her God-given authority, determined and authoritatively defined which books are canonical.

God's revelation in nature and conscience gives reliable, though limited, knowledge of God independent of Scripture.

Allegorical and figurative interpretation, rather than the literal-historical, should be the default key to Scripture's deeper meaning.

Critical-historical study (source, form, and redaction criticism) is a legitimate and necessary tool for understanding Scripture.

The meaning of a biblical text is significantly constituted by the reader or community, not fixed solely by authorial intent.

Scripture must be interpreted according to the Church's "rule of faith" / received tradition, which constrains permissible readings.

Old Testament persons and events are divinely intended types that prefigure New Testament realities.

Scripture is infallible in matters of faith and salvation but may contain incidental errors in history, science, or geography.

Scripture's descriptions of nature (e.g., the sun rising) are ordinary phenomenological language and do not constitute scientific error.

The Bible is not in itself the Word of God but becomes the Word of God in the event of God addressing a person through it.

Some books or passages of Scripture are more fully inspired than others.

The recorded words of Jesus carry greater authority than other portions of Scripture.

Scripture is best understood as a fallible human witness pointing to revelation, rather than as revelation itself.

The apocryphal books are profitable for reading and edification but are not authoritative for establishing doctrine.

Beyond the literal sense, Scripture carries genuine spiritual senses (allegorical, moral, anagogical) intended by God.

God accommodated the limited knowledge of the human authors, so the Bible can reflect the erroneous cosmology or science of its time without compromising its religious message.

God inspired the writers' thoughts and impulses but left the choice of words wholly to human discretion.

Scripture's authority is exercised chiefly through its public proclamation and the sacraments, rather than primarily through private reading.

Bible translation should follow the original wording and structure as closely as possible (formal/word-for-word equivalence).

The numbers, genealogies, and chronological details in Scripture are precise and reconcilable rather than approximate or schematic.

The first human was specially and directly created by God from the dust, not biologically descended from earlier hominins.

Angels and other spiritual beings are part of God's created order, made by God.

The miracles recorded in Scripture (e.g., the parting of the sea, Jesus' healings, walking on water) actually occurred as described.

God created the universe out of nothing (ex nihilo), not from pre-existing matter.

God continually sustains the universe in being; creation is not merely a past event but an ongoing dependence on God.

Creation has a real divine purpose and direction (telos), not merely the appearance of order arising from undirected processes.

God created the world and established its laws but does not intervene with miracles or verbal revelation; he is known through reason and nature alone.

Caring for the created order (environmental stewardship) is a genuine theological duty flowing from the doctrine of creation.

Biological evolution is an entirely unguided, purposeless process requiring no divine involvement of any kind.

God genuinely reveals something of himself through the natural world and the created order, apart from Scripture.

Genesis 1-3 is intended as an account of actual historical events, not primarily as theological symbol, poetry, or myth.

The one triune God is the sole creator of everything that exists, including all spiritual and material reality.

Adam and Eve were real, historical individuals, the literal first human beings.

The fall of humanity into sin was a real historical event by the first humans, not merely a symbol of the universal human condition.

All human beings descend from a single original couple (monogenism).

Humans bear the image of God in a way that sets them qualitatively apart from all other animals, by a special divine act or endowment.

The material, physical world is intrinsically good as God made it, not evil, illusory, or a prison for the soul.

God can and does act in the world in ways that supersede or suspend ordinary natural causes (genuine miracles are possible).

Whatever knowledge of God nature provides is insufficient for salvation; saving knowledge requires special revelation in Christ and Scripture.

Human physical death is a consequence of sin; humans were created to be immortal in body and would not have died apart from the fall.

The resurrection of Jesus was a real, bodily, historical event, not merely a symbol of hope or the disciples' inner experience.

A clear and reliable knowledge of God and his saving purposes requires God's special, verbal self-revelation, not merely general revelation.

The universe (or some physical reality) is eternal and had no absolute beginning.

The miraculous and revelatory gifts (prophecy, tongues, healing) ceased with the apostolic age and are not normative today.

The "days" of Genesis 1 represent long ages or epochs, allowing for an old earth while keeping the sequence broadly historical.

The fine-tuning of the universe's physical constants is real evidence of intelligent design or a divine designer.

The human conscience and moral sense are a form of God's revelation, giving real knowledge of right and wrong written on the heart.

God ordinarily acts through natural laws and secondary causes, which are themselves his ongoing governance, rather than by frequent direct intervention.

God created living things, including humans, by means of the evolutionary process, including common descent.

God created the universe and all kinds of life in six literal 24-hour days.

There is no genuine knowledge of God available through nature or human reason apart from God's revelation in Jesus Christ.

God is best understood as creating continuously and in cooperation with an evolving, partly self-creating world (creatio continua), rather than as having finished creation.

Certain features of biology exhibit "irreducible" or "specified" complexity that is best explained by intelligent design and could not arise by unguided evolution.

Properly interpreted Scripture and properly conducted science will agree, and apparent conflicts arise from misreading one or the other.

God still performs miracles today (healings, signs, answered prayer beyond natural explanation) as he did in biblical times.

Access to abortion is a fundamental right that should be legally protected.

Deliberately ending a pregnancy by killing the unborn is in itself a grave moral wrong.

Full moral status and the protections of personhood begin only at birth.

Deliberately ending a patient's life to relieve suffering (active euthanasia) is always morally wrong.

Assisted dying may be appropriate for unbearable suffering even when the condition is not terminal (chronic illness, psychiatric suffering, disability).

Medical professionals have a moral right to conscientiously refuse to perform or refer for abortions.

Human life possesses a special, inviolable dignity because human beings are made in the image of God.

The direct, intentional killing of an innocent human being is always gravely wrong, with no exceptions.

Human life is a gift over which we are stewards, not owners; we may not dispose of it (our own or another's) at will.

A distinct human person, bearing full moral status, exists from the moment of conception/fertilization.

In some cases (e.g., severe anomaly), ending the life of a newborn could be ethically comparable to late abortion.

Reducing a multiple pregnancy by aborting one or more fetuses ("selective reduction") is morally wrong.

Methods that can prevent implantation of an already-fertilized embryo (e.g., certain IUDs, emergency contraception) are morally equivalent to early abortion and impermissible.

Adult and induced-pluripotent stem cells (which do not require destroying embryos) are the morally preferable avenue for stem-cell medicine.

A competent person's advance directive refusing future treatment should be respected.

A competent adult's autonomy over their own body is the decisive moral consideration in life-and-death medical choices.

The state may, in principle, justly impose the death penalty for the gravest crimes.

Creating human-animal hybrids or chimeras for research is morally wrong.

Reproductive cloning of a human being is morally wrong.

Creating more embryos than will be transferred to the womb is morally wrong.

Engineering "designer babies" by selecting or editing for desired non-medical traits is morally wrong.

Adopting and gestating abandoned frozen embryos ("embryo adoption" / snowflake adoption) is a praiseworthy way to rescue them.

One is not morally required to use extraordinary/disproportionate means (burdensome, futile, or excessively costly treatment) to prolong life.

IVF using a married couple's own gametes is morally acceptable as a remedy for infertility.

Assisted dying / euthanasia should be legally available with appropriate safeguards.

Taking human life can be morally justified in some circumstances (just war, defense of the innocent, lawful execution).

Non-abortifacient contraception (barrier/hormonal methods that prevent fertilization) is morally acceptable for married couples.

There is a moral obligation to use ordinary/proportionate means to preserve life (basic care, ordinarily-beneficial treatment).

A physician may permissibly help a competent, terminally ill patient end their own life at the patient's request.

Using lethal force to defend oneself or others from a deadly attacker is morally permissible.

Buying or selling human organs is morally wrong (commodification of the body).

Scripture grants the civil authority a God-given right to wield lethal force ("the sword") against grave wrongdoing.

Suicide (taking one's own life) is morally wrong.

There is a morally significant difference between actively killing a patient and allowing them to die by withholding/withdrawing treatment.

Abortion is morally permissible when the pregnancy results from rape or incest.

Abortion is morally permissible when continuing the pregnancy would directly threaten the mother's life.

The death penalty should be abolished in practice today.

Paying a woman to gestate a child (commercial surrogacy) is specifically wrong as commodification, even if altruistic surrogacy might be tolerated.

Vital organs may be taken only after the donor is truly dead (the "dead donor rule" must not be relaxed).

The rational soul is infused only after the body has reached a sufficient stage of formation (delayed hominization), not at fertilization.

Do-not-resuscitate orders are morally acceptable when resuscitation would be futile or excessively burdensome.

Cryopreserving human embryos is morally problematic because it suspends and endangers human lives.

Using genetic technology to enhance traits beyond the treatment of disease (intelligence, appearance, ability) is morally wrong.

Editing the human germline (heritable changes passed to descendants) is morally wrong.

The rational soul is infused by God at the moment of conception.

Late-term abortion (third trimester) is gravely wrong even where earlier abortion might be tolerated.

Donating a non-vital organ (e.g., a kidney) while alive, out of charity, is morally acceptable.

Donating one's organs after death is a morally good and praiseworthy act of charity.

Giving pain relief sufficient to control suffering is acceptable even if it foreseeably (but unintentionally) shortens life.

When a life involves sufficient suffering or loss of function, considerations of "quality of life" can outweigh the duty to preserve it.

Conceiving and selecting a child specifically to be a tissue/organ donor for an existing sibling ("saviour sibling") treats the child as a means and is wrong.

Genetic modification of a patient's body cells to treat disease (somatic gene therapy) is morally acceptable.

Human life must be preserved by every available medical means for as long as possible, regardless of burden or prognosis.

Withdrawing or withholding life-sustaining treatment can be morally licit when it is futile or excessively burdensome.

Irreversible loss of all brain function (brain death) constitutes the genuine death of the person.

Justice positively requires the execution of murderers (life-for-life retribution as a moral duty, not merely a permission).

A coherent ethic of life must oppose abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, and unjust war alike ("seamless garment" / consistent life ethic).

Sedating a dying patient into unconsciousness to relieve otherwise intractable suffering (palliative/terminal sedation) is morally acceptable when death is not the intended aim.

An action with both a good and a foreseen-but-unintended bad effect can be permissible if the bad effect is not the means to the good and the goods are proportionate (the principle of double effect).

Substantially redesigning human biology through technology usurps a prerogative belonging to God ("playing God").

In vitro fertilization is intrinsically morally illicit because it separates procreation from the marital act.

When the mother's life is at risk, only procedures that do not directly target the unborn (e.g., removing a diseased organ with foreseen fetal death) are licit: not a direct abortion.

Abortion is impermissible in all circumstances, including rape, incest, fetal anomaly, and threat to the mother's life.

A marriage contracted before the state (civil marriage) is a fully valid marriage in God's sight.

Those ordained to the priesthood/ministry should be celibate.

Distinct roles for men and women are rooted in the created order, not merely in culture or the curse.

The husband is the divinely appointed head of the wife, who is called to submit to his leadership.

Internal lustful desire/fantasy, even without any outward act, is itself sin.

Marriage is essentially a covenant (a binding, God-witnessed promise) more than a contract or a means to ends.

Marriage is by nature a lifelong, exclusively monogamous union.

By definition and divine design, marriage is the union of one man and one woman.

There are no grounds whatsoever that morally justify divorce for a believer.

Consensual polyamorous or "ethical non-monogamous" relationships can be morally legitimate.

Polygamy (one man, multiple wives) is morally wrong for Christians.

Using pornography is morally wrong.

Premarital sex (fornication) is always sinful, even between an engaged or committed couple.

Sexual acts between two people of the same sex are always morally wrong.

Scripture provides binding, authoritative norms for sexual conduct that the church is not free to revise.

A person's sex is a fixed, binary, God-given reality determined at conception, not something that can be changed.

Sexual intercourse is morally reserved exclusively for marriage.

The church should hold up virginity-until-marriage as a clear normative expectation and teach it as such to youth.

Contraceptive methods that may act after fertilization (potential abortifacients) are morally wrong even if other contraception is permitted.

Consecrated celibacy/virginity is a higher or more excellent state than marriage.

Chastity (rightly ordered sexuality according to one's state in life) is a positive virtue to be actively cultivated, not merely abstinence.

The church should liturgically bless and solemnize same-sex unions.

Married couples may use contraception freely as a matter of prudent stewardship, with no moral cloud over it.

Divorce is also permitted when an unbelieving or abusive spouse deserts/abandons the marriage (the "Pauline privilege" / desertion ground).

Divorce is permitted in the case of a spouse's sexual unfaithfulness (the "exception clause").

A person divorced and civilly remarried without annulment should be barred from receiving Communion.

In an unresolved disagreement, the husband holds final decision-making authority in the home.

Marriage between the baptized is a sacrament that confers grace.

A covenanted union between two people of the same sex can be a true marriage in God's sight.

Sexual pleasure within marriage is a genuine good to be enjoyed for its own sake, not merely tolerated for procreation.

Husband and wife are called to mutual submission as equal partners, with no role assigned by sex.

The unitive good (companionship, mutual love, and one-flesh union of the spouses) is at least as central as procreation, if not more so.

A vow of lifelong celibacy (religious life) is genuinely binding before God and should not be dispensed lightly.

Women may teach and exercise authority over men in the gathered church (preach, lead, govern), short of or including ordination.

Artificial contraception (barrier, hormonal, sterilization) is intrinsically morally wrong.

Every marital sexual act must remain open to the possibility of procreation.

Christians who experience exclusive same-sex attraction are called to lifelong celibacy or to a mixed-orientation marriage with the opposite sex.

A valid, consummated marriage is absolutely indissoluble; nothing but death ends it.

Marriage and child-rearing are the normative, expected path for most adult Christians.

A valid marriage requires proper canonical form, free consent, and openness to its essential ends; defects in these can void it.

Masturbation is morally wrong.

Same-sex sexual attraction is an objective disorder of desire even when not acted upon.

Lifelong singleness is a full and equal Christian vocation, not a lesser or transitional state.

The consistent, unbroken teaching of the historic church on sex and marriage is itself a decisive authority that cannot be overturned.

Wives/mothers are specially called to prioritize the home and child-rearing over career/public vocation.

Some unions that appeared to be marriages were never valid marriages, and the church can rightly declare them null (annulment).

Old Testament polygamy was genuinely permitted/tolerated by God for that era, not merely recorded as sin.

The church may, by pastoral mercy ("economia"), permit a second or third marriage with a penitential rite even though it is less than the ideal.

A man already in a polygamous marriage when he converts may remain married to all his wives rather than being required to divorce.

One's stance and conduct on sexual ethics bears on salvation/standing before God, not merely on discipleship maturity.

Civil law should reflect Christian marriage norms (e.g. restricting legal marriage to one man and one woman).

Even within marriage, some sexual acts are morally illicit (not "anything goes" between spouses).

Spacing or limiting births by natural family planning (periodic abstinence) is morally acceptable for serious reasons, where artificial means are not.

Sexual sins are not categorically graver than other sins and should not be singled out for special emphasis or discipline.

Civil government is divinely instituted, and obedience to lawful authority is a Christian duty (Romans 13).

Racism (partiality and contempt on the basis of race or ethnicity) is a sin contrary to the gospel.

God ordains distinct nations/ethnic groups with boundaries that should be preserved, such that ethnic separateness has positive theological warrant.

The gospel is essentially a message of individual reconciliation with God, and social transformation is at most a secondary by-product, not part of its core content.

Taking a solemn oath before lawful authority, calling God to witness the truth, is a permitted and even reverent act.

It can be morally legitimate for Christians to use lethal force under some circumstances (e.g. defense of the innocent, just war).

Serving in the armed forces is an honorable Christian vocation.

Private ownership of property is a God-given right that the state and church must respect and protect.

God wills material prosperity and physical health for faithful believers, and these can be claimed through faith and giving.

Opposing abortion and protecting unborn life should be among the highest priorities of Christian political engagement.

Church and state should be institutionally separate, with the state neither establishing a religion nor coercing belief.

The civil government has a duty to recognize, establish, and protect the true religion (and may restrain public false worship).

The civil authority may rightly execute criminals for grave crimes.

Capitalism as a system is intrinsically exploitative and stands under God's judgment; Christian faithfulness requires working to replace it.

It is fitting for Christians to seek and hold civil office in order to govern justly.

Active civic participation (voting, advocacy, holding office) is a positive Christian duty in a free society.

Christians may, and sometimes must, disobey civil laws that command sin or are gravely unjust.

Patriotism and Christian devotion properly reinforce one another, and love of country is part of Christian duty.

Political life should be ordered toward a shared "common good" that the state has positive responsibility to promote, not merely the protection of individual rights.

Political compromise and coalition with non-Christians or ideological opponents is a legitimate and prudent way to pursue the common good.

The civil law should impose the death penalty for a wide range of offenses specified in the Mosaic law (e.g. blasphemy, adultery, idolatry, sabbath-breaking).

A free-market economy is the most just and morally sound economic order, broadly compatible with biblical principles.

The deepest answer to racial division is the spiritual reconciliation of individuals in Christ, which should take priority over political or policy remedies.

A war may be just only if it meets defined criteria (just cause, legitimate authority, right intention, last resort, proportionality, reasonable hope, discrimination/non-combatant immunity).

A nation has a legitimate, God-permitted right to regulate its borders and limit immigration for the sake of order and the common good.

Animals and the rest of creation have value to God in themselves, not merely instrumental value for humans.

Christians must not resist evildoers with force even in personal self-defense ("turn the other cheek" taken as a binding command, not counsel).

Nonviolence is the normative Christian way, binding on all believers, not merely a special vocation.

Police work, including the use of coercive force to maintain order, is a legitimate Christian calling.

The state should provide a fair, level public space for diverse religious and worldview communities rather than privileging Christianity or enforcing secularism.

Christians are bound by a real obligation of solidarity with the poor and oppressed, such that their interests have a privileged claim ("preferential option for the poor").

Social problems should be addressed at the most local competent level, with higher authorities intervening only when lower ones cannot cope (subsidiarity).

Christians must not swear oaths at all (taking "swear not at all" as a binding command), affirming with a simple yes or no instead.

The civil and judicial laws of the Old Testament (with their penalties) remain the standard for modern civil government.

Scripture's command to welcome the foreigner and care for the sojourner imposes a real Christian duty toward immigrants and refugees today. (This question does not consider any political orientation's specific definition of what constitutes a legitimate "immigrant" or "refugee.")

Christians should actively resist injustice through nonviolent means (protest, civil disobedience, noncooperation), not merely abstain from violence.

Faithfulness requires a "consistent life ethic" opposing abortion, capital punishment, euthanasia, and unjust war together as a single seamless garment.

Democratic, representative government is the political order most consonant with Christian convictions about human dignity and the limits of power.

The dominion mandate means the earth's resources are given chiefly for human use and development, and exploiting them for human flourishing is good.

God may sanction war as a holy or sacred cause, such that fighting it is itself an act of religious obedience or merit.

A nation should publicly identify as Christian and order its laws, symbols, and institutions around the Christian faith ("Christian nation").

Political and material success (electoral wins, national prosperity, victory) can be read as signs of God's blessing on a cause or nation.

Civil law should reflect and enforce Christian moral standards on public matters (e.g. blasphemy, sabbath, vice), not merely a minimal shared morality.

Government provision for the poor (welfare, public healthcare, social insurance) is a legitimate and good way for a society to fulfill its duty to the needy.

Christians are obligated to give a tithe (a tenth of income) to God's work as a binding standard.

Voluntary poverty or radical simplicity is a holier and more Christlike way of life, to be honored above the pursuit of wealth.

Christ's lordship extends over every sphere of life (politics, economics, art, science) and Christians are called to bring all of them under his rule.

Scripture provides binding, authoritative norms not only for personal conduct but for the ordering of society, economics, and the state.

Beliefs about angels and demons should be limited to what Scripture plainly teaches, rejecting speculative hierarchies, named extra-biblical angels, and elaborate demonologies.

Angels are created beings, made by God, and are not eternal or self-existent.

Biblical "angels" are best understood as symbols, personifications, or mythological language for God's action and human experience, not as actually existing spirit-persons.

Angels are real, personal, created beings who actually exist, not merely literary symbols or pre-scientific imagery.

1 Enoch (the Watchers material) carries real authority or reliable insight for understanding angels, the fall, and demons.

Seeking contact with spirits/the dead through mediums, séances, channeling, or divination is forbidden and dangerous (opens to the demonic).

Demons are real, personal evil spirits (fallen angels or their kind), not merely symbols of disease, vice, or social evil.

Pagan idols and false religions are, in some real sense, fronts for demonic powers (cf. "what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons").

The devil and his angels will suffer eternal, conscious punishment in the lake of fire.

Evil is grounded in an eternal, uncreated power or principle opposed to God (cosmic dualism), not merely a corrupted creature.

In the end even Satan and the fallen angels will be reconciled to God (apokatastasis of all rational creatures).

It is proper to address, ask, or pray to one's guardian angel for protection and aid.

Invoking angels by name in ritual/amuletic/"angelic magic" contexts to obtain power or protection is legitimate Christian practice.

The traditional ninefold scheme of angelic orders (seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominions, virtues, powers, principalities, archangels, angels) reflects a real heavenly order.

Satan is presently active in tempting, accusing, deceiving, and opposing the church and individuals.

Satan is a fallen angel (a created good being who rebelled) not an independent evil principle or co-eternal power.

Satan/the devil is a real, personal spirit-being, not merely a symbol or personification of evil.

"Satan" is best understood as a personification of evil, temptation, or the human sinful inclination, not a literal spirit-person.

Satan operates only within limits God permits and is wholly subordinate to God's sovereignty (cf. Job).

A portion of the angels rebelled against God and fell from their original state.

Worship (latria) of angels is forbidden; worship is due to God alone.

The angels fell primarily through pride: refusing subjection to God / seeking to exalt themselves.

The fall of the rebel angels was a single, definitive, irrevocable choice (no second chance, no repentance possible).

Angels are without sex/gender and do not marry or reproduce.

Angels exist in vast, possibly innumerable, multitudes.

Angels possess intellect and will: they know, choose, and act as persons.

Angels are purely spiritual (incorporeal) beings without material bodies of their own.

Angels can assume visible, bodily appearances to interact with humans.

Angels possess some kind of refined, ethereal, or subtle body rather than being wholly immaterial.

Fallen angels retain their natural angelic powers (intelligence, strength, mobility), now turned to evil ends.

Excessive preoccupation with demons, curses, and the occult is itself spiritually harmful and to be avoided (a sober, Christ-centered focus is preferred).

What the New Testament calls "demon possession" is best explained today as illness, epilepsy, or mental-health conditions described in pre-scientific terms.

Satan and the powers were decisively defeated and disarmed at the cross/resurrection (Christus Victor), even if final destruction awaits.

Satan is meaningfully "the god of this age" / "ruler of this world," exercising real dominion over fallen world-systems until Christ's return.

Satan rules a real organized kingdom/domain of darkness with subordinate evil powers.

There are seven chief angels/archangels who stand before God (the "seven spirits/angels" tradition, including names like Uriel, Selaphiel, etc.).

Spiritual warfare is conducted chiefly through the "armor of God" (truth, faith, prayer, Scripture, and righteous living) rather than through techniques of binding, rebuking, or mapping spirits.

The angelic rebellion occurred before the fall of humanity, and the serpent's temptation issued from an already-fallen angel.

Angels were created before (or at the very beginning of) the material cosmos.

Angels are assigned specific offices and missions (messengers, guardians, ministers of providence, executors of judgment).

Specific archangels (e.g., Michael, Gabriel, Raphael) are named and venerated/honored as distinct individuals.

A genuine, indwelt-by-the-Spirit Christian cannot be fully demon-possessed (though they may be oppressed or harassed).

Every individual human being is assigned a personal guardian angel.

Curses, bondage, or demonic influence can be transmitted down family lines ("generational curses") and require specific renunciation/breaking.

Guardian/ministering angels are given to serve believers (the elect/the church), not assigned universally to all persons.

There is a meaningful distinction between demonic "possession" (indwelling/control) and lesser "oppression"/influence from without.

The "Lucifer"/"Day Star" of Isaiah 14 (and the king of Tyre in Ezekiel 28) refers, at least typologically, to Satan and his fall.

Demons are specifically the disembodied spirits of the dead nephilim (Watchers' offspring), distinct from the fallen angels themselves.

There are genuine ranks or orders among angels (a real hierarchy), not merely undifferentiated spirits.

The body is essential to being a complete human person, not an accidental or dispensable container for the soul.

The material human body is intrinsically good as created by God.

The resurrection body will be materially/physically continuous in some real way with the present body.

Human dignity does not depend on possessing or exercising any particular capacity (such as rationality or productivity).

Persons with severe cognitive or physical disabilities bear the full image of God and possess full personhood.

A dying, comatose, or severely declined person retains full human dignity and personhood until natural death.

All human beings possess equal intrinsic worth before God regardless of race, sex, ability, or status.

God assigns men and women distinct and complementary roles in the home and church.

Adam and Eve were real, historical individuals who are the biological ancestors of all humanity.

The image of God is the ground of the inviolable dignity and worth of every human being.

Human beings are created in the image of God.

Between death and resurrection the person exists in a conscious intermediate state apart from the body.

All ethnic groups descend from a common humanity and share one undivided nature, with no theological basis for racial hierarchy.

The ultimate hope for human persons is bodily resurrection, not merely the survival of a disembodied soul.

Human souls pass through multiple successive earthly lives (reincarnation).

Human beings can, by their natural powers and without any special grace, fulfill God's commands and choose the good.

The human person can take the first step toward God, with grace then assisting what the person has begun.

Disordered desire (concupiscence) that remains in the baptized/regenerate is itself truly sin, not merely a tendency toward sin.

Humanity is commissioned to develop and steward creation's potential (the "cultural mandate") as part of its God-given purpose.

Human dominion over creation is a stewardship of care, not a license to exploit.

The soul is present from the moment of conception (immediate ensoulment).

Human beings can have arisen through an evolutionary process while still being specially created bearers of God's image.

Humanity differs from other animals in kind, not merely in degree.

The Fall defaced or marred the image of God without erasing it.

The image of God belongs uniquely to humans and is not shared by non-human animals.

The image of God remains in every human being after the Fall, however damaged.

Each individual human soul has supreme and incommensurable value to God.

The first humans were created in a state of original righteousness or holiness, not in moral neutrality or immaturity.

Human beings inherit a corrupted nature (original sin) from Adam, prior to and apart from any actual sins they commit.

Rest (Sabbath) is built into the created human design and is essential to human flourishing, not merely a legal requirement.

Human sexuality is a good gift of God within its proper bounds, not merely a concession to weakness.

The human soul is by nature immortal and continues to exist consciously after the death of the body.

Human souls existed before their embodiment in this earthly life.

Sin so pervades every faculty of fallen humanity that no part of human nature is untouched by its corruption (total depravity).

Every honest occupation can be a genuine divine calling, not only ordained or "sacred" work.

Work is part of God's good creational design for humanity, not merely a curse resulting from the Fall.

Lifelong celibacy is a fully honorable and complete form of Christian human flourishing, not a deficient state.

Men and women are equally called to all roles and offices, with no role reserved by sex.

The human being is a microcosm uniting the material and spiritual orders, serving as a bridge or priest of creation.

The image of God is properly defined by Christ, the true image, with humanity imaging God by conformity to him.

Scripture distinguishes "image" (retained) from "likeness" (lost in the Fall and restored in Christ).

The image of God consists primarily in humanity's capacity for and existence in relationship (with God and others).

The image of God consists primarily in a substantive human capacity such as reason, intellect, or will.

Grace perfects and elevates a human nature that, though wounded, remains fundamentally oriented toward God.

To be a person is fundamentally to exist in relation and communion, modeled on the Trinity, not as an isolated individual.

Believers are entirely free from the law's condemning function but remain under its directing function.

The ceremonial/cultic laws (sacrifices, dietary rules, festivals, purity codes) are fulfilled in Christ and no longer binding.

The civil/judicial laws of Israel expired with the Old Testament nation and do not bind modern states except as their general equity informs justice.

Jewish people remain in a valid saving covenant through the Mosaic/Abrahamic covenant and need not come to faith in Jesus to be saved.

Followers of Jesus, at least those of Jewish background, should continue to observe the full Torah (dietary law, festivals, Sabbath, circumcision).

Gentile believers were never placed under the Mosaic law and are free from its specific obligations.

The children of believers are included in the covenant community and are proper recipients of the covenant sign.

The Levitical sacrificial system has been permanently ended and fulfilled by the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ.

The New Covenant is qualitatively superior to and structurally different from the old, securing what the old could not (internalized law, guaranteed forgiveness, an unbreakable bond).

Membership in the New Covenant consists only of regenerate, believing persons, with no "mixed" covenant community including unbelieving members.

Ongoing obedience to God's commands is the necessary evidence and fruit of genuine saving faith.

The God and Scriptures of the Old Testament are fully continuous and authoritative for Christians, not a lower or superseded revelation to be set aside.

Physical circumcision remains a required covenant obligation for the people of God (or at least for Jewish believers).

The biblical covenants (Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic, New) progressively reveal and advance one connected divine plan that culminates in Christ.

The law has a positive "third use" as the normative guide for the grateful obedience of justified believers.

The Mosaic law is rightly divided into moral, civil (judicial), and ceremonial categories, which have different applicability today.

The Abrahamic covenant is foundational and its promises remain operative for the people of God today.

Baptism is the New Covenant counterpart to circumcision, marking entrance into the covenant community.

Civil governments today are obligated to enforce the moral and judicial laws of Moses, including their penal sanctions.

Before creation, the persons of the Trinity entered an eternal covenant of redemption (pactum salutis) in which the Son agreed to redeem the elect.

The biblical festivals (Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles, etc.) should still be observed by believers.

There will be a future large-scale turning of ethnic Israel to Christ before the end ("all Israel will be saved").

Because salvation is entirely by grace, the Christian is under no law and obedience to commands plays no necessary role in the believer's life.

The moral law, summarized in the Ten Commandments, is perpetually binding on all people in all eras.

A natural moral law, knowable by reason and binding on all people, underlies and confirms the moral content of God's revealed law.

The Noahic covenant grounds God's ongoing preservation of creation and a sphere of common grace/common order for all humanity.

The law serves a civil/political use to restrain evil and preserve order in society generally, apart from salvation.

God governs through two distinct kingdoms: the spiritual (church/gospel) and the civil (state/law/reason), which should not be collapsed into one another.

The church's mission includes progressively bringing every sphere of society under the lordship of Christ and biblical law.

The Sabbath as a binding command has been abrogated, and no particular day is now divinely required, though the church may freely gather on the Lord's Day.

"Saints" in the New Testament sense means all believers, not a special canonized class.

It is fitting (or required) that altars contain the relics of saints.

Messages delivered in apparitions (warnings, devotions, consecrations) carry real doctrinal or devotional authority for the Church.

Belief in Mary's assumption is a binding article of faith that must be held for full communion.

Mary was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory at the end of her earthly life.

The "brothers and sisters of the Lord" in the Gospels are Mary's biological children, born after Jesus.

A formal canonization is an infallible declaration that the named person is in heaven.

There is exactly one mediator between God and humanity (Jesus Christ) and no creature shares in that mediating office.

Consecrating oneself (or one's nation) to Mary / to her Immaculate Heart is a wholesome act of devotion.

The cult of the saints is a post-biblical accretion that should be removed rather than reformed.

Mary is owed a special degree of veneration (hyperdulia) higher than that given any other saint, yet still infinitely below the worship due God.

Icons are not mere art but genuine "windows" through which the faithful commune with the holy persons depicted.

Sacred images and icons of Christ, Mary, and the saints may rightly be venerated (honored with bows, incense, kisses), the honor passing to the prototype.

Mary was preserved free from the stain of original sin from the very first moment of her own conception.

Adoration/worship (latria) is owed to God alone and may never be offered to any creature, including Mary or the saints.

Devotion to Mary is a central and indispensable feature of authentic Christian spirituality.

Mary cooperated uniquely and subordinately in the work of redemption such that she may be called "Co-Redemptrix."

Mary occupies a quasi-divine or near-divine status, effectively a fourth person to be adored alongside the Trinity.

All graces from God are dispensed to humanity through Mary's mediation.

Mary herself needed and received salvation through Christ, like every other human being.

Mary now reigns as Queen of Heaven, crowned and exalted above all the angels and saints.

Offering the Mass/Divine Liturgy for a specific deceased person confers real spiritual benefit on that soul.

Prayers may be addressed directly to saints and to Mary (e.g., "Holy Mary, pray for us"), not only to God.

The prayers, almsgiving, and Masses of the living can actually benefit and assist the departed.

Even genuine apparitions and private revelations add nothing to public revelation and bind no one's faith.

There is an intermediate state of purification (purgatory) in which the saved are cleansed before entering full glory.

The historic trafficking and multiplication of relics was a corrupting abuse to be rejected.

God works miracles, healings, or graces through the relics of saints.

The physical relics of saints (bones, possessions) may rightly be honored and venerated.

Repeated Marian devotions such as the Rosary are a wholesome and recommended form of prayer.

Saints and Mary can themselves grant favors, protection, or healing, not merely relay requests to God.

Particular saints are especially efficacious for particular needs (e.g., a saint for lost objects, travel, illness).

Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit while Mary was a virgin, without a human father.

It is good and proper to ask the saints in heaven to pray to God on our behalf.

The "brothers of the Lord" are kinsmen/cousins, not siblings or step-siblings (the Hieronymian view).

Claimed post-apostolic apparitions and visions of Mary or saints are, as a class, not from God.

When the Church formally approves an apparition (e.g., as "worthy of belief"), the faithful may reasonably trust it.

The Church has authority to formally declare particular departed persons to be saints in heaven (canonization).

The "communion of saints" refers to the fellowship of living believers with one another (and with God), not to interaction with the departed.

Material things and holy persons (icons, relics, saints) are legitimate created channels of God's grace, not idols, because the incarnation sanctifies matter.

Invoking or praying to saints/Mary is forbidden: a form of necromancy or misdirected worship.

Mary has genuinely appeared to people in history (e.g., at recognized sites) and such apparitions can be authentic.

The proliferation of Marian titles and devotions should be restrained to keep Christ central.

Mary committed no actual personal sin during her life.

Mary was free from concupiscence (the inner inclination to sin), not merely from sinful acts.

Mary is rightly honored as "Mother of the Church," the spiritual mother of all believers.

It is proper to assign patron saints to nations, occupations, and life-situations and to seek their particular patronage.

Mary remained a virgin throughout her whole life and never had marital relations or other children after Jesus ("ever-virgin").

It is right and beneficial to pray for the souls of the faithful departed.

Three-dimensional statues of saints and Mary are an acceptable form of sacred art and devotion.

Creatures (Mary, the saints) can exercise a real but wholly subordinate, intercessory mediation that does not rival Christ's unique mediation.

The Church exists in three states: militant (on earth), suffering (being purified), and triumphant (in glory), in active mutual communion.

Whatever the theory, the actual veneration of Mary and the saints functions as idolatry and dishonors God.

In practice, the honors given to Mary and the saints tend to obscure or compete with the unique glory of Christ.

The "brothers of the Lord" are most plausibly Joseph's children from a marriage before Mary (the Epiphanian view).

Mary is fittingly typified by the Ark of the Covenant, the Burning Bush, and similar Old-Testament figures.

Mary truly died (fell asleep) before being raised/assumed, rather than being taken up without dying.

Taking the name of a saint at baptism/chrismation and looking to that saint as a special protector is a good practice.

Prayer for the dead is right, but the Latin doctrine of purgatory as a defined place/process of satisfactory punishment should be rejected.

Mary may rightly be called "Theotokos" / "Mother of God" (God-bearer) because the one she bore is truly God incarnate.

Scripture itself warrants calling Mary "blessed" and honoring her as the favored mother of the Lord.