How to use this guide
What it does. It compares your answers on a questionnaire with what specific churches teach in their own documents.
Read it (How to use this guide)
It shows where your answers match, where a church leaves you free, and where it would ask you to affirm, teach, or practice something you do not hold.
What it does not do. It does not say which answers are correct, and it does not measure anyone's standing before God. Agreeing or disagreeing with a church's stated teaching says nothing about the sincerity of a person's faith or the life of a congregation. The guide takes no side among the churches it describes. It measures stated teaching only. It cannot show how a congregation worships, treats its people, handles disagreement, or practices love; the questions near the end of this guide are for that.
This is not a chatbot. You are not talking to an AI, and nothing here answers you in conversation. The questionnaire is fixed. When you pick an answer, the page compares it with a table of what each church's own documents say, using the same simple rules every time, so the same answers always give the same result. Your answers are saved for you only, and they go to the guide's author only if you tick the box to share them. The guide itself was researched and written with AI assistance, under the project author's direction. In the author's estimate, a person working alone without AI would need about a year for the research alone: 2,415 web addresses on 279 websites, across 26 churches. Every church line says how it was checked, so you can test it against the church's own words.
If something surprises you, or you do not agree with a finding about your denomination, please check the source for it. What each profile says was read directly from that church's own documents and written down there: every line records where the answer came from and links to the page, so you can read the passage yourself. If the source says something different from the guide, or has since changed, please let the author know. The guide describes what a church's documents say; it does not grade.
The questions go to the churches. Many catechisms work one way: the church writes the question and gives the answer. This guide turns that around. The questions come from what a believer holds, and each church is asked to answer them from its own texts. Believers hold that the Spirit puts the desire to do God's will in our hearts, and that we then test what we sense against Scripture. Here the churches are set beside what you hold in your heart, and you, not the guide, do the testing. The guide describes and does not grade. It also cannot measure what matters most. Churches in every age have been challenged when tradition came to stand above Scripture, and any tradition, old or new, can slip into valuing knowledge about God above knowing him. Study of Scripture and doctrine is good, but a match on every answer is not the same as a relationship with Christ, so use the result to find a place to worship and grow, and let that relationship lead.
Steps.
- Answer the questionnaire on your own before you read the church profiles. Mark E where you are undecided.
- Score your answers, with the questionnaire on this page; results appear beside it as you answer.
- Read the profiles of the churches that come out closest, and of any church you are already considering.
- Check how much of each church has been read. A church whose documents say little can look closer than it is, and a church that requires little can rank high for almost any reader.
- If you visit a congregation, take the questions near the end of this guide with you.
- Treat the result as the start of a conversation with a pastor, not a verdict.
Special use: compare two churches directly. You do not have to answer the questionnaire to see how two churches differ from each other. Load one church's answers as if they were yours, then compare them with a second church.
- Go to the questionnaire and find the bar above the questions called "Start from a church's answers." Pick the first church and tap "Load its answers." The questionnaire fills in with what that church's own documents say. Your own answers are not lost: tap Undo to bring them back.
- Open the Results (the link at the top of the page, or the panel beside the questions). The ranking now shows how every church compares with the first church.
- In the "Compare side by side" box at the top of the results, pick the second church.
- Tap Compare. A full-screen view puts the first church's answers on the left, named at the top as "loaded answers," and the second church's answers on the right, question by question, each marked match, open or differs, with how firmly each church holds it and why the guide coded it that way. Use the filters to see only the differences. "Save as PDF" and "Print" make a report you can take to a pastor.
If you change any answer after loading, the left side becomes "You" again, so load the first church's answers again before you compare two churches.
Why this is useful. The question a believer asks is often not "Where do I fit?" but "What is the real difference between these two?" You may attend one church and be thinking about another. A family may be choosing between the churches the husband and wife grew up in. A friend may be leaving one tradition for another. A student may want to see how two traditions differ. The side-by-side view shows the differences in what the two churches' own documents say, on the same questions, so you do not have to rely on how one church describes the other, and you do not have to guess what each holds firmly and what it leaves open. A match means the two answers agree. An open point means one church leaves room or the answers fit together. A difference is a real difference. Two limits: the view compares documents, not congregations, and a church whose documents are silent on a question shows "no church answer," which is not a difference. It does not say that either church is right. The score is not the same in both directions. A difference counts for more when the church being scored holds the point firmly, so a church that holds many points as required (the Roman Catholic Church, for example) scores high against almost anyone who differs from it, while a church that holds few points firmly scores low against the same reader. When you compare two churches, the view shows the score for the order you chose and the score with the order swapped.
Finding your way around (on the scoring page).
- Jump anywhere. The links at the top of the page take you to What we share, How to use this guide, the questionnaire, the results, the church profiles and the questions for visiting a church. Every section ends with a "Back to top" link, and the results panel keeps one pinned at its top.
- While you take the quiz. Each question shows its options in their original wording, with a short plain explanation in italics under each. Pick the letter closest to what you hold, or E if you are undecided (that question is skipped). Under each scored question a small menu lets you say how firmly you hold it and how much it matters in choosing a church, in the same four levels the guide records for every church: Required (a must), Expected, Taught (the default), or Left to conscience. Loading a recorded church's answers fills these menus from the levels the guide records for that church. The results update after every answer, beside the questions on a wide screen and below them on a phone. A church needs at least 8 compared questions to be ranked. You can pick the church you attend now, load the sample answers to see how it works, or clear everything and start over. Your answers stay in your browser, and a save code lets you move them to another device.
- Digging into a result. Each ranked church shows its score, a bar, and counts of matches, open points and differences out of the questions compared. Tap a church to open it. It lists which questions match, which are open and which differ. Where an answer is marked "inferred", tap "Why these answers are judgments" to see the reason and the other reading. It also says what the church holds people to, how it holds its people to its teaching (by signing, oath, vow, profession or belonging alone), and gives a link to the church's own congregation finder.
- Two personal questions. Just after Q2 are two questions about you, not about a church: what you would do if your church's teaching and your own reading of Scripture disagreed, and what you would do if its leaders corrected you. They are not scored. In an open result, your answer sits beside how that church's documents say it holds its people to its teaching, and about church discipline.
- Extra questions. Under the questionnaire is a folded block of extra questions that are not scored. When you answer one, a panel under it lists the churches whose documents give your answer, how the other churches answered, which say nothing on it, and which have not been read on it yet. The results also note, for each church, the extra questions where its documents answer differently from you. If you marked an extra as a must, a church that differs from you on it is flagged in the ranking, in the side-by-side view, in the print report and in the PDF, and the flag never changes the score.
- Your personal creed. Above the "Start from a church's answers" bar is a button, "Save my creed as PDF." It writes a statement of your own convictions in the first person from the questions you answered. Each position shows the question, the option you chose with its plain-language explanation, and your statement, with a level line (Required, Expected, Taught or Left to conscience; Taught unless you changed it). It lists what you have not decided, ends with a save code you can paste back into the page to load your answers, and names no church and gives no ranking. The file name carries the date and time, so a creed saved later does not overwrite an earlier one. You can type your name for the heading; it is used only to print the heading and is never saved or sent. Each statement restates the questionnaire's own option in the first person, and it is not the confession of any church.
- To a church's full profile. In an open result, tap "Read its full profile, with its sources" to jump to that church in the profiles section, which opens for you. A profile gives where its information comes from, how firmly it holds its people to these answers, and then its answer to each question, one card per question: tap "All the options" to see every choice with the church's marked, and tap "Why this is a judgment" or "Source and how sure we are" for the reasoning and the source. "Back to your results" at the bottom of a profile takes you back.
- To the sources. At the end of each profile, "Sources this profile cites" opens a list of web addresses grouped by website, so you can go to the church's own book of order, confession or statement. The list is a starting point, not the whole record. The author's full guide holds each answer in plain sentences with quotations from the church's own texts, the complete source logs, and the pages that could not be opened. The author's full guide is not published, because of its size. To check a source, read the church's profile and any answer judgments or explanation first, then contact the author.
How sure each statement is. Every church line says whether it was checked in the church's own text, taken from a copy or quotation found elsewhere, or only implied. Nothing is filled in from memory.
What "inferred" means. Some churches state their position in plain words, and the guide quotes it. Others do not, and the guide has to read their documents and say which questionnaire option fits best. That answer is marked "inferred," and the line under it says why, in one of three kinds. "Stated in other words": the church teaches it, but in different words than the option uses, and the guide has matched them. "Implied, never stated": the church does not say it outright, but what it does say points there. "Two readings possible": the documents allow more than one reading, and the line names the other one. An inferred answer is a judgment, not a quotation, and the reason is given so that you can check it against the church's own words. It counts half as much in the score as a stated answer, because the guide is less sure of it.
Documents, not every congregation. Each answer comes from the church's own documents. Where those documents disagree and the church has not chosen between them, the answer is "leaves it open." A congregation can differ from its denomination; where reports show a rule widely unenforced, the guide counts that difference for less and says so in the profile. Ask the congregation you visit (see the questions near the end).
Binding is not the same as signing. A church can hold you to its teaching by a signed document, an oath (you swear, calling God as witness), a vow or promise (you commit yourself before God and the church, without swearing), a spoken profession of faith, or simply because you belong to it. Each profile says which, and for whom. The scoring looks only at how firmly the church holds you, never at which form it uses. A church can bind firmly with no signature at all: Catholic canon law binds every Catholic to the church's defined doctrine, the documents read name no signing, oath or vow for lay members, and those who take office make a public Profession of Faith and take an Oath of Fidelity.
Who holds the pastor to the teaching. The guide records what a church's documents teach, not what the pastor of one congregation teaches. Some churches require ministers to affirm a confession and have a body outside the congregation that can act when a minister departs from it. Others leave the minister to read Scripture for himself or herself, with little check from outside the congregation. Binding ministers to a text protects the teaching and costs freedom of conscience, and it can fix an error in place. Leaving ministers free protects conscience and costs you an outside check on the pulpit. The guide describes each church's arrangement and does not say which is better. For a church with few requirements, the documents tell you what the church teaches, and the pastor you meet may teach something else. The questions near the end help you ask.
This edition by the numbers. This Reader Edition is about 200,000 words in all, almost all of it the 26 church profiles at about 7,000 words each, or about half an hour a church, so read the profiles of the churches nearest you and not the whole edition. It holds the questionnaire, the scoring, the worked example and, for each church, its answers question by question. The full guide is about 750,000 words, and about 24 percent of it is research notes and revision history that record how each line was checked; it also gives every church's complete answer sheet, with all the options listed and every line uncut. The full guide covers 26 churches, 19 scored questions and 25 unscored extra questions, and cites 2,415 distinct web addresses on 279 websites (a floor: it leaves out addresses that returned nothing and documents supplied without a link). The author's full guide is not published, because of its size. To check a source, read the church's profile and any answer judgments or explanation first, then contact the author.
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Pick the option closest to what you actually hold. Each option keeps its original wording, with a plain explanation in italics. Mark E where you are undecided; it is skipped. Results update as you go.
How the comparison works
Start from a church’s answers. Above the questionnaire, pick a church and tap “Load its answers.”
Read it (How the comparison works)
The questionnaire fills in with what that church’s own documents say (including the common-ground items at the top, which come from the creeds the church adopts or uses and from its own statements; an item its documents place differently loads No, as the Roman Catholic Church does on Scripture as the final authority, and an item they do not state stays blank), and the ranking and side-by-side view then show where you would differ from it. Undo restores your own answers.
Side by side. Above the ranking, pick any church and tap Compare, or open a church in the ranking and tap “Compare side by side with my answers.” A full-screen view puts your answer and the church’s answer next to each other for every question, marked match, open or differs, with how firmly the church holds it and why the guide coded it that way. Use the filters to see only the differences, and the question map to jump to one. The extra questions are compared too, whether or not you answered them. Tap “Save as PDF” for a detailed report with every question, both answers, the church’s reasons and its sources. “Print” opens the browser’s print window where the page allows it.
Compare two churches directly. You do not need to answer the questions to see how two churches differ. Load the first church’s answers (the bar above the questionnaire), open the results, pick the second church in the “Compare side by side” box and tap Compare. The left side then shows the first church’s answers, named as loaded answers, and the right side the second church’s, question by question. This is useful when you are weighing one church against another, for example the one you attend and one you are considering, or a family choosing between two traditions, because it shows what each church’s own documents say on the same questions and how firmly each holds it. It compares documents, not congregations. The score is directional: a difference counts for more when the church being scored holds the point firmly, so loading church A and comparing with church B can give a different score from loading B and comparing with A. The view shows both.
Each question you answer is compared with what each church's own documents say. It counts as a match, an open point (the two answers fit together, or the church leaves the question open), or a difference. Undecided answers are skipped.
A difference weighs more when the church requires that teaching of members or clergy, and less when it only teaches it, leaves it to conscience, or when the church's position is inferred rather than stated. The score is the weighted differences divided by the questions compared. Scores that differ only in the second decimal place are effectively tied, so treat the top group as a cluster, not a strict order.
How much each question matters to you. This page is a way to find a denomination, not a theology exam, so each scored question has a small menu with four levels that are the four binding levels the guide records for every church, so a reader and a church mark the same field: Required (a must for me; counts 2), Expected (I expect a church I join to hold it; counts 1.5), Taught (I hold it and want it taught, but I would not leave over it; counts 1; this is the default) or Left to conscience (I hold it, but it does not decide my choice of church; counts 0.5). These are the same four weights the guide gives a church's own binding level. Leave every menu alone and nothing changes. A church that differs from you on a Required is marked in its result, so a deal-breaker is easy to see even where the overall score is good. When you load a recorded church's answers, the menus are filled from that church's recorded binding levels, so you see its answers and how firmly it holds each. A church that fills the page in for itself marks its own binding levels. This changes only how your score is added up. It never changes what a church teaches. Your choices are saved with your answers, and the extra questions use the same menu, though they never change a score; a church that differs on an extra you marked a must says so in the ranking, in the side-by-side view, in the print report and in the PDF, and the score stays the same.
What each church holds people to. Under each result you will see three more things, and none changes the ranking. The first shows, among the questions you were compared on, how many answers the church's documents require of every member or minister, and how many they expect of clergy and leaders, and how many of those you agree with, differ on, or fit with. The second is the church's grip, a number from 0 to 1 that does not depend on your answers. It shows how much of the church's teaching it holds people to. A grip of 1 means it requires or expects an answer on every question. A grip of 0 means it holds no one to anything. When a church leaves a question open, or leaves it to conscience, that question adds nothing to its grip. So a low grip does not mean the church believes little. It means the church lets its people differ. A church whose documents we have read less also shows a lower grip, because there is less to count, so the page shows how many questions it has an answer on. The third is the church's firmness where it speaks: the average of the levels recorded for its answers on the scored questions and on the extra questions (the extras are still not scored). It answers a different question from grip, which is how firm the church is where it does speak, not how much it speaks to. The page says for how many cells a level is recorded, and a cell with no recorded level is left out. All three describe the denomination's own documents, never one congregation, which may hold people to more or less.
The two personal questions. Just after Q2 are two questions about you, not about a church: what you would do if your church's teaching and your own reading of Scripture disagreed, and what you would do if its leaders corrected you. They are not scored. Under each church in the results, your answer sits beside how that church holds its people to its teaching and what it says about church discipline, so you can see how that church would stand toward you.
Binding is not the same as signing. A church can hold you to its teaching by a signed document, an oath (you swear, calling God as witness), a vow or promise (you commit yourself before God and the church, without swearing), a spoken profession of faith, or simply because you belong to it. Each profile says which, and for whom. The scoring looks only at how firmly the church holds you (the grip), never at which form it uses. A church can bind firmly with no signature at all: Catholic canon law binds every Catholic to the church's defined doctrine, the documents read name no signing, oath or vow for lay members, and those who take office make a public Profession of Faith and take an Oath of Fidelity.
A church needs at least 8 questions with a known answer to be ranked. Some churches' documents say little, so a short list can look closer than it is. The common-ground items (Q0) are the shared key rather than a way to sort churches, so they are not scored, and neither are the follow-ups (1b, 7b, 12b) or the extra questions; for those, the page shows which churches give your answer. Authority beyond the Bible (Q2) counts only where answers truly conflict: Scripture and Tradition as one authority against Scripture alone or the Spirit's guidance tested by Scripture. A church that binds its people to a confession is not thereby in conflict with you, so that answer is always open; each church also shows how it holds its people to its teaching.
"Inferred" means the church does not state its position in plain words, so the guide read its documents and chose the closest option. It says why, in one of three kinds: stated in other words (the church teaches it, but not in the words of our option), implied, never stated (what the church does say points there), or two readings possible (the documents allow more than one, and the other is named). An inferred answer is a judgment, not a quotation, so it counts half as much in the score. Open any church's profile, or its result, to read the reason for each one. Each profile also says where its information comes from. The author's full guide holds every answer in plain sentences, with quotations and a note on how sure each line is. The author's full guide is not published, because of its size. To check a source, read the church's profile and any answer judgments or explanation first, then contact the author.
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Open a church to read its answers, question by question, with the source for each.
Each profile gives where the information comes from, how the church holds its people to its teaching, and then, question by question, the church's answer, how firmly it holds it, why the guide coded it that way, and where it comes from, with every option shown and the church's choice marked. The profiles describe; they do not grade.
What was discovered from this research
This appendix says what the research shows and what it means for you when you read a score. Each item gives the facts first. When the guide draws a conclusion from the facts, the conclusion comes second and starts with the word “Judgment.” That way you can see which parts are sourced and which parts are opinion. Some of the ideas tested here came from the author of the guide. Others came from the research itself.
What every number describes. The guide reads what each church’s documents say. It does not measure what people in the pews believe, and it does not measure what any one congregation does. Keep that in mind for every number below.
Three numbers, three questions. The first is the answer: what a church’s documents say on one question. The second is the binding level: how firmly the church holds that answer. There are four levels. Required is 3. Expected is 2. Taught is 1. Left to conscience is 0. The third is the score, which compares you with a church. Grip and firmness, explained below, sum up the binding levels. They are not part of the score.
What a score means. The score adds up the differences between your answers and a church’s documents. A difference counts for more when the church holds that point firmly. It counts for less when the church holds it loosely. A low score therefore means two things at once: few differences, and few firm ones. The Disciples of Christ are first in the sample ranking at 0.05. They have the fewest differences with the sample reader, and they bind very little, so even those few differences count lightly. First place means “fewest differences, weighed by how firmly the church holds them.” It does not mean “teaches what you believe.” The score also depends on direction. Roman Catholic against Vineyard is 1.00, and Vineyard against Roman Catholic is 0.45, because the weight comes from how firmly the church being scored holds each point. Findings 12 and 14 say more about first place.
Why one new answer moves different readers different amounts. When research fills in a church’s answer, the score moves. How far it moves depends on the reader. The scores the guide reports are for one sample reader, the author, using the author’s own answers. Here is an example. The guide now says the Church of England holds that anyone can finally refuse grace. The author also believes that, so the Church of England’s score fell from 0.35 to 0.33. It looks closer. For a reader who believes no one can finally refuse grace, the same new answer raised the score from 0.48 to 0.52. It looks farther away. The church’s answer is the same for everyone. What the answer does to your score depends on what you believe.
Grip and firmness: two ways to say how tightly a church binds. Grip asks how much of what these 19 questions could require the church actually requires. A question the church leaves silent counts as zero. So grip reflects two things: how firmly a church holds what it says, and how much ground its documents cover. Firmness asks a narrower question. When the church does speak, how firmly does it speak? It averages the binding levels only where the church has an answer. Take Vineyard USA. Its grip is 0.40 and its firmness is 0.58. The gap exists because Vineyard is silent on five questions. A high grip means a church expects a great deal from its members. A low grip means it expects little, or has written little. The Disciples of Christ have a grip of 0.00. That is not a finding that they have no doctrine. It is a finding about their rule: they hold no creed, so every answer is coded “left open.”
Finding 1: the big differences are inside families, not between them. For comparison, the guide sorts 24 of the 26 churches into seven families. The question is simple: do churches in the same family hold their members to about the same degree? The answer is no. The Reformed and Presbyterian family has six churches, from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) at 0.54 to the Presbyterian Church in America at 0.89. The Lutheran family has two, from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America at 0.56 to the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod at 0.88. The Methodist and Holiness family has five, from the United Methodist Church at 0.68 to the Nazarene and Free Methodist churches at 0.82. The Anglican family has three, from the Episcopal Church at 0.54 to the Anglican Church in North America at 0.75. The Catholic and Orthodox family has two, from the Orthodox Church in America at 0.58 to the Roman Catholic Church at 0.74. The Pentecostal, charismatic and pietist family has three, from the Evangelical Covenant Church at 0.23 to the Assemblies of God at 0.93. The Baptist and Anabaptist family has three, from the Southern Baptist Convention and the Mennonite Church USA at 0.28 to the Free Will Baptists at 0.53. The Disciples of Christ and the Seventh-day Adventist Church do not sit in any of these families and are left out. In most families the gap inside the family is larger than the gap between families. Judgment: knowing a church’s family tells you a lot about what it teaches. It tells you much less about how tightly the church holds you to it.
Finding 2: churches that broke away from a larger church bind more tightly. In every pair the guide can check, the newer body has the higher grip. The Presbyterian Church in America (0.89), the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (0.77) and ECO Presbyterians (0.70) all grip more tightly than the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) (0.54). The Anglican Church in North America (0.75) is above the Episcopal Church (0.54). The Global Methodist Church (0.77) is above the United Methodist Church (0.68). The Christian Reformed Church (0.75) is above the Reformed Church in America (0.60). Firmness agrees in five of the six pairs. The Global Methodist Church ties the United Methodist Church at 0.74. Judgment: a church formed in a dispute over doctrine writes its lines down. A large parent church that holds many views writes more broadly. A second cause is possible. Newer documents may simply be more detailed. The data cannot tell the two apart.
Finding 3: the form of the commitment differs by family, and the guide does not score it. Reformed bodies ask their officers to take vows to the confessions. The Roman Catholic Church binds every Catholic by canon law and asks no lay member to sign anything. Only office-holders make the Profession of Faith and take the Oath of Fidelity. The Southern Baptist Convention has a confession that is taught but not enforced on local churches. The Disciples have no creed. Binding is not the same as signing, so the guide scores the binding level only. Judgment: this is one reason the Roman Catholic Church has a grip of 0.74, below the Presbyterian Church in America at 0.89. For Catholic and Orthodox churches the author’s rule counts a point as Required only where the church’s text shows an act of definition. Otherwise it counts as Taught.
Finding 4: most silence is real. The guide scores 19 questions for 26 churches, which is 494 answers. In 431 of them the church’s documents give an answer. In 37 the church says the matter is left open or left to local decision. In seven the documents speak, but no option on the page fits. Nineteen are empty. Searches over the last two rounds filled 6 of 25 empty answers. Each one came from a source less direct than a constitution, such as a study guide, a synod report, a convention resolution or a teaching manual. All are marked as the weakest kind of coding, and the other reading is named. Judgment: an answer that survives a thorough search is most likely empty because the church has not written on it, not because the search missed it.
Finding 5: a few questions hold most of the silence. The 19 empty answers fall on a short list. Creation is empty for seven churches. The millennium is empty for four. Resisting grace is empty for three. Losing salvation is empty for two. Election, the gifts of the Spirit and remarriage are empty for one church each. Churches treat these as secondary questions. They are also held most loosely where churches do speak. The average binding level is 1.05 for the millennium and 1.44 for creation, among the lowest of the 19 questions. Judgment: the guide records the silence but cannot say why a church is silent.
Finding 6: there are two ways of not binding. A church can say a matter is left open, or it can say nothing. The first shows up as 37 “open” answers. They are bunched: the Disciples have twelve, the Evangelical Covenant Church five, the Southern Baptist Convention four and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) three. The second shows up as the empty answers, and those fall mostly on smaller churches. A church saying “this is left open” is evidence of freedom. A church saying nothing is not. A general rule of freedom that names no question, such as the Covenant Church’s security “to disagree on the non-essentials of the faith,” is recorded but is not used to fill a particular question. The searches found no sentence that says an empty question is left to the congregation or the parishioner.
Finding 7: silence and looseness go together, but only moderately. The author asked whether empty answers reflect a lack of binding, and so a degree of freedom. Across 25 churches, the count of silent questions set against the average binding level where the church does speak gives a rank correlation of about minus 0.35. That means more silence goes with looser binding, but not reliably. Counting “open” answers as silence makes it minus 0.43. Question by question it is minus 0.52. The three loosest churches (the Covenant Church, the Southern Baptist Convention and the Mennonite Church USA) are silent on more of the extra questions than the rest, an average of 11.7 against 4.7. There are clear exceptions. The Assemblies of God and the Church of the Nazarene hold what they say firmly, and they are silent on 12 and 10 extra questions about subjects outside their concern. Judgment: silence is a hint of freedom and a reason to look for the church’s own statement of freedom. It is not proof.
Finding 8: size predicts silence better than looseness does. The author suggested that the largest churches define more because their structure allows it, and that other churches may leave matters undefined to keep a bigger tent. Across 19 churches with reported membership, the rank correlation between size and silence is about minus 0.72. The correlation between size and the average binding level is about zero. Eight churches with a million members or more average 0.1 silent questions. Eleven smaller churches average 1.0. Large bodies settle a question one way or the other: they define it, or they say in their own words that it is open. Smaller bodies more often say nothing. Two explanations fit. One is capacity: a large body has assemblies, commissions and presses, so more gets written. The other is the bigger tent: a body that has to hold wide variety may decline to define. The data cannot separate them, because size and the number of documents rise together. The only evidence for the bigger tent is the “open” answers that large bodies state in their own words.
Finding 9: freedom may reflect trust in the Spirit, but silence cannot show it. The author asked whether the freedom a church leaves might reflect its trust in the Holy Spirit to guide believers. The idea has merit. Several of the loosest churches describe their freedom in terms of Christ, conscience and the Spirit’s guidance in the community. The Covenant Church holds a short list of affirmations firmly and gives freedom beyond them. But the data does not support the idea, for three reasons. First, the evidence is silence, and silence has other causes: how much a church has written, how big it is, and whether the question is its concern. Second, churches reach the same non-binding position for different reasons, such as congregational independence, a minimal confession, or a belief that the question is not essential. The sentences the guide found give conscience, non-essentials and congregational authority as reasons. None gives the Spirit as the reason for leaving a particular question open. Third, churches that bind firmly also claim the Spirit’s guidance. Catholics place it in the teaching office and councils. The Orthodox place it in the agreement of the whole church. Reformed and Lutheran churches place it in confessions written by earlier believers. A better question is where each church believes the Spirit’s guidance lives: in the council, the confession, the pastor, the congregation or the individual conscience. A binding level shows only where a church draws its line of enforcement. Testing the idea would take a new field for the reason each church gives. That field has not been built.
Finding 10: an empty answer may mean the guide could not read the document. Some empty answers sit next to a document that is sold or blocked. The ECO Standing Theological Committee papers are sold for three dollars each. The Covenant Church’s Journey Leader’s Guide has an article on creation and evolution, but the guide is sold and not online. Vineyard USA’s Expanded FAQs show headings with no answer text. The Wesleyan Church’s General Conference journals from 1968 to 2016 would not open. The Book of Concord site refuses automated reading. Some silence was also the guide’s own doing. The Free Will Baptists’ creation answer was empty until the Association’s convention minutes from 1935 to 2019 were read in full, and then it was filled. Judgment: an empty answer says what the guide could read. The author keeps a list of what could not be opened; contact the author to see it. If you can open any of these documents, contact the author.
Finding 11: treat each number as a good guide, not an exact measure. Three things limit how exactly a number can be read. First, sources vary. When the guide re-checked 92 lines that rested on a second researcher’s report, 45 were right as written, 46 were partly right and one was not supported. The guide corrected 47 lines. Judgment: expect small errors wherever a line rests on a copy of a copy. Second, the guide’s rules move results. When the author ruled that “left to the local church” is a valid answer, the Disciples went from 9 answered questions and no rank to a full set of answers and first place. Judgment: read any ranking together with the rules behind it. Third, an empty answer costs little in score but more in confidence. Filling one would move the sample reader’s score by 0.03 at most. It matters more for how many questions stand behind the score. The Church of England is scored on 16 questions and the Episcopal Church on 18. The guide shows that count beside each score so you can weigh a score built on 16 against one built on 18.
Finding 12: first place is not a recommendation. The Disciples of Christ are first in the sample ranking. The facts behind that are plain. The Disciples’ documents leave 12 of the 19 scored questions to each congregation. No other church leaves more than five. Nine of those 12 come from one general rule in the church’s own design: congregations decide their own practices. The documents never name those nine questions. All 19 of the Disciples’ answers are inferred, and none is stated outright. An open answer counts as no difference, and the Disciples hold almost nothing firmly. So the church has the fewest differences with almost any reader. Judgment: first place measures how little the church’s documents require. It does not measure how near the church is to what you believe, and it is not a recommendation. Three cautions follow. First, loose does not mean well researched. An open answer means the church did not say. It does not mean the guide studied the question and found the church balanced. Second, an open answer is not an answer. The guide found no Disciples text that takes a side on those questions, so nothing here says what the church holds about, for example, what happens to the unrepentant. Third, the shared key is only partly checked. For the Disciples the guide read two statements, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and that we enter new life through baptism into Christ. It did not check the other common-ground items, so the page loads them blank. A blank is not a No. If you want to know where a church draws its lines, read the questions where it draws them, and read the Disciples’ profile to see why the lines are missing.
Finding 13: why the churches differ at all. Judgment (the author’s): the churches share one Bible. They differ on what it means. Every question in the guide is a place where the words of Scripture are agreed and the meaning is not. The same verses on election, baptism, the Supper, the gifts of the Spirit, the end times and creation are read in different ways. Governance is how a church decides which meaning will stand. A church with strong governance fixes a meaning and holds its people to it. A church with little governance leaves the meaning to each congregation and, in the end, to each reader. That gives freedom. It also means nothing in the church’s own structure checks a reading that moves away from the text. Strong governance does not make a meaning right either, because a strict church can hold a wrong meaning firmly. The guide cannot tell which is which. It reports what each church requires and how firmly. The testing is left to the reader, with Scripture and prayer. For a seeker, one question helps with every church: who decides what Scripture means here, and who can correct that decision?
Finding 14: why we worship where we worship, and what a score can tell you. Judgment (the author’s): people come to a church by at least three roads. Some are in the church of their family. Some chose the church where the people were friendly. Some chose the church because it matches their understanding of God. The guide speaks only to the third road. It sets what a church’s documents require beside what you hold. It cannot say whether the people are kind or whether your family’s church is a good home for you, and a score is not a verdict on either. The facts about the third road are these. A church that requires little has few differences with almost any reader, so it ranks high for almost any reader. In the sample, the Disciples of Christ are first by score (0.05), but they agree with the sample respondent on 2 of the 6 questions where their documents speak, which is the lowest rate of the 26 churches, and 2 matches is the lowest count too. The Anglican Church in North America agrees on 8 of the 11 questions where it speaks, the highest rate, and ranks fourth by score. The page now shows each church’s agreement where it speaks, and it can order the ranking three ways: by score, by most matches, and by agreement where the church speaks. The orders disagree, and the disagreement is the finding. Judgment (the author’s): a seeker who wants a church that matches an understanding of God should read the matches, the differences and the open answers together, because a score alone rewards silence. Silence is easy to live with. The same ease draws people on the first two roads, since a church that asks little is easy to stay in, and so is one that is familiar or friendly. Ease is no reason to distrust a church and no reason to trust one. The guide reads a denomination’s documents, not a congregation, so it cannot say what is taught in any one room on a Sunday. That is left to the reader: visit, listen, and test what is taught against Scripture and in prayer.
Finding 15: how to read Scripture well without studying theology. Judgment (the author’s): the Bible is the ultimate source, and no one needs a degree to read it. What a reader needs is a way to keep from reading a verse alone. A church can supply that. It hands on a reading that many people have tested against the whole of Scripture over a long time, and so it holds back the habit of lifting one verse out of its context to prove a point. Four habits do the same work for any reader. Read the passage around the verse, and then the book it is in. Ask who wrote it, to whom, and why. Set it beside other passages on the same subject, since Scripture is best read as a whole. Ask how the church has read it, across the centuries and across traditions, and treat a reading that stands entirely alone as a warning. The limits are these. A church is an interpreter and not the source. A strong church can fix a wrong meaning as firmly as a right one (Finding 13). Churches also disagree about how far their readings should bind, and the guide records each church’s answer to that (Q2, and how firmly it holds its people to its teaching). If a church’s reading and your own part ways, the answer is neither to drop your reading quietly nor to hold it alone. Take it back to the text, to prayer, and to someone in the church who knows the text well. The guide’s part is smaller. It tells you which interpreter you would be joining and how firmly that interpreter holds its reading. It does not tell you the reading is right.
What the research leaves undecided. Silence does not tell us whether a church leaves a matter open because of the size of its tent, its trust in the Spirit, its inability to agree, or its habit of writing little. Two steps would settle more: code the reason a church gives in each sentence that leaves a matter open, and read the documents in Finding 10. Neither is done.
How to use an empty answer. Read it as “the documents the guide read are silent.” Do not read it as “the church is free here” or as “the church has no view.” If a question matters to you, ask the church or read the documents named in its profile.
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