Pastor Matthew Stuckey here from Verde Baptist Church Philippines, and I'm making a video
on the religion of Iglesia Ni Cristo, or INC. Now, the purpose of this video is to be an
informative video about what this religion, INC, or Iglesia Ni Cristo, teaches. It is
not meant to be a critique or a criticism of the religion, but from a non-biased perspective
to inform people. If you're from the Philippines, you're obviously very aware of this religion.
If you're from another country, you may or may not be aware of this religion, so it's
meant to inform you about this religion. Iglesia Ni Cristo literally translates to Church of
Christ, and if you talk to someone who's a member of INC, they will either say they're
a member of Iglesia Ni Cristo, or a member of INC. You won't hear them saying they're
a member of Church of Christ, because there's a lot of different churches that would label
themselves Church of Christ, and since this religion was actually founded in the Philippines,
they keep the name Iglesia Ni Cristo as opposed to an English name of Church of Christ. So,
number one, when it comes to this religion, they were founded in 1914 by a man by the
name of Felix Manalo here in the Philippines. Number two, this church would be under the
category of being part of the Restorationist movement. When you think of the Restorationist
movement, you think of churches like Mormonism, Jehovah's Witness, Seventh-day Adventists,
where they believe that the true church and true faith was gone from the earth for over
a thousand years, and then it was brought back some time later. From their website,
this is what it says about Iglesia Ni Cristo.
The Iglesia Ni Cristo parentheses Church of Christ, believes that the members of the church
established by Christ in Jerusalem in the first century eventually apostatized. That
is, they turned away from the true faith. Thus, the Church of Christ that reemerged
in these last days is the restoration of the church founded by Christ. This religion, Iglesia
Ni Cristo, is actually the fourth biggest Restorationist church in the entire world.
It's not as well known if you come from America, simply because those other three I mentioned
are very prominent in America, whereas this religion really gets most of its members from
Filipinos either living in the Philippines or that are living abroad. Number three, when
it comes to this religion of Iglesia Ni Cristo, they're estimated to have five to nine million
members worldwide. A percentage of estimate here in the Philippines are two and a half
to four and a half percent of the population. Now, where I live in Luzon, I would say that
that percentage of four and a half percent is very believable, you know, whereas if you
were in Visayas or Mindanao, the other major areas here in the Philippines, you're just
not going to have as many members or as high of a percentage. But here, we certainly run
into, you know, one out of 20, maybe more depending on, you know, how strict you are
with whether they count as INC or not. We run into a lot of people that are actually members
of this religion of Iglesia Ni Cristo. Now, the vast majority of their members are Filipinos
because they do believe that these events took place in the Philippines, and they do
believe their founder, Felix Manalo, who's a Filipino, was the last messenger, and salvation
started here in the Philippines in the East, and it's meant to head to the West. So we
said, number one, the founding of the religion. Number two, it's part of the Restorationist
Movement. Number three, the number of adherents. Number four, they believe that they are prophesied
in the Bible. Iglesia Ni Cristo teaches that Felix Manalo, their founder, was prophesied
in the Word of God. They refer to him as the last messenger. They believe he fulfills prophecies
in books such as Isaiah. They also believe that he is the angel from the East, which
they get from Revelation 7. They believe he fulfills that Bible prophecy. They also
believe the founding of their church, which was right around the time of World War I,
was actually simultaneous, or on the same day, I should say, and Revelation 7 is a prophecy
about their religion and their foundation, as well as talking about World War I. One
of their famous quotes, as I mentioned, is that salvation always starts in the East and
heads to the West, when people would criticize them and say, well, how is it you believe
salvation is over here for your church? And they say it always starts in the East and
goes to the West. Number five, some of the beliefs of Iglesia Ni Cristo. They believe
that the Trinity is a false doctrine. They do not believe in the Trinity. They do not
believe that Jesus Christ is God. They do believe that Jesus Christ was perfect and
He's the Son of God, but they believe He was just a man that was created by God the Father.
They do not actually believe that He was God Himself. They believe in soul sleep, both
for the saved and the lost, that when you die, you are just asleep, and then one day
there's going to be a resurrection. But everybody, when they die, they just are in the ground.
They neither go to heaven or hell. For salvation, they believe you must be a member of the church
of Iglesia Ni Cristo. They believe you must be baptized, repent of your sins, do good
works. They do have a lot of steps and requirements of being part of salvation, but they certainly
believe that you must be a member of their church to go to heaven. And if you talk to
people, that is definitely what people from that church believe, that you must be a member
of their church in order to go to heaven. They do not celebrate holidays. They are against
Christmas. They're against Easter. They're against holidays, which is similar to some
of the other restoration churches. And when it comes to the Bible itself, a lot of Filipino
churches actually use the King James Bible, and they would trust it above Tagalog versions,
and they're very old-fashioned in that way, using the King James. With INC, they are different,
and the Lamza Bible is a big Bible that they promote. And the big reason why is because
of the phrase Church of Christ in there. And so there are places in our King James Bible
that will say Church of God or Churches of God, and other places say Church of Christ
or Churches of Christ. Since the religion literally translates as Church of Christ,
they reject Bibles that would say Church of God in some of those verses.
Outside their beliefs, let me just explain to you about INC today. So their founder was
Felix Manalo, and then after that his son Aranjo Manalo became the second leader of
Iglesia Ni Cristo, and now the current leader is Eduardo Manalo. It is highly expected that
when Eduardo Manalo passes away, that his son will end up taking over the church. So
so far it has been in the Manalo family. They are a very rich religion. Even in poor
neighborhoods you will find a very magnificent and fancy INC building. In America we often
think of Mormons as having really nice buildings and they seem to have a lot of money. I would
say even more so with the religion of Iglesia Ni Cristo. They certainly do have very amazing
buildings. They have a lot of money. There's no question about that. They are very powerful
in politics. They are very high up in politics. They have a lot of money. They go by, as I
mentioned earlier, Iglesia Ni Cristo or INC. You're not going to hear them say they're
a member of Church of Christ. They will refer to themselves as INC normally. The last thing
to think of is this. Some people that identify as INC might actually have some Catholic beliefs
such as believing Jesus is God or the Trinity, you know, because sometimes maybe somebody
grew up as Catholic or they have a Catholic family and even though they start attending
INC they don't necessarily adopt all of the beliefs of INC necessarily or at least immediately.
You also sometimes see the contrary where someone might say they're Catholic and they
seem to have beliefs of INC. I would say it's more common in the US to run into people that
will have a certain denomination and yet adopt Jehovah's Witnesses beliefs of not believing
Jesus is God. You do see it here with Catholics but by and large most people here in the Philippines
do believe Jesus is God. They do believe in the Trinity and even some members of INC
will actually say they do believe that Jesus Christ is God and they do believe in the Trinity.
So that's just a basic recap of this religion of Iglesia Ni Cristo. In case you have not
heard of them before, now you know a little bit about them. If you're able to come to
one of our missions trips here in the Philippines, you will certainly run into a lot of members
that will say they're INC or Iglesia Ni Cristo and if so, this is kind of the information
you can use as you actually go out and talk to them. Thank you and God bless.