Self-Proclaimed Messiahs and Other Southeast Asian Heresies
Misconceptions about the Trinity and the exclusivity of Christ prevail.
American evangelicals are moving away from orthodox understandings of God and Scripture. This year’s State of Theology survey revealed the top five misconceptions that US evangelicals hold:
- Jesus isn’t the only way to God.
- Jesus was created by God.
- Jesus is not God.
- The Holy Spirit is not a personal being.
- Humans aren’t sinful by nature.
CT polled three Christian leaders in the Philippines, Singapore, and Cambodia to find out if these modern heresies are also widespread in their respective regions, how believers can address them, and what heresies may be more common in their contexts.
Timoteo D. Gener, president, FEBIAS College of Bible, Valenzuela, Metro Manila, Philippines
With Catholics making up 80 percent of the Philippines’ population and Protestants, including evangelicals, making up around 10 percent, these five heresies are not common among those who call themselves Christians, especially evangelicals who are part of the Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches (PCEC).
There remains high regard for the authority of the Bible—as well as belief in the Trinity—among these Christ-followers. There are, however, indigenous non-Trinitarian heretical groups like Iglesia Ni Cristo (Church of Christ), Ang Dating Daan (The Old Path), and the more recent “Kingdom of Jesus Christ,” whose pastor-founder Apollo Quiboloy claims that he is the “Appointed Son of God.”
Many years ago, Benigno Beltran’s Christology of the Inarticulate (1987) revealed the prevalence of modalism, the belief that God is a single person who reveals himself in three forms, among folk Catholics. Countering modalism in faith and practice remains a continuing challenge for biblical Christians in the …