I kept hearing about this Ang Dating Daan thing and went to their web page. From what I saw it was some type of protestant denomination in the Philippines.
So whats the big deal about them if anything? Is it some kind of new JW or LDS type group?, it didnt look like it on their page.
I actually know quite a bit about them. I dated an Iglesia Ni Christo (INC) or Church of Christ woman for a year and half. Basically, INC beliefs are a hodge podge of different branches of Christianity. And this stems from their founder Felix Manalo who basically church jumped his whole life until, as the story goes, he went to his room for three days and heard the true word of God telling him to restore the Apostacised church and gave him the true interpertation of the bible. They believe that the bible prophecizes that the true Church will come from far east (which the pervert into meaning the Phillipines) They do this be recklessly combing quotes from various bibles to make them say certain things. For instance they will combine KJV and Moffat translations in mid scentence to make it fit what they want it to say.
At various points in time Felix Manalo belonged to various different churches including Catholic, SDA, and various protestant sects so almost all of their objections to the Church come from these protestant objections. It is even rumored that he went to America after he founded his church to study Mormonism and does take a few of his beliefs from them as well. If you look at their main church it is very much Mormon influence in architecture.
They do not belief in the Trinity, the divinity of Jesus, the Papacy (although the have an Executive Minister that acts exactly like a Pope except with even more power).
They require attendance at their service which the hold twice a week. These are actually marked by cards you flip and are checked off. If you do not come to the service they aggressively follow-up on you. You must sit seperated from men and women and they do have forms of punishment. For instance, being an officer in their church is considered to be a great honor, and there for they have tons and tons of officers. For instance, being in the choir is considered being an officer. If you miss a choir practice you cannot sing at all that week and it kind of becomes a little bit of a scandel (unless you got permission to miss it in the first place.) But I digress…
ADD which also means The Old Path, is a TV show of a splinter group of an origanol splinter group from INC. Eli Soriano is it leader but ADD splintered off from some other group led be Teo something or other because Eli was not going to be named head of Teo’s group. So he basically decided to splinter and start his own group that of course, contains the truth.
Bascially, Manalo insisted that he was God’s last prophet and also an angel of God. This occured after there was kind of a coup that was attempted on his church and which started all this splintering.
Stay away my friend. They are a cult and I do not use that term lightly. I know from first hand experience and observation.
