Would Like a Catholic Perspective on a Particular Religion

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As a form of personal enjoyment, I have always been interested in searching for and finding out about various religions and sects, particularly unusual and little-known ones. A while ago, while searching through the Internet, I discovered the website for an organization name The Church of Servants, which teaches a religion called Servantism. It struck me as being very unique because it seemed to be a form of monotheism, unlike the Eastern-inspired or New Age pantheisms of so many new religions that are founded. However, in spite of its apparent monotheism, it didn’t seem to consider itself to be an offshoot of one of the three major Abrahamic religions. It also didn’t seem to be a form of Deism, since it follows a revealed religious text named The Book of God. Finally, Servantism is the only religion I’ve ever come across that seems to believe in a God who has never revealed himself to humanity in any form until the founding of their church in modern times. I am posting this thread to find out whether any of you agree with my assessment of Servantism. I know that this might seem to some of you to be an unusual question to post on Catholic Answers Forums. I also know that trying to answer my questions might require some degree of speculation, since there is not a lot of information on The Church of Servants’ website. However, I am not doing any kin of official research. I am posing this thread and asking these questions only to satisfy my own curiosity. Therefore, I don’t care if your answer consists mostly of speculation. I have no connection with Servantism, so please feel free to give your completely honest opinion. I chose to post my question on a Catholic forum because the essence of my questions involve contrasting Servantism with Christianity, and I believe that Catholicism, along with Eastern Orthodoxy, to be more representative of early, and therefore authentic, Christianity. Also, whereas many people who are interested in comparative religion like to find the similarities among different religions, I, on the other hand, have always enjoyed finding out what makes religions unique and different from each other. I feel that members of a conservative church, such as the Roman Catholic Church, would be more willing to discuss religious differences than would a member of a more liberal church, such as the Unitarian Universalist Church, which believes that all religions are the same and compatible with each other. In any case, this topic and these questions have been on my mind for quite some time now, and you would really be giving me great piece of mind by trying to answer them and sharing your opinions with me. With that being said, I will ask my specific questions followed by the websites for The Church of Servants.
  1. Do you agree with my overall assessment of Servantism, and if so, why?
  2. Aside from the fact that they label themselves as a non-Christian religion, what specific beliefs espoused by and statements made on their websites would cause you to consider Servantism to be a non-Christian religion.
(Even if some answers to the above question seem too obvious to be worth mentioning, I would appreciate it if you would share your opinions with me anyway.)

I am sorry for my long post, but I am genuinely grateful for all of your help, and I look forward to reading your responses.

Here are the websites for The Church of Servants:
web.archive.org/web/20071008042029/http://www.churchofservants.org/default.htm
web.archive.org/web/20050309021404/www.churchofservants.org/faq.htm
 
If they say they are not followers of Christ then in no way shape or form can they be Christian.

Christ is real and alive and present in our lives.

To ask us to give some kind of merit to this cult that is claiming the status of a religion is nonsense.

I halfway wonder if you are not trying to put in some kind of plug for this cult.
 
I’ve never heard of that group before. When I google “Church of Servants” or “Servantism”, the website you posted does not come up on the first page. They don’t even seem to be significant enough to warrant their own Wikipedia page.

Incidentally, why do you link to the groups website via the internet archive? Is their website no longer online?

I would venture to guess not many people here have heard of the group enough to even have much of an opinion on them. The biggest reason to classify a religion as “non-Christian” is that they say they do not believe that Jesus Christ is God. If they describe themselves as non-Christian, I sure wouldn’t try to tell them that they are Christian. 🤷
 
Religion_Addict said:
As a form of personal enjoyment, I have always been interested in searching for and finding out about various religions and sects, particularly unusual and little-known ones. A while ago, while searching through the Internet, I discovered the website for an organization name The Church of Servants, which teaches a religion called Servantism. It struck me as being very unique because it seemed to be a form of monotheism, unlike the Eastern-inspired or New Age pantheisms of so many new religions that are founded. However, in spite of its apparent monotheism, it didn’t seem to consider itself to be an offshoot of one of the three major Abrahamic religions. It also didn’t seem to be a form of Deism, since it follows a revealed religious text named The Book of God. Finally, Servantism is the only religion I’ve ever come across that seems to believe in a God who has never revealed himself to humanity in any form until the founding of their church in modern times…In any case, this topic and these questions have been on my mind for quite some time now, and you would really be giving me great piece of mind by trying to answer them and sharing your opinions with me. With that being said, I will ask my specific questions followed by the websites for The Church of Servants.
  1. Do you agree with my overall assessment of Servantism, and if so, why?
  2. Aside from the fact that they label themselves as a non-Christian religion, what specific beliefs espoused by and statements made on their websites would cause you to consider Servantism to be a non-Christian religion.
(Even if some answers to the above question seem too obvious to be worth mentioning, I would appreciate it if you would share your opinions with me anyway.)

I am sorry for my long post, but I am genuinely grateful for all of your help, and I look forward to reading your responses.

Here are the websites for The Church of Servants:
web.archive.org/web/20071008042029/http://www.churchofservants.org/default.htm
web.archive.org/web/20050309021404/www.churchofservants.org/faq.htm
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To answer your questions:
  1. Not entirely. It seems more New Age to me than it does to you. It certainly seems to distinguish between God and Creation and thus avoid that mistake, but it relies purely on a subjective, turning to the “God-within” which is in line with most New Age movements.
  2. It’s rather odd to ask what other reasons than not believing in Christ make them non-Christian. That is the reason to classify anyone as non-Christian.
Can I ask why you would search through the “way back machine” to find info on this group? Odd hobby, this.
 
I apologize for not acknowledging your replies sooner, but I have a bad habit of not checking my forum posts and threads on a regular basis. First of all, InspiritCarol, I’m glad that you recognize Servantism as being incompatible with what you believe to be the Truth of your own religion. On the other hand, however, there are two problems that I have with your post. First of all, you accuse me of proselytizing for Servantism. I already said that I have no connection to The Church of Servants, so unless you have proof that I’m lying, you shouldn’t make such an accusation. Secondly, your use of the word cult means nothing to me, since that is a purely relative term. You can’t even call Servantism a heresy because in order for a religion to be a heresy, it has to break away from and distort the teachings of a mainstream religion. That is not the case with Servantism. Instead, it is a completely separate religion from Christianity, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, etc., although Islam could be considered a Christian heresy since even though Muhammad believed in the Judeo-Christian God, he changed some Judeo-Christian teaching and added further revelations to the Judeo-Christian scriptures in the form of the Quran. The only reason why you probably wouldn’t call Islam a cult, even though you do call Servantism a cult, is because you are afraid of offending the billions of Muslims worldwide. A religion is not a cult just because it is small or new. Servantism may be a harmful religion or it may not be, but neither you nor I would know one way or the other unless we were able to investigate the religion further. Aside from that, for those of you who asked why I linked to The Church of Servants’ website via the Internet Archive, your assumption is correct that their website no longer appears to be in operation. Unfortunately (for me, considering my interest in unusual and little-known religions), this may indeed mean that The Church of Servants is a defunct organization, which is further proof that I’m not proselytizing for the religion. They used to have an entry on Wikipedia, but it was taken down once their website was no longer in operation. Anyway, I am appreciative to everyone who has so far responded to my thread (including you InspiritCarol, believe it or not, and I welcome further replies from other members of this forum as well.
 
Religion_Addict said:
I apologize for not acknowledging your replies sooner, but I have a bad habit of not checking my forum posts and threads on a regular basis. First of all, InspiritCarol, I’m glad that you recognize Servantism as being incompatible with what you believe to be the Truth of your own religion. On the other hand, however, there are two problems that I have with your post. First of all, you accuse me of proselytizing for Servantism. I already said that I have no connection to The Church of Servants, so unless you have proof that I’m lying, you shouldn’t make such an accusation. Secondly, your use of the word cult means nothing to me, since that is a purely relative term. You can’t even call Servantism a heresy because in order for a religion to be a heresy, it has to break away from and distort the teachings of a mainstream religion. That is not the case with Servantism. Instead, it is a completely separate religion from Christianity, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, etc., although Islam could be considered a Christian heresy since even though Muhammad believed in the Judeo-Christian God, he changed some Judeo-Christian teaching and added further revelations to the Judeo-Christian scriptures in the form of the Quran. The only reason why you probably wouldn’t call Islam a cult, even though you do call Servantism a cult, is because you are afraid of offending the billions of Muslims worldwide. A religion is not a cult just because it is small or new. Servantism may be a harmful religion or it may not be, but neither you nor I would know one way or the other unless we were able to investigate the religion further. Aside from that, for those of you who asked why I linked to The Church of Servants’ website via the Internet Archive, your assumption is correct that their website no longer appears to be in operation. Unfortunately (for me, considering my interest in unusual and little-known religions), this may indeed mean that The Church of Servants is a defunct organization, which is further proof that I’m not proselytizing for the religion. They used to have an entry on Wikipedia, but it was taken down once their website was no longer in operation. Anyway, I am appreciative to everyone who has so far responded to my thread (including you InspiritCarol, believe it or not, and I welcome further replies from other members of this forum as well.
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I sent you a private message on this matter. If interested, check there.
 
Religion_Addict said:
Servantism may be a harmful religion or it may not be, but neither you nor I would know one way or the other unless we were able to investigate the religion further.
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Any ‘religion’ that leads people away from Christ and the Truth is harmful. Period. I find it odd that you would expect any other response on this forum.
 
On the website there’s a list of ‘reasons’ to joint this religion. They all start with the word “You”.

I can tell right from the beginning that this new religion is fundamentally incompatible with Christianity as expressed in the Lutheran communion, as we focus on Christ and the Cross and not on “me” and “myself.”
 
DAML72 said:
Any ‘religion’ that leads people away from Christ and the Truth is harmful. Period. I find it odd that you would expect any other response on this forum.
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Exactly. Why anyone would even investigate a group like this is beyond me. 🤷
 
Maybe it is gone because it was a spoof…ie, not a real religion or organization, but someone messing around on the internet, or experimenting. Kind of like how the OP comes across. 😃
 
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