Anti-Body Cults are groups that teach that salvation is only possible through their particular movement. They consist of the invisible and visible "Body of Christ," in its entirety. Regardless of how similar, salvation cannot be found outside of them.
Five Keys to consider in order to understand Anti-Body Groups
1. When conversing with these groups, remember, the question is not whether You think they are saved, but that they do not believe you are saved. Many Roman Catholics do not believe this, though the Church's official position is that you cannot be saved outside of the Catholic Church. This is the simple way to approach this argument with Catholics, and then detail how the Bible declares one is saved, compared to what they teach.
2. In many cases, the layman may not agree with this view, but they are usually aware of this position.
3. In some cases, a denomination may insist on “retraining” those who join from other denominations, but that is not a salvation issue, it is an ecclesiology issue (“how we do things”). Many Baptist churches demand that a person be "re-baptized" when they join their church, even though they had a believers baptism in a different baptist church -this is cultic.
4. Another key component of these movements is a measure of secrecy, either in rites (such as marriage) or rituals (ordination). It is a Gnostic holdover. They are hiding something they don’t wont others to see.
5. The groups herein include:
a) Roman Catholicism
b) Eastern Orthodoxy
c) Baptist Bride
There are certain marks that all Anti-Body Cults have in common:
1.They believe Jesus entrusted them alone with the truth. All other movements are flawed and send people to hell. There is no salvation outside of their group. (see point one above)
2. Their leader(s) holds the key to salvation, or their teaching alone proclaims it.
3. They draw a straight line from themselves to the Apostles for authority. This is not done for the reason the early church produced Apostolic succession, which was to combat heresy that was itself claiming Apostolic succession. And in the early church, the point of Apostolic succession and church tradition was to affirm the teaching of the Scriptures, not to guard tradition apart from Scripture -in other words, correct interpretation of Scripture was "tradition" for the early church, to which the Apostolic succession affirmed as correct.
