Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that can help answer the question.
Query: What does the evangelical church believe?
Evangelical Friends regard Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Saviour, and have similar religious beliefs to other evangelical Christians. They believe in, and hold a high regard for, the penal substitution of the atonement of Christ on the Cross at Calvary, biblical infallibility, and the need for every person to personally experience a relationship with God. They believe that the purpose of the Evangelical Friends Church is to evangelise the unsaved people of the world, to spiritually transform them through God's love and through social service to others. Evangelical Friends regard the Bible as the infallible and self-authenticating Word of God. The statement of faith of Evangelical Friends International is comparable to the statement of faith of other Evangelical churches. Evangelical Friends who are members of Evangelical Friends International are mainly located in the U.S., Central America, and Asia. Beginning in the 1880s, some Friends began using outward sacraments in their Sunday services, first in Evangelical Friends Church–Eastern Region (then known as Ohio Yearly Meeting [Damascus]). Friends Church–Southwest Region has also approved the practice of using the outward sacraments in their Sunday services. In places where Evangelical Friends are engaged in missionary work, such as in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, adult baptism by immersion in water is carried out. This practice differs from most other Quaker branches of the Religious Society of Friends. , EFCI claims to represent more than 140,000 Friends, roughly 39% of the total number of Friends worldwide.
However, a minority interpret biblical passages differently and argue that homosexuality can be seen as morally acceptable. This approach has been taken by a number of denominations in North America, notably the United Church of Canada (2.8 million members), the United Church of Christ (1.1 million members), the Moravian Church (825,000 members), the Anglican Episcopal church, the Anglican Church of Canada (800,000 members), the Liberal Catholic Church, Friends General Conference, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) (1.9 million members), the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (3.9 million members) and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. Relatively many denominations had taken this approach in Europe including united, reformed and Lutheran churches: the Evangelical Church in Germany (24.5 million members), Church of Sweden (6.6 million members), Church of Norway, Church of Denmark, Protestant Church of the Netherlands (3.9 million members), Church of Iceland, United Protestant Church in Belgium, United Protestant Church of France, Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches, Methodist Church of Great Britain (330,000 members) and Church of Scotland.
Catholic belief holds that the church exists both on earth and in heaven simultaneously, and thus the Virgin Mary and the saints are alive and part of the living church. Prayers and devotions to Mary and the saints are common practices in Catholic life. These devotions are not worship, since only God is worshiped. The church teaches that the saints "do not cease to intercede with the Father for us. ... So by their fraternal concern is our weakness greatly helped."
The Evangelical Reformed Church in Transcarpathia is a conservative Reformed denomination in Transcarpathia. The church was founded in 2006. The new denomination separated from the Reformed Church in Transcarpathia because the liberal teaching of the church and the unbiblical episcopal government. The members are ethnic Hungarian. It has about 200 members in 6 congregations (including congregations in Visk, Beregszász, Beregújfalu) and Bible study classes in 12 villages. In 2007 the church was registered by the government. The denomination affirms the Westminster Confession of Faith, Second Helvetic Confession and the Heidelberg catechism. It has Presbyterian church government, with Synod and with local Presbyterian councils.
The church established close relationship with the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands (Liberated).
The CIA Factbook lists Honduras as 97% Catholic and 3% Protestant. Commenting on statistical variations everywhere, John Green of Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life notes that: "It isn't that ... numbers are more right than [someone else's] numbers ... but how one conceptualizes the group." Often people attend one church without giving up their "home" church. Many who attend evangelical megachurches in the US, for example, attend more than one church. This shifting and fluidity is common in Brazil where two-fifths of those who were raised evangelical are no longer evangelical and Catholics seem to shift in and out of various churches, often while still remaining Catholic.
Witnesses believe that after the death of the apostles, the Church embarked on a "Great Apostasy", diverging from the original teachings of Jesus on several major points. Influenced by Restorationism in the 19th century, Charles Taze Russell and his associates formed a Bible study group in the 1870s in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, developing teachings that they considered to be a revival of "the great truths taught by Jesus and the Apostles". Watch Tower publications claim both the Great Apostasy and Russell's subsequent "restoration" of original Christianity were a fulfilment of Jesus' parable of the wheat and the weeds at Matthew 13:24-30,36-43. Although many of their eschatological teachings have changed over the years, Jehovah's Witnesses have consistently claimed to be the only true religion. Based on their interpretation of Revelation 18:2-24, Jehovah's Witnesses believe all other religions are part of "Babylon the Great", a "world empire of false religion" under the control of Satan; consequently, they refuse all ecumenical relations with other religious denominations.
With Christianity, historic Christian denominations such as the Catholic Church and Protestant Churches, including the Lutheran Church, recognize seven virtues, which correspond inversely to each of the seven deadly sins. 
Confession is the act of admitting the commission of a sin to a priest, who in turn will forgive the person in the name (in the person) of Christ, give a penance to (partially) make up for the offense, and advise the person on what he or she should do afterwards.
Based on the numbers of adherents, the Eastern Orthodox Church (also known as Eastern Orthodoxy) is the second largest Christian communion in the world after the Roman Catholic Church. The most common estimates of the number of Eastern Orthodox Christians worldwide is approximately 200–260 million. The numerous Protestant groups in the world, if taken all together, outnumber the Eastern Orthodox, but they differ theologically and do not form a single communion.
Exorcism in Christianity is the practice of casting out demons from a person they are believed to have possessed. The person performing the exorcism, known as an exorcist, is often a member of the Christian Church, or an individual thought to be graced with special powers or skills. The exorcist may use prayers and religious material, such as set formulas, gestures, symbols, icons, amulets, etc. The exorcist often invokes God, Jesus and/or several different angels and archangels to intervene with the exorcism. A survey of Christian exorcists found that most exorcists believe that any mature Christian can perform an exorcism, not just members of clergy. Christian exorcists most commonly believe the authority given to them by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (the Trinity) is the source of their ability to cast out demons.
Both Christianity and Judaism believe in some form of judgment. Most Christians (the exception is Full Preterism) believe in the future Second Coming of Jesus, which includes the Resurrection of the Dead and the Last Judgment. Those who have accepted Jesus as their personal saviour will be saved and live in God's presence in the Kingdom of Heaven, those who have not accepted Jesus as their saviour, will be cast into the Lake of Fire (eternal torment, finite torment, or simply annihilated), see for example The Sheep and the Goats.
The Iglesia ni Cristo adheres to the teachings of the Bible and they denounce those who practice homosexual acts, as they are seen as immoral and wicked. The organization has been called by international human rights organizations as one of the most homophobic religious sects operating in the Philippines. These acts include having sexual affairs and relations with partners of the same sex, cross-dressing, and same-sex marriage. Also, in the Iglesia ni Cristo, men are not allowed to have long hair, for it is seen as a symbol of femininity and should be exclusive to women only. LGBT citizens born from INC families suffer the greatest as their gender existence are branded explicitly as wicked by their own family and the pastor of their locality. Numerous cases have shown that INC members who shift religious beliefs away from INC's beliefs have faced massive backlash from family members, pastors, and other INC members locally and abroad, making it hard for INC members to get away from the church. Hate crimes and forced conversion therapy committed by family members towards INC LGBT teenagers have also surfaced and are backed by the Templo Sentral, the central establishment of the INC church. The INC has been widely known to the Filipino LGBT community as the most dangerous and discriminating religion for LGBT Filipinos. The church believes that no matter what a person does, if the person is homosexual, he or she will still burn in hell.
Alvarus, Eulogius, and earlier their mutual teacher Speraindeo were the first Iberian Christians who systematically and theologically attacked Islam in their writings. They also viewed the Christian community around them as divided by a distinct line. On one side were those who cooperated significantly with the Muslim officials and embraced Arabic culture and language, or at the least chose to conceal their Christian beliefs in public; on the other side lay Alvarus, Eulogius, and other devoted Christians including the martyrs who believed that no ground whatsoever could be given to the Muslims. If Christians and Muslims were to exist side-by-side, they believed, there should be no intermixing of their religion or culture, nor suppression of Christian expression. This was not only an ideological divide but also a physical divide, manifested in the temporary splitting of the Church into two halves: One in support of the martyrs, and one against them.
In Christianity, exorcism is the practice of casting out demons. In Christian practice the person performing the exorcism, known as an exorcist, is often a member of the Christian Church, or an individual thought to be graced with special powers or skills. The exorcist may use prayers and religious material, such as set formulas, gestures, symbols, icons, amulets, etc. The exorcist often invokes God, Jesus and/or several different angels and archangels to intervene with the exorcism. Protestant Christian exorcists most commonly believe the authority given to them by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (the Trinity) is the source of their ability to cast out demons.
Christians ranked as the second most educated religious group around in the world with an average of 9.3 years of schooling. Christians were found to have the second highest number of graduate and post-graduate degrees per capita while in absolute numbers ranked in the first place (220 million). According to the study, Christians in North America, Europe, Middle East, North Africa and Asia-Pacific regions are highly educated since many of the world universities were built by the historic Christian churches, in addition to the historical evidence that "Christian monks built libraries and, in the days before printing presses, preserved important earlier writings produced in Latin, Greek and Arabic". According to the same study, Christians have a significant amount of gender equality in educational attainment, and the study suggests that one of the reasons is the encouragement of the Protestant Reformers in promoting the education of women, which led to the eradication of illiteracy among females in Protestant communities.
The liturgy for the Lord's Supper or holy communion shows a Moravian characteristic in that prayers are addressed not to God the Father but to Christ. The communion prayer is a combination of Anglican and Presbyterian material. At the heart of the service is a structure taken from Luther’s 1526 Deutsche Messe. After the Minister has recited the Lord’s words of institution, the communion wafers are distributed to worshippers in their seats and consumed together. A verse of meditation on the death of Christ is then sung. The same sequence is repeated with the wine, which is distributed in small glasses. Podmore (1998) reports how impressed observers, including Roman Catholics, were to see up to 300 people taking the sacrament together in solemn stillness and then prostrating themselves. After a hymn and a prayer of thanksgiving, a covenant hymn is sung in which members of the congregation exchange the right hand of fellowship. The service concludes with the Aaronic blessing. In most Moravian congregations in Britain, holy communion is celebrated once a month.
Comprising over 700 denominations and a large number of independent churches, there is no central authority governing Pentecostalism; however, many denominations are affiliated with the Pentecostal World Fellowship. There are over 279 million Pentecostals worldwide, and the movement is growing in many parts of the world, especially the global South. Since the 1960s, Pentecostalism has increasingly gained acceptance from other Christian traditions, and Pentecostal beliefs concerning Spirit baptism and spiritual gifts have been embraced by non-Pentecostal Christians in Protestant and Catholic churches through the Charismatic Movement. Together, Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity numbers over 500 million adherents. While the movement originally attracted mostly lower classes in the global South, there is an increasing appeal to middle classes. Middle class congregations tend to be more adapted to society and withdraw strong spiritual practices such as divine healing.
In contrast to the Jewish view of being morally balanced, Original Sin refers to the idea that the sin of Adam and Eve's disobedience (sin "at the origin") has passed on a spiritual heritage, so to speak. Christians teach that human beings inherit a corrupted or damaged human nature in which the tendency to do bad is greater than it would have been otherwise, so much so that human nature would not be capable now of participating in the afterlife with God. This is not a matter of being "guilty" of anything; each person is only personally guilty of their own actual sins. However, this understanding of original sin is what lies behind the Christian emphasis on the need for spiritual salvation from a spiritual Saviour, who can forgive and set aside sin even though humans are not inherently pure and worthy of such salvation. Paul the Apostle in Romans and I Corinthians placed special emphasis on this doctrine, and stressed that belief in Jesus would allow Christians to overcome death and attain salvation in the hereafter.
The Council also said that even those who do not believe in Christ are related to the Church: "All men are called to be part of this catholic unity of the people of God which in promoting universal peace presages it. And there belong to or are related to it in various ways, the Catholic faithful, all who believe in Christ, and indeed the whole of mankind, for all men are called by the grace of God to salvation." However, it added immediately that those who, "knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved". In this way, the Catholic Church teaches that any person who knows that the Catholic Church is necessary for eternal salvation and knowingly rejects the Church with deliberate consent cannot be saved. On the other hand, "those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience. Nor does Divine Providence deny the helps necessary for salvation to those who, without blame on their part, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God and with His grace strive to live a good life."
The seminary further describes itself as Evangelical, Catholic, Reformed, Ecumenical and Episcopal, defining the terms this way:The seminary's first location was at the corner of 43rd and Chestnut streets in West Philadelphia alongside the magnificent Christ Memorial Church (pictured at right.) Currently the seminary is in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia. It consists of three buildings, including one dorm house for students. Also resident on campus are the offices of the Reformed Episcopal diocese of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic and it's Committee on Young People's Work.
The Reformed Episcopal Church (REC) is an Anglican church of evangelical Episcopalian heritage. It was founded in 1873 in New York City by George David Cummins, formerly a bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church.
According to Harvard University professor Robert D. Putnam, an increasing number of Americans are leaving their faith and becoming unaffiliated. By 2050, Christianity is expected to remain the majority in the United states (66.4%, down from 78.3% in 2010), and the number of Christians in absolute number is expected to grow from 243 million to 262 million.
According to a 2005 paper submitted to a meeting of the American Political Science Association, most of Christianity's growth has occurred in non-Western countries. The paper concludes that the Pentecostalism movement is the fastest-growing religion worldwide. Protestantism is growing as a result of historic missionary activity and indigenous Christian movements by Africans in Africa, and due primarily to conversion in Asia, Latin America, Muslim world, and Oceania. According to Pew Research Center, Christianity is declining in the United states while non-Christian faiths are growing.
Meyers eschews evangelical Christianity's emphasis on salvation and does not think that Christians need to believe in conventional marks of the Church, including Jesus' physical resurrection, ascension into heaven, virgin birth or position as the son of God. Rather, he believes that religious leaders should address social issues such as greed, saying that "money is the last taboo in church". He links this issue to social justice and perceptions of inequality in the judicial system, in that "we'll send an African-American teenager off to the slammer who robs a 7-Eleven, but we won't do anything to a banker who helped cause the collapse of the entire banking system".
In the 21st century there are an estimated 2 million Evangelicals in the UK. According to research performed by the Evangelical Alliance in 2013, 87% of UK evangelicals attend Sunday morning church services every week and 63% attend weekly or fortnightly small groups. An earlier survey conducted in 2012 found that 92% of evangelicals agree it is a Christian's duty to help those in poverty and 45% attend a church which has a fund or scheme that helps people in immediate need, and 42% go to a church that supports or runs a foodbank. 63% believe in tithing, and so give around 10% of their income to their church, Christian organisations and various charities 83% of UK evangelicals believe that the Bible has supreme authority in guiding their beliefs, views and behaviour and 52% read or listen to the Bible daily. The Evangelical Alliance, formed in 1846, was the first ecumenical evangelical body in the world and works to unite evangelicals, helping them listen to, and be heard by, the government, media and society.
The Evangelical Connexion still remains true to its Reformed Evangelical Protestant tradition. Most of the Connexion's church buildings are still claimed by the FCE Central Trust to belong to them, on the grounds that their use by congregations of the Evangelical Connexion contravenes the terms of their trust deeds, some of which appoint the Central Trust of the FCE as one corporate Trustee but these same churches are administered on a daily basis by local Trustees (usually the local church council members) in those churches and any claim by the FCE Central Trust comes despite the fact that the buildings were built and paid for by the local congregations themselves, as are the daily running costs of these churches. 
The Evangelical Connexion of the Free Church of England Denomination holds firm to its Heritage as an Independent Anglican, Reformed, Evangelical and Protestant Church. Several approaches have been made by both groups in the Free Church of England to attempt a reconciliation, but the Connexion group has always rejected and continues to reject a view of the church that has recently used terms to describe the position of the Free Church of England such as "Evangelical Catholic" because it cannot support the other group so long as it continues on a pathway of seeking to embrace what this term is taken to mean concerning its view of the church. viz: what has been called the "old high churchmanship", insofar as this seeks to establish a hierarchical church structure, with unbiblical authority and mediatorial powers being given to bishops according to a High Anglican concept popularly termed "Apostolic Succession". whereas the Free Church of England Constitution specifically forbids such a role to bishops, unalterably declaring "... this church CONDEMNS AND REJECTS that Christian ministers are 'priests' in another sense than that in which all believers are a "royal priesthood".
In the 21st century there are an estimated 2 million Evangelicals in the UK. According to research performed by the Evangelical Alliance in 2013, 87% of UK evangelicals attend Sunday morning church services every week and 63% attend weekly or fortnightly small groups. An earlier survey conducted in 2012 found that 92% of evangelicals agree it is a Christian's duty to help those in poverty and 45% attend a church which has a fund or scheme that helps people in immediate need, and 42% go to a church that supports or runs a foodbank. 63% believe in tithing, and so give around 10% of their income to their church, Christian organisations and various charities 83% of UK evangelicals believe that the Bible has supreme authority in guiding their beliefs, views and behaviour and 52% read or listen to the Bible daily. The Evangelical Alliance, formed in 1846, was the first ecumenical evangelical body in the world and works to unite evangelicals, helping them listen to, and be heard by, the government, media and society.