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Welcome to the resource side of our website. Here you will find more than 400 links to studies in a wide variety of doctrinal topic areas. These studies are intended to be comprehensive and to relate a step-by-step, reasonable analysis delving deeply into the scriptural texts. (We also offer video and audio presentations of some studies.)

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May 8, 2025

What is essential Christian doctrine?

With so much doctrinal and denominational diversity in the modern church, Christians need to determine what teachings can and cannot be disagreed upon by orthodox believers. All modern Christians regard some who call themselves Christians as heretics, so it seems critical to verify whether our standards of faith accurately preserve New Testament requirements for doctrinal unity as established by Jesus and the apostles. A popular approach follows the old adage "in essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity." But this axiom does not come from the bible. So, how do we ensure that we are defining essential teaching in a manner consistent with the New Testament regarding what Christians are required to believe?

For more information on
modern and New Testament standards for doctrinal unity, please see our study entitled:


Unity and Excommunication

Q:I'm new here. Where should I get started?
The arrangement of topics to the left provides a recommended reading order. It is designed to reflect a step-by-step progression from more basic topics to more complex ones. However, it is not necessary to follow this order. Those who are more familiar with certain topics may easily read whichever studies are of interest without first going through all of the earlier topics in the list.

systematic theology:
a reading guide

logical fallacies
a list of false
arguments