The church of Christ is the only church one must be in to be saved.

In Summary: Lord’s Supper, Prayer, Preaching and Teaching God's Word, and Plagiarism!!!Lines of scripture are not the only thing WFTL likes to cut and paste. WFTL’s entire summery, save the last line is cut and paste from http://truthfortheworld.org.... I accepted the challenge to debate WFTL not a website. I ask the voters to take this into consideration when judging the debate.And the Fallacies Keep Rolling In…Strawman FallacyWFTL starts his rebuttal with a strawman. Remember what I talked about at the tail end of calling him out on hasty generalization? WFTL was so prepared for me to go chasing down the path to prove his unproven assertions wrong that when I do not deliver what he wants, he has to set up a Strawman and argues against Ephesus being a different church. I never argued it was. Anyway, the evidence is clearly in the preposition: Church in Ephesus. Dead giveaway. If the church was called Ephesus, there would be a comma instead of the word in.Burden of Proof PerpetuatedWFTL wants to know why I don’t have the burden of proof. I don't because I am not making the positive claim. According to DDO, this person most often has the burden of proof.[1] He also asks, If I wasn’t going to disprove his church as the one true church, why am I debating him? To that I must ask: If you aren’t prepared make, let alone prove your proposition, why did you issue a challenge with a positive claim in the Pro position?Fallacy of EquivocationWFTL assumes that the one true church established by Jesus is the church he belongs to. We agree, Christ established only one church but this doesn’t imply that it WFTL’s church. That is what he has yet to prove. WFTL tries to push this claim by making use of Paul’s phrase “churches of Christ” but he is not referring to the three words noun. Consulting the Greek once more, the word for churches is ekklēsia: a gathering of citizens called out from their homes into some public place, an assembly. [2] If you look at the context of the entire chapter, Paul is greeting many people by name and says that the whole assembly of the church greets them also. That is all.Red Herring #1WFTL Puts forward that some catholic terminology isn’t in the New Testament. This is entirely beside the point. I remind him, I am not the one making the positive claim about my faith, WFTL is. Catholicism is not on trial, the churches of Christ is.Red Herring #2First, WFTL persists in not wanting to debate his proposition but Red Herrings instead. This debate is not about whether or not my church is apostate, nor does it have any bearing on whether or not his church is the New Testament Church so I won’t waste the time defending what is not on trial. If he wanted to debate his church against another, he should have said so in his proposition.Secondly, WFTL cites youtu.be, as in the search engine. I am sure there is a lot of anti-Catholic stuff on there but there is also anti-CoC stuff too. [3]Lastly, WFTL provides a site that, “will in detail explain when and why the Catholic church started and that they do not abide by the New Testament pattern” but give it a click and you find nothing about Catholicism but you will find that, “The La Vista Church of Christ, … has no bowling league, no softball team, nor does it sponsor a Boy Scout troop. We have an air-conditioned building with several rooms for Bible classes, but there is no kitchen, no banquet hall, no gymnasium, or party room.”[4] Some details… I ask the voters to consider these fallacies when deciding who makes the better argument and also the non-source material for issues WFTL uses to distract from the actual debate.Debating Personal InterpretationsWFTL finally talks about two of the six items on his list. To prove his point, he makes use of his own interpretation of scripture. In this section, I will demonstrate that each point can be refuted with other interpretations of the scripture and the distinct lack of information that WFTL has to add within the same scripture to come up with his conclusion.InstrumentsWFTL’s interpretation of Eph 5:19 is erroneous. He says it means that instruments are prohibited but if they are, then so is singing. Observe the conjunction and “singing and making melody in your heart.” If singing is to take place in the heart, then there should be no singing. However, Paul could be poetic in the use of the term, “in your heart” to mean sing and play music with passion. How does WFTL know his interpretation of scripture is true? Additionally, there is no chapter or verse that says, “God wanted no instruments to have the congregation praising him in spirit and in truth.” No matter how tightly he presses this phrase to the New Testament verse in his argument, it doesn’t become scripture. This is the problem of Sola Scriptura, if WFTL is going to prove his point from scripture alone, he needs to stop ad-libbing and use scripture alone.BaptismFirst, notice that the criteria 2. Baptism by Accountable Believers. was not defended in the last period. WFTL did not produce a bible verse to that effect. Yes, he did show that Christ commanded that it be done but not who could and could not perform it. Instead, he shifts gears to the method of baptism which is not part criteria 2. I will point out again that there is no bible verse to indicate explicit instruction in how exactly to perform a baptism. WFTL proves my point for me. The scripture he gave only speaks about when people are baptized and people being told to be baptized but not how people are supposed to be baptized. The scriptures lack those descriptions and definitions. The closest he comes is Matt. 3:16 says, “when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water” But Jesus could have walked into the Jordan and knelt in the water, had water poured over him. Obviously one does not have to be completely immersed in a body of water to be in water or be immersed before they can leave the water. Don't get me wrong, I agree that immersion is a valid way to baptize but scripture does not say it is the only way to baptize. In fact, in all the text listed, the word immerse in any form is not found in them. WFTL just assumes that is what is meant but how does he know he is right with the lack of both explicit verbiage on how to baptize and imagery? Indeed, he has to add those meanings and images to scripture to come up with his purely subjective conclusion. SummeryTo give it some structure, let's see where is WFTL on his list to prove his church is the same as the one in the New Testament? 1. Apostolic Origin: WFTL cites Acts 2 and says that this is where his church got to prove antiquity, I have asked for historical documentation proving a connection between the leadership of the churches of Christ to an apostle. I have shown that this evidence was commonly asked of bishops as early as the second and third century and that the Catholic Church can produce evidence for an apostolic origin in the line of succession.2. Baptism: WFTL failed to produce a verse saying one must be baptized by believers of accountability. Knowing he can’t do this, he shifts to the method of baptism which is not part of this criteria he named in round 2.3. Church Pattern: WFTL failed to demonstrate how his church today has the same apostolic witness to Christ as mentioned in 1 John. Simply saying you do is an assertion without evidence. One example of inconsistency in pattern is that the CoC forbids what Saint Paul does in asking others to pray for him because, according to the CoC, Paul should only pray to Jesus and not pray to others to pray for him. 4. Lord's Supper? : WFTL may celebrate the Lord’s Supper but he employed plagiarism to make his case. Perhaps he sees the weakness of his argument and decided to steal someone else’s. 5. Tithing? : WFTL fails to demonstrate how the CoC tithes as early church does in 1Cor:16:2. It seems more like an afterthought in this debate.6. Acapella Only! : WFTL fails to demonstrate his interpretation of Eph 5:19 is the only interpretation and takes for granted grammar and original Greek to assert the use of instruments are forbidden and claims, “God wanted no instruments to have the congregation praising him in spirit and in truth.” Again, words not found in the New Testament. ConclusionWFTL lists criteria for the one true church but the New Testament does not have a formal list. The New Testament says many things about Christ’s Church and it would be nothing for someone to pluck out qualifiers. When he sees the weakness of his case, I have demonstrated that WFTL adds words and/or meaning to the scripture that clearly aren’t in the context of the verses themselves. On top of all this, I’m starting to lose count of the logical fallacies. We have Proof by Assertion, now Repeating Assertion, Strawman, Equivocation, 2 Red Herrings, and the tiresome Shifting the Burden of Proof. The coup de grâce comes when WFTL no longer makes arguments for himself and steals them from the “Truth For The World” website.Since he is so fond of them, I have made a short list of what WFTL needs to accomplish to prove his proposition. 1. Tell us how he knows this list is the criteria for the church. Meaning he must:a. Demonstrate how he is interpreting the bible correctly over other interpretations of scripture.b. Show how the first and second century Christians used this list in practice to determine which churches were part of the one true church established by Christ.c. Demonstrate that there are no more or no less requirements besides this list.2. Demonstrate a unique union between his church leadership and the apostles by providing some kind of historical documentation that shows Alexander Campbell or someone in the CoC is linked to an apostle as the Early Church demanded of their leader.[1] http://tinyurl.com...[2] http://tinyurl.com...[3] http://tinyurl.com...[4] http://tinyurl.com...