and in what denomination might I best belong?
Well I myself, frustrated with the state of the mainline Protestant churches in which I had grown up, made the decision to join the persecuted Orthodox Church, due to the persecution that was ongoing in 2014 against the Christians in Syria. 11 years later and it is still ongoing, and so my preference is to be with the churches that are experiencing the most persecution. I’ve also found the people to be lovely.
There are other churches besides the Orthodox that are being actively persecuted, by the way, for example, the Anglicans of Pakistan and certain other Muslim majority countries, and also Christians in India are experiencing increasing persecution from the Hindus, and indeed in some Western countries Christians have been persecuted for expressing Scriptural views concerning sexual morality which are unpopular in the present climate. And of course, in North Korea the situation is a nightmare; somewhat less so in Communist China, but conditions there are far from ideal, and in particular the historic Chinese Orthodox Church, which was in China very early because of trade with the Russian Empire (the first Christians in China, who were of the Church of the East, were martyred in a genocide by the Mongol-Turkic warlord Tamerlane and his sons, starting in the late 12th century, who killed off everyone in the Church of the East outside of Mesopotamia, Persia, and India. And before that time, the Church of the East was geographically the largest in the world, stretching from Socotra, an island off the south coast of Yemen, to the Caucausian mountains in what is now Azerbaijan, and from there right across central Asia to Mongolia, and from Mongolia to Tibet in the Southeast corner, across China, and thence to India and Sri Lanka. And all were killed, in some cases with probable Buddhist complicity, except in the Malabar Coast of India and what is now an area of modern day iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey.
And the Ancient/Assyrian Church of the East, along with its neighbors, the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Antiochian Orthodox Church, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, the Armenian Apostolic Church and others in the region of the Levant and Iraq are still enduring persecution at present; they also experienced the genocide in 1915 waged by the Ottoman Empire.
Yet the people are loving and happy.
So in general, I like to be with Christians who are experiencing or who have experienced martyrdom, having joined the Orthodox Church for that reason, but that’s just my view. But there are a number of denominations, including Protestant denominations, which fall into this general category.
Lately large numbers of people have been going the Orthodox Church; I’m glad I got in before the rush, because at present the demand for baptisms is intense. Our growth rates are now beginning to exceed the combined growth rate of all Restorationist churches (not traditional Protestant, but rather Restorationist churches of 19th century origin, which had lately been growing in several cases), by a wide margin, and indeed I suspect we are now the fastest growing denomination, but we also do have a shortage of clergy and organizational problems.
I very much love the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches.
Essentially, you hit the core element, which is love: love for God, love for our neighbors. Don’t join a church without love. There are a group of ostensibly Orthodox churches that are not in communion with the majority of Orthodox Christians known as “Old Calendarists” who I had unpleasant experiences with due to a lack of love, but the problem could have been specific to the parish I encountered, but it was a clear problem. I did not like the extremely negative view they had about the “World Orthodox” as they called the major Orthodox churches, which are not exactly worldly, given that not one Orthodox church has even considered, for example, departing from Scriptural teaching on human sexuality. But they object because we are engaged in loving dialogue with our Roman Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran brethren, dialogue which I would note has resulted in Anglicans providing the persecuted Orhtodox with finanical assistance and installing icons in Westminster Abbey (also King Charles III and his father donated large amounts to restore the Holy Mountain; Prince Philip, memory eternal, was baptized Orthodox as part of the former Greek monarchy), the Lutherans in Western Europe dropped the filioque from their creed, which had been a major issue of contention, and the Roman Catholics organized for items to be returned to us - various holy relics which had been taken during and after the Crusades by various Western European powers. And we have benefitted from a loving relationship in a great many respects, including on this site.
St. Paul said that if we have not love, we are nothing, and I believe in that very strongly. Truth and Love are important and go hand-in-hand, so the ideal denomination must embrace Truth and Love in a loving manner which does not reduce itself to holier-than-thou elitism or legalism.
