There seems to be a belief underlying some of these posts that because there are multiple claimants to the title "the true Church" that therefore all theoretical possibilities surrounding that claim are equally likely. I don't know why that is, because it's clearly not the case. Not only are many of these groups, despite being full of very sincere and intelligent men and women, built upon some variation of restorationism (an idea which directly contradicts the word of Christ; you know "the gates of hell will not prevail against it" and all that), but they disagree with one another on major doctrinal issues. How can it be that we have some ecclesiologies in Protestantism (e.g., the Lutheran "branch" theory) that say all may be members of the church if they can't agree on basic doctrine like whether or not baptism does anything for you, whether or not the Eucharist is real or symbolic, or even a proper and consistent exposition of the Holy Trinity? The alternative to this kind of ecclesiology is, of course, that there be one Protestant church that is the true church, and all thousands of others (and all Orthodox, and all under Rome) are wrong. Well, how likely is that, given the above-mentioned reality? It is a lot more sensible to pick between two or three clearly delineated options that are historically rooted in the churches that the Holy Bible testifies to (i.e., the RC, the EO, and the OO, even though of course these hadn't developed their subsequent distinctives at that the time of the Bible) than to believe that somehow, again completely against the word of Christ and the promise of the Holy Spirit, the true Church disappeared, or was destroyed, or whatever other origin myths necessary to justify the founding of the Lutherans, the Methodists, the Presbyterians, the Baptists, the Mormons, the Christadelphians, the Moonies, the Seventh Day Adventists, etc. As I wrote earlier, even if Orthodoxy is ultimately unconvincing to you, that shouldn't therefore make these other options more convincing or plausible. Really, to say all of this is somehow an equally likely option is ultimately to say that either Christ, or the Apostles, or the Disciples, or the Early Church Fathers, etc. ultimately utterly failed, despite all evidence to the contrary from the time of Christ to the middle of the 4th century AD, by which time Christianity was firmly established on all the lands of the known world (Asia, Africa, Europe), all prior to the establishment of Christianity as the religion of the Roman Empire in AD 380 under Theodosius I.
