International Society of Christian Apologetics (ISCA)

Dr. Alana Arguello has been asked to join the board of the International Society of Christian Apologetics. She is honored and humbled to be standing with true defenders of biblical inerrancy. To find out more about ISCA, please click below.

https://isca-apologetics.org/

Also, Dr. Alana has been published by the academic journal for the society on the panentheistic worldview in the church. You may find her publication on Amazon, along with other articles by biblical inerrancy scholars.

Doctrinal Statement

Doctrinal Statement

I. Scripture
We believe the Bible is the Word of God, comprising the totality of Holy Scripture, is verbally inerrant (truly and completely without error) in the original text, and remains inerrant, inspired, infallible, and sufficient in all its substance for salvation, sanctification, life and practice. Therefore, it is the supreme, final, and authoritative standard for faith, theology, and moral decisions. We seek to teach the Word of God in such a way that its message can be applied to an individual’s life, leading that person to greater maturity in Christ. (Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy)

II. Historicity
We believe in the full historicity and comprehensibility of the biblical record of primeval history, including the literal existence of Adam and Eve as the progenitors of all people, the literal fall in the Garden of Eden and resultant divine curse on creation, the worldwide cataclysmic deluge, and the origin of the nations and languages at the tower of Babel. The right hermeneutic is a literal historical grammatical interpretation (authentic) vs. naturalistic or “holistically”/doctrinally allegorical.

III. God
We believe that the triune God eternally exists in one essence and three distinct persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit; that He is essentially Spirit, personal, transcendent, sovereign, life, love, truth, almighty, simple (i.e., essentially one without parts), timelessly eternal, unchangeable, wise, just, holy, relational, pure actuality, dynamic, infallible in all things, including His foreknowledge of all future decisions and events, and that He created the heavens and the earth in six historical days.

IV. Creation
God is the Creator and Sustainer of the heavens and the earth and of every basic form of life according to the six historic days described in the book of Genesis (Gen. 1:1-2:3). The creation account is factual, historical, and is the foundation of our understanding of the created universe, God’s power, and his glory (Psa. 19:1). Further, God exercises providential care for every life form in His creation (Mt. 6:25-33). And Christ is the conserving Cause of all things (Heb. 1:3; Col. 1:17). We reject theistic and naturalistic macroevolution as unbiblical, unjustifiable, and based on naturalistic assumptions. Further, by its denial of the biblical teaching on creation, it undermines many essential doctrines of the Christian Faith (cf. Gen. 1:27; Mt. 19:4-6; Rom. 5:12-14; 1 Cor. 11:8-9; 15:45). We also believe in a literal, worldwide flood that destroyed the earth, animal life, and the human race, except for Noah and those he took in the ark with him (Gen. 6-9; Mt. 24:37-39; 1 Pet. 3:20).

V. Jesus Christ
We believe that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully human, possessing two distinct natures which are co-joined in one person; that He was miraculously conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, lived a sinless and miraculous life, provided for the atonement of our sins by His vicarious substitutionary death on the Cross, was physically resurrected in the same body that was buried in the tomb by the power of the Holy Spirit; that Jesus Christ physically ascended back to the right hand of God the Father in heaven, and ever lives to make intercession for us. After Jesus ascended to Heaven, the Holy Spirit was poured out on the believers in Jerusalem, enabling them to fulfill His command to preach the gospel to the entire world, an obligation shared by all believers today.

VI. Holy Spirit
We believe the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Godhead who seals, indwells, sanctifies, baptizes, teaches, empowers, reveals, and guides the believer into all truth. The Holy Spirit operates within the believer at His own will, not the will of the believer and is evident by the fruit of the Spirit and does not testify of Himself, nor man, but always points to Jesus and the Gospel.

VII. Mankind
We believe that man is created in the image of God; however, after the fall of Adam and Eve, all people are by nature separated from God and responsible for their own sin, but that salvation, redemption, and forgiveness are offered as a free gift by the Lord Jesus Christ to all based on His grace alone. When a person repents of sin and receives Jesus Christ as personal Savior and Lord, trusting Him to save, that person is immediately born again and sealed by the Holy Spirit, all his/her sins are forgiven, and that person becomes a child of God, destined to spend eternity with the Lord.

VIII. Salvation
Salvation is initiated, attained, and procured by God through the death of Christ on the cross for our sins and His resurrection from the dead. The salvation Christ offers is available to all, and is received freely by grace alone and through faith in Christ alone, apart from good works, thereby justifying and sealing the believer by the Holy Spirit. God gives us faith–a surrendered heart only God knows, and then God “gives” or “puts in” faith the believer, and then the believer by the Grace of God knows the truth.

IX. The Church
The universal Church is an organic body composed of all believers, both living and dead, who have been sealed by the Holy Spirit through faith in Jesus Christ for salvation. The church has the responsibility to worship the Lord and share the good news of Christ’s death and resurrection to the world, making disciples, baptizing believers, and teaching them to observe sound doctrine and live a morally pure life. We believe church government should be simple rather than a complex bureaucracy, with the utmost dependence upon the Holy Spirit to lead, rather than on fleshly promotion or worldly wisdom. The Lord has given the church two ordinances which are to continue until He returns — adult baptism by immersion and Holy Communion. Water baptism is not necessary for salvation, and cannot remove sins, but is a picture of the salvation already received by the believer.

X. Worship
Worship should be in “spirit and truth.” We believe worship of God should be intelligent. Your mind and surrendered heart should be in worship. Worshipping God in a way He does not want to be worshipped is idolatry. We believe the worship of God should be fruitful. Therefore, we look for His love in our lives as the supreme manifestation that we have been truly worshiping God in spirit and truth.

XI. Christ’s Return
We await the imminent rapture of the church and the second coming of Christ which will be physical, personal, visible, and premillennial. This motivates us to evangelism, holy living, heart-felt worship, committed service, diligent study of God’s Word, and regular fellowship.

XII. Eternity
We believe those who are saved by Jesus Christ will spend eternity with Christ in heaven in a conscious state of blessedness, reward, and satisfaction; that those who do not personally receive the finished work of Christ by faith will spend eternity separated from God in a state of conscious torment.

XIII. Satan
We believe there is a real personal devil of great malevolence, cunning and power, who seeks to deceive, tempt, kill, steal and destroy, yet his power is limited by God to only what God permits him to do; that the devil has been defeated positionally at the cross of Christ, and will be defeated practically at Christ’s glorious second coming which will eventuate in the permanent quarantine and punishment of the Devil, Beast, and False Prophet, in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone.

XIV. Marriage and Sexuality
We believe marriage is between one biological man and one biological woman only, and the marriage bed is undefiled. Sexual relationships outside the bonds of heterosexual marriage are both unbiblical and immoral. We also believe that the intentional confusion/blurring of genders and functions/manners naturally and uniquely given to men and women distort God’s established order – which functionally places man as the head of woman, Christ the head of man, and God the Father the head of Christ.

XV. We Reject:
(1) Any pantheistic or panentheistic description of the nature of God; dividing the nature of God; any eastern worldview or worship practice
(2) any philosophy or theology which denies that human freewill can be exercised in the receiving of Christ’s free gift of salvation; specifically, we reject the belief that Jesus’s atonement was limited in its extent, instead, we believe that He died for all unrighteous people and that any perceived limitation rests in one’s free rejection of Christ’s finished work of atonement, and we reject that He has elected some people to go to hell; instead we believe that anyone who wills to come to Christ may do so freely as a result of the Holy Spirit’s conviction and wooing sovereign persuasion of the heart; God knows the heart and God’s full sovereignty is beyond human finitude thus one is both chosen and free.
(3) “positive confession,” (e.g., the WordFaith Movement, that views faith as a force that can create one’s own reality or that God can be commanded to heal or work miracles according to man’s will and faith, ); Prosperity Gospel, that humans are little gods or after salvation is without sin is heretical
(4) human prophecy that supersedes, or is contrary to, the Scripture; prophecy is the teaching of the finished Word (canon of Scriptures) complete by God’s OT and NT prophets and apostles, Paul being the last.
(5) any introduction of psychology and philosophy which is contrary to Scripture and is in substance “according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ” into biblical teaching; rejection of pagan philosophy and worldview
(6) “Open Theism” or “Freewill Theism” which reduces God’s timeless, unchanging, dynamic nature, and exhaustive foreknowledge of future free decisions, to creaturely modes of being and operation;
(7) the “Emergent Church” movement insofar as it departs from the historic orthodox Christian doctrines in favor of postmodernism;
(8) the Contemplative Prayer (CP) and Spirituality movement as it incorporates alien eastern philosophies of religion, pantheism, and panentheism into a believer’s communication with God, or the “emptying” of the mind and the vain repetition of words (mantras); also called Lectio Divina; Centering Prayer
(9) the overemphasis and abuse of spiritual gifts, experiential signs and wonders to the exclusion of biblical teaching; drunk and the spirit slaining is false and should be rejected; the belief that true Christians can be demon possessed and are helpless against the craft and wiles of the Devil
(10) the attempt by anyone (including Christian scholars and academic institutions) to utilize critical theories of understanding and genre classification of the Scriptures which leads to relativizing and/or dehistoricizing of the biblical text. We reject the Bible has any myth at all, and anyone that claims such should be rebuked gently and if if refuses to yield then they should be rejected.

(11) Hatha (physical or “gym”) yoga is to be rejected in any practice or form, and is idolatry so thus a Christian should not participate.

(12) Worship bands that belong to “churches” that deny the orthodox fundamentals of the faith (groups that deny God was both fully God and fully man upon coming to earth; that endorse prosperity false gospel, that claim “allah” of Islam to be the same as the true God of the Bible); worship that focuses on calling forth the “presence” of “god” for an experience thus denying God’s true nature; worship that is theologically unbiblical; corporate worship for experience; worship without the teaching of the Word of God as studying the Word rightly is a form of “right” worship and without it one falls into grave error.

(13) All New Age practices in the church (The obvious and less obvious) to include the false eastern forms of medititation and the sorcery practice of “circle making.” Complete and full rejection of all teachers, ministries, churches and music groups that are tied to such practices.

(14) Partnering and supporting groups (ministries, churches, podcasts, television or movies, media production houses) or teachers (pastors, spiritual directors, etc.) that are false in orthodoxy fundamentals and/or are teaching a form of sorcery, or a members of a cult (including Oneness Pentecostals, Mormons, and Jehovah Witnesses).

(15) Rejection of any exaltation of man over any person in the body of Christ (no “Protestant priests”; rejection of spiritual directors, intercessors, controlling cult like leaders in the church; leaders in the church that seek favoritism or “rock star” status. Christ is the only intercessor, and the only true Head. Leaders and pastors are to be humble, serving and sacrificial in their love for the body of Christ.

(16) Any person or groups that attempts to claim inerrancy of the Bible, yet changes the meaning of “inerrant.”