Common Questions
Useful Information
Which denominations are part of the Reconquista?
While the ideals of Reconquista can apply to all Christians, this movement is specifically dedicated to reviving the Mainline Protestant denominations, which are the churches that represent the heritage of the historic Protestant traditions. The 7 Mainline denominations in America are the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church USA, the United Methodist Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) the Reformed Church in America, the United Church of Christ, and the American Baptist Churches USA. The equivalents of these denominations in other countries, such as the Church of England or the Church of Sweden, are also a part of the Reconquista.
Should I join heretical or liberal church?
No. We do not advise that anyone join a church if the leadership is heretical. We hope to eventually retake liberal churches by replacing liberal pastors with orthodox pastors, but for now, the churches people should join are the minority of churches in Mainline denominations that are still faithful. Our map has a Progressivism scale from 0 to 5. The only churches we advise people to join are churches with a progressivism level of 0, 1, or 2.
Can I get involved if I'm not in a Mainline denomination?
Of course. People in Non-Mainline denominations, like the PCA or ACNA, or other Evangelical denominations, can still get involved by encouraging their churches to participate in missionary efforts to local mainline churches. One way this is possible is by encouraging a "church swap", where a church can send several of its members to a mainline church once a month for the purpose of building connections and evangelism. You can also help the Reconquista by spreading the Word and getting it media attention.
Who is leading the Reconquista?
The Reconquista started as a lay-led movement, and still is primarily so, even though we have clergy in our community. Our online community has a council that meets regularly, with representatives from each Mainline denomination. This council makes all the decisions, sets the policies, and delegates tasks for the movement.
While Evangelical offshoot denominations, like the PCA (Presbyterian), ACNA (Anglican), GMC (Methodist), URC (Reformed), or NALC (Lutheran) did a commendable job preserving sound theology, they left behind the Mainline Churches' resources and institutions when they split off. These institutions took centuries to build up, and are funded by generations upon generations of faithful Christians donating their estates to the universities, churches, and organizations of the Mainline Church. We believe it dishonors their legacy to let what they built up over the years be used against God's Kingdom. Furthermore, American society particularly was founded upon the institutions that have now become the Mainline Churches. So while these offshoot denominations serve a crucial purpose as temporary strongholds of good teaching, our final goal is to retake the Mainline institutions so they can reunify with their Evangelical counterparts.
Why not just attend Evangelical offshoot churches?
Is this movement international, or just American?
At this time, the movement is primarily an American movement, because of the crucial role that the Mainline Protestant churches have played in shaping American society, as well as the fact that the entire concept of "Mainline Protestant" is arguably an American one. However, there are parallels to the Mainline Churches in other countries, especially in the English-speaking world. We are very invested in retaking the Church of England (Anglican) and Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) and we have members of both in our server. We are also invested in retake Canadian and Australian mainline denominations. In other European countries, there is often a Lutheran or Reformed national church, so we welcome members who are part of those churches as well.
Are Catholic or Orthodox churches part of the Reconquista?
No, Catholicism and Orthodoxy are not part of the Reconquista, because they do not need to be. We respect these great historic Church bodies for the fact that, unlike our own Protestant churches, they have not yet gotten hijacked by theological liberalism. We do, however, advise them to take precautionary measures against a secular liberal hijack so that a Reconquista never becomes necessary for them.
Should I re-take a Prosperity Gospel, Mormon, or Word of Faith church?
No, and there are two reasons why. Firstly, The "re-" in Reconquista implies taking something back to what it used to be. Mormon, Prosperity Gospel, and Jehovah's Witness churches were founded upon heresy, so there's nothing to restore them to. It's not our job to turn them into something they never were. Secondly, this movement is not about taking over all problematic churches, but is specifically dedicated to restoring the traditional Protestant heritage, which is presently contained in the Mainline Protestant denominations.
Is the Reconquista Biblical?
Yes. God's people going astray and worshipping false gods is not new. It has happened countless times, from the Old Testament, to the New Testament, to various points in church history. But in none of those cases did God command faithful believers to separate themselves from such religious organizations that fell to idolatry.
1. In the Old Testament, God's Temple got corrupted and was used as a place of pagan idol worship many times, but God never told the prophets to split off and form a new Temple. God told them to purify and retake the temple, which they did repeatedly.
2. In the New Testament, the apostles continued to worship in the Second Temple even after Jesus died, rose, and ascended. The Jewish leaders of the Temple had just quite literally killed God, making them the most severe of all heretics, but the early Christians didn't split off from the Temple because of that. They only left once they started being killed by the Temple leaders for their faith in Christ.
3. At the Council of Nicaea, Arianism (denying the divinity of Christ) was condemned as a damnable heresy. However, Arians continued to creep back into the Church, becoming Bishops and influencing the Emperor. St. Athanasius, the Christian who spent his life fighting the Arians, got exiled 5 times, but he never split off and formed a new church, nor did he tell all faithful believers to leave the Church on the grounds of it being hijacked. Rather, he persisted his whole life long, and eventually defeated Arianism and restored the Church for good.
If splitting off is bad, were the Protestants wrong?
Splitting off isn't always right or wrong, but it depends on the situation. The Bible gives us the precedent. In the Bible, the early Christians didn't split off from the Jewish temple on the grounds of it going astray, but they did split off when they became persecuted. Martin Luther and the other Reformers never wanted to leave the Roman Catholic Church, but they were forced out when the Church excommunicated them and threatened them with death, just like what the Temple leaders did to the early apostles. However, many in modern times have split from mainline churches on the basis of mainline churches drifting from the faith, and this kind of splitting does not have Biblical warrant.