Membership
According to the April 2012 issue of PASUGO Magazine (p. 11), the Demographics of the Iglesia ni Cristo then was composed of 93 countries and 7 territories comprising 110 races.
As of the 2000 Philippine census by the National Statistics Office, Iglesia ni Cristo had 1,762,845 members, making it the third largest religious denomination in the Philippines after the Roman Catholic Church and Islam, respectively. A 2009 estimate by Brace puts it between 4 to 9 million. The Iglesia ni Cristo does not publish official membership figures. The majority of its members are Filipino ex-Catholics, while most non-Filipino members converted prior to marrying Iglesia ni Cristo people. The earliest non-Filipino converts were American soldiers stationed in the Philippines.
Membership is conferred through immersion baptism of adults. The church rejects infant baptism. Newborn children of members are instead dedicated to God through a Congregational Prayer, led by an ordained minister of the INC. Members who are not living in accordance with the church's teachings may be excommunicated or expelled from the Church, and thus lose salvation (as opposed to the perseverance of the saints). Grounds include adultery, alcohol intoxication, consumption of blood and marriage to members of other faiths.
Read more about this topic: Iglesia Ni Cristo
Famous quotes containing the word membership:
“The two real political parties in America are the Winners and the Losers. The people don’t acknowledge this. They claim membership in two imaginary parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, instead.”
—Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (b. 1922)