What right does the Church have to tell me what to believe and what to do?
The Bible is a good place to start in finding an answer. Read, in order, these Scriptures: John 17:20–23; 1 Timothy 3:15; 2 Corinthians 5:17; John 21:15–17; Luke 22:31–32; Matthew 16:18; John 14:9–12, 15–17, 23–24. If the Church is only an organization of human beings, then it has no right to tell you what to believe or what to do. But if the Church is the teacher Jesus left on earth to tell us his words and his will and to continue his work on earth, then the Church has its right from Jesus, her founder. Further, Jesus has this right from his Father, for he is the Son of God. He is just as divine as his Father, just as you are just as human as your human father. God has the right to tell us what to do because he created us and designed us (Gen 1:26–27; Rom 5:14–18). He gave us our very existence, as an author gives his character's existence. Doesn’t an author have the right to tell his characters what to do? The analogy fails here, for we have free will, as characters in a piece...