Satan also leavened the church with Catholicism in the papal system, hierarchy, heresies, idolatry, and pagan practices. The Catholic Church was fully formed in the sixth century when the papal system was established. There is also an established hierarchy in Catholicism with the pope as the head under whom are the cardinals, the archbishops, the bishops, and the priests. Catholicism is full of heretical teachings, idolatry, and pagan practices. They call Mary the mother of God and say that she has no sin. To worship Mary as the holy mother is heresy as well as idolatry. Catholicism also invented the holidays of Christmas and Easter, which are pagan in their origin and full of pagan practices. Christmas originated from European paganism. The name of Christ was attached to the birthday of the sun god celebrated on December 25. In principle the celebration of Easter is the same. The Catholic cathedrals are full of idols, statues and pictures, to which people pray. There is one Catholic cathedral in Manila with a statue of Jesus, and all the worshippers entering into the cathedral touch the feet of this statue. This shows the heresy and superstition of the Roman Catholic Church.
Satan also leavened the church with Protestantism in its hierarchy. The Protestant church has its ministers and pastors in a kind of religious organization with a hierarchy. Revelation 3:1 also reveals that the Protestant church is living in name but dead in actuality.
Protestantism is full of different teachings. The denomnations are based upon their different teachings. The Southern Baptists stress baptism by immersion. Based upon that teaching, they set up a denomination to baptize people by immersion. The Presbyterians stress the presbytery, the ruling and managing of a so-called local church by a body of elders. Based upon that teaching, they formed the Presbyterian church. All of the different denominations are founded upon their different teachings, and they have their traditions which they must keep.
Furthermore, today in the Protestant church there are some modernists, teaching people that the Bible is not inspired by God, that there are no miracles, that there are no angels, and that there is no Spirit. The modernists do not believe that Jesus is God or that He died to redeem us from our sins. They do not believe in the resurrection of Christ. Instead, they say that Christ sacrificed Himself merely as a martyr. Protestantism is also full of worldliness and divisions. This is why we cannot remain there. We do not want to be under that kind of leavening.