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The Evidence · Measured against the Book
The Adherence Index
“Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. Abstain from all appearance of evil.”1 Thessalonians 5:21–22
Sixteen traditions measured against one Book. Fourteen Protestant families, Roman Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodoxy, scored two ways from the King James Bible: adherence to nine doctrinal teachings of Jesus and the Apostle Paul, and violation of nine teachings Christ and Paul explicitly warned against. What a church keeps builds its score; what it practices against the Book drains it.
Every score below is measured against the Book that counts itself: 823,543 words and numbers, exactly 77, in the settled text of the King James Bible. See it counted on the Sevens page →
Net Adherence Score (0–100)
Click any tradition for its full breakdown with verse-by-verse reasoning.
Ranked by the gospel test first, then by net score · Tap any church for its full write-up
Sixteen traditions ranked by the gospel test first, then by net adherence.
How demonic activity is rated
Violet dots show how much possession and deliverance activity is reported within each tradition, rated 0–5 per capita (the share of each tradition’s own adherents, not raw counts) from published surveys and official church practice (Pew 2007; Pew 2010). A zero means reported possession is essentially absent from that tradition’s life; its dots stay empty. Each rating maps to an estimated per-capita band, shown on hover as reports per 100,000 adherents and anchored to the cited survey figures. It is observational only and affects no score. Hover a row for the specifics. Read it either way: unclean spirits gather where the Book’s warnings are set aside; or, traditions that expect possession report more of it. Either reading, the pattern beside the ranking speaks for itself.
How every score is worked out
Net=(Gross adherence − Penalty)×Gospel gate
Gate=grace score ÷ 10
Penalty=violation mean × severity
Gross=Σ(weight × score) / Σ(weight) × 10
Method & honest limits
The gospel gate. Salvation by grace through faith is not one teaching among nine: it decides whether the gospel is kept at all (Galatians 1:8). So the grace score multiplies everything else, and a tradition that adds conditions to salvation loses a share of all it keeps. The gospel test beside each name reads the same scores: Holds the gospel (grace 8 or more, works-salvation severity 0 or 1), Adds to the gospel (grace 5 to 7, or severity 2 or 3), Another gospel (grace 4 or less, or severity 4 or more). Like every score here, it weighs a tradition’s taught doctrine, not any one person’s heart.
The order. Salvation comes first, so the ranking does too: every tradition that holds the gospel is listed before any that adds to it, and those before any that preach another gospel. Within each group, the net score decides the order.
How grace is scored. One rule for every tradition: 10 is grace through faith alone, with no rite or standard added as a condition and assurance taught (Ephesians 2:8–9; Romans 4:5; 1 John 5:13); 9 when a rite or standard edges toward being a condition, or assurance is weakened; 8 and below when conditions are taught outright.
Adherence criteria come from a plain, literal reading of the doctrinal teachings and plain truth written in the KJB Gospels and Pauline epistles (logic); default weights reflect the relative emphasis Jesus and Paul give each theme (probability); scores compare each tradition's documented doctrine and observable practice against those texts (observation). Counter-teachings are scored as severity of violation (0 = not practiced, 10 = central and defended) and subtract from the score at a strength you control. Built-in premise: Catholicism and Orthodoxy locate authority in Scripture plus tradition, so they contest the yardstick itself. Scores measure conformity to the plain text, not sincerity, devotion, or the hearts of adherents, which no chart can weigh.
All citations from the King James Bible.
Advanced: adjust the scoring weights optional: reweight the criteria and violation severity; the ranking updates live
Adherence Weights
What a church keeps. Defaults mirror the emphasis of the texts; drag to test your own weighting.
Counter-Teaching Weights
What a church practices against the Book. These drain the score.
At 0% violations are ignored; at 100% a fully violating church loses up to 100 points. Default 40%.
Two Measures
Every tradition below is weighed twice against the same Book.
What they keep
Nine doctrinal teachings from the words of Jesus and the Apostle Paul: Scripture’s authority, grace through faith, baptism, the Supper, church order, worship, prayer as Jesus taught, discipleship, and the unaltered gospel. Keeping them builds the score.
What they practice against the Book
Nine practices Christ and Paul named and warned against: idols, other mediators, seeking the dead, vain repetitions, exalted titles, forbidden marriage, works-salvation, extra revelation, and mammon. Holding them as doctrine drains it.
Nine Teachings of the Book
Doctrinal teachings and plain truth from Jesus and the Apostle Paul, as written in God's Word. Keeping them builds the score.
Nine Counter-Teachings
Practices the Lord and his apostle named and warned against. Where a tradition holds them as doctrine, the score drains; these are the things that lead a people away, not toward.
Score matrix
KJB Adherence Index
Measured Against the Book
The KJB Adherence Index is an interactive study tool that measures how closely sixteen Christian traditions align with the doctrinal teachings and plain truth of the King James Bible. Fourteen Protestant families, Roman Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodoxy are scored two ways: adherence to nine teachings drawn directly from the words of Jesus and the Apostle Paul (the authority of Scripture, salvation by grace through faith, baptism as the Book teaches, the Lord’s Supper as instituted, church offices and governance, worship in spirit and truth, prayer as Jesus taught, living Jesus’ moral teaching, and no additions to the gospel), and violation of nine counter-teachings that Christ and Paul explicitly warned against (images and idolatry, mediators other than Christ, seeking the dead and familiar spirits, vain repetitions, exalted titles, forbidding to marry, works-salvation, extra revelation, and merchandising the gospel). What a church keeps builds its score; what it practices against the Book drains it.
Every criterion is anchored to quoted KJB passages, and every score carries a one-line reasoning you can inspect. Click any tradition for its full verse-by-verse breakdown, including the English translation that most closely fits its doctrine. An optional Advanced panel lets you reweight the criteria and set how heavily violations count, with the ranking recomputing live, so the conclusions are transparent and testable rather than fixed.
A second view, the Douay-Rheims Index, holds the same sixteen traditions to the Catholic Church’s own English Bible: the Rheims New Testament of 1582 and the Douay Old Testament of 1609–1610, revised by Bishop Richard Challoner, seventy-three books with the deuterocanon included. Every criterion is re-anchored to the Douay’s own wording, and rescored wherever its extra books speak. The result is the sharpest argument on the page: measured by its own Bible, Rome roughly doubles its score, and still finishes last. The order of the ranking barely moves at all. The gap was never between Rome and a Protestant translation; it is between Rome and any Bible, including its own.
The purpose is not to judge hearts, which no chart can weigh, but to put every tradition’s documented doctrine and observable practice beside the plain text of God’s Word and let the Book do the measuring.
“Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.”1 Thessalonians 5:21
Net = (Gross adherence − violation mean × severity) × grace ÷ 10 · Gross = Σ(weight × score) / Σ(weight) × 10
“Study to shew thyself approved unto God… rightly dividing the word of truth.” · 2 Timothy 2:15
Before you go
“What must I do to be saved?”
And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.Acts 16:31 Read the Gospel