If we have a religion where the preacher says one thing but the parishioners believe something else, who best describes the religion? Is it the preacher who is wrong or are the parishioners wrong? In other words, who is the steward of the faith, the church leadership or the masses who believe?
Your question is fundamentally flawed, because there is only one Truth, therefore only one source for absolute Truth, and we have access to Him to ask of Him and His Truth. Jesus IS Truth, and we are instructed:
1 John 2:26-27
26 These [things] have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you.
27 But
the anointing which ye have received of him
abideth in you, and
ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of
all things, and
is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.
This is so hard for so many to grasp because of the tendency to see others as sources for truth:
Romans 3:4 God forbid: yea,
let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written,
That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.
Do you now see the true path for Truth? Every one of those ministers and those people sitting under him are liars by comparison. We who seek Truth in all its purity must ultimately seek the Truth Himself so that we THEN become infused with the purity of Him in the place of all other that we have received through the fallen nature and other fallen people.
We can still listen to, and love those who minister to us and others, doing the best they can, but OUR responsibility in maturity is to seek ULTIMATE Truth, who is a Person, not a collection of right and proper doctrines and creeds. The RCC has graven images mere men carved from stone on the pedestals of their cathedrals, one of whom is supposed to be the image of John, the very one who was inspired to write to us to seek the Lord for Truth, in that we don't need mere men to teach us at the level of what can only come from Deity.
I suspect this will be seen as unsatisfying to some or most, which I hope will drive those who see it as such to study it all further. We are called to love one another, not believe what each other tries to teach his neighbor. We are called to be as the Bereans; to search the scriptures for ALL that we hear from men, to see if it be true or false.
MM