Do Baptists consider Catholics Christian?

[jlong64]

In this thread Michelle Arnold made the following statement:

Baptists have a strong missionary drive and it is very likely that the children whom they consider to be “non-Christian” (as they likely will consider your Catholic stepdaughter to be) will be proselytized at this camp.

I have serious problems with this statement. Especially from a moderator! The part about “non-Christian” could not be farther from the truth! My wife is Baptist and at no time has my “being a Christian” ever been an issue or been questioned.

With comments such as these, it is no wonder that there is such a strong dislike of the Catholic Church. The Vatican has been working tirelessly with the Protestant denominations to strengthen our bonds of Christianity. It is my feeling that this thread and others like it should be removed because they are a tremendous insult both to Catholics and our Protestant brethren. Michelle Arnold should apologize for her thoughtless answer and get out and attend some Protestant churches and finally study some of what her own Church’s leadership is doing.

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

While I certainly could have qualified my answer more than I did, please note that I did use the qualifier “likely” twice in one sentence. Such qualifiers are intended to acknowledge that this is not an absolute condition but a circumstantial condition.

There are indeed individual Baptists who consider Catholics Christian, as does your wife. But there are also many Baptists who do not. It is very possible that those who are involved with their Baptist faith to the extent of running a church camp for children will consider non-Baptists who attend the camp fair prospects for “soul winning.” And such evangelism could very well damage a Catholic child’s Catholic faith, no matter how well-intentioned or whether the individual Baptist evangelist acknowledges the Catholic child to be a Christian.

Your desire for ecumenism is laudable, and I do indeed share your concern for respectful dialogue with non-Catholic Christians. But that does not mean that Catholics should ignore the fact that many Protestants do not consider them Christian (that’s simply a fact) and that those Protestants will believe that they must seek to “bring Jesus” to Catholics. Given these realities, responsible Catholic parents recognize a positive duty to protect the delicate faith of their children from such non-Catholic proselytism.