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christcnection1
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Do Protestants believe that Catholics are Christian? Why or why not, and how is that determined?
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theistgal
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Some do. Some don’t. Depends on which Protestant.
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reteeks21
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Of course.
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Contarini
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Mainline Protestants would say without hesitation that Catholics are Christians, because we define Christians as baptized people who profess faith in Jesus Christ, or more strictly as those who believe in the Trinity and the Incarnation. We consider your Communion to be one expression of orthodox Christianity.
Some very conservative confessional Protestants would say that the Roman Communion ceased to be Christian (in the same sense that we might all say that Mormons are not Christians) at some point in history, usually the Council of Trent, which conservative Lutherans and Calvinists and some other Protestants accuse of having “anathematized the Gospel.”
More common among evangelicals is a use of “Christian” to mean “someone who has living faith in Jesus Christ.” Many evangelicals hesitate to say that members of any institutional Church are all Christians, because from their perspective this is a statement about whether people are in a state of grace. Obviously Catholics do not think that all Catholics are in a state of grace! However, it gets trickier, because many, perhaps most evangelicals think that some Catholic teachings tend to obscure the Gospel and get in the way of people having a living relationship with Christ by faith. Generally evangelicals would admit that Protestant denominations do the same thing. They see the job of the Church as the proclamation of the Gospel without too many qualifications or complications. Naturally they think that they, evangelical Protestants, do this best
. And they may be heard to express a concern that many people in more traditional churches (particularly churches that have infant baptism, or a formal, liturgical style of worship, or a hierarchical organization, etc.) may be content with the rote practice of “religion” and thus lack the living faith in Christ that makes someone a “real Christian.” This is often what evangelicals mean when they say things like “some Catholics are Christians, and some aren’t.” They would say that the same is true of Protestant denominations, but they generally and understandably think that their own churches are likely to have a relatively higher proportion of “real Christians,” over against Catholics (except for Catholic churches that really emphasize personal faith, such as parishes influenced by the charismatic movement) or non-evangelical Protestants. This does not mean that these evangelicals consider Catholicism to be an invalid form of Christianity. It has to do with their rather idiosyncratic use of the word “Christian,” combined with their doctrinal disagreements with (and practical concerns about) Catholic doctrine and polity.Edwin
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christcnection1
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I’m glad reteeks21 does. It’s interesting that many do not, and that others will so boldly say yes they are.
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SimonArizona
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There is a great mission that fundamentalists are on to save Catholics from the Whore which to them is the Catholic Church.
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Steadfast
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I would say that the vast majority of Protestants believe that Catholics are Christians.
Unfortunately, this is a website and a messageboard devoted to hi-lighting division, populated, largely, by people who want to “win the internet” thus, any opportunity to see the other as an enemy will not only not be lost but is often actively sought out.
Unfortunately, this is a website and a messageboard devoted to hi-lighting division, populated, largely, by people who want to “win the internet” thus, any opportunity to see the other as an enemy will not only not be lost but is often actively sought out.
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Through_Him
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I believe deep down they do not, but most won’t say so just to appear to be nice.
You can determine by asking, or test the spirit by making the sign in front of them or praying out loud in front of them, introduce them to your priest or ask them to come to within a block of your church you will find out I did.
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a_mirror_dimly
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The myth that there is some large contingent of Protestantism today that believes the RCC to be the “Whore of Babylon” is flase and divisive. Yes, it is possible to find some obscure churches that say that, but it’s an uncommon fringe belief.
For what it’s worth, I think Edwin’s answer covers the matter quite well.
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SimonArizona
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What are you talking about?
Swaggert and Boetner wrote best selling anti-Catholic books. Anti-Catholicism has revived recently.
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MarcoPolo
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Most probably do. You’ll get some folks like Matt Slick over at CARM with whom I had an email conversation back when on how they determine if a Catholic is a true Christian. In short, they believe a Catholic is a true Christian if they don’t practice Catholicism, but instead the religion of CARM.
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Contarini
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Recently? Boettner’s book is 50-60 years old. Swaggart is not taken seriously by most evangelicals, not these days anyway. Your examples disprove your point.
I see no “revival” of anti-Catholicism. What is your measure of such a “revival”? I think this is an illusion created by the Internet. Extreme views of all kinds appear more common now, because more people can hear about them. I’m willing to accept that this might cause more people to come to accept them, but I’d like to see some kind of evidence for this.
If you look at any kind of mainstream Protestant publications, whether mainline or evangelical, you see the steady decline of anti-Catholicism over the past 50 years. Just a few years ago Steve Long could write an article in the *Christian Century *on how we need a Pope, and *Christianity Today *routinely has articles on the importance of tradition and sacraments and ecumenism. It’s a different world. The anti-Catholics are shrill because they know they have lost hold not only of Protestantism as a whole but of evangelicalism. Just visit the fundamentalist websites, and you’ll find them blasting away at mainstream evangelicalism precisely (among other things) because evangelicals aren’t anti-Catholic any more.
Edwin
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a_mirror_dimly
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I had to look up both those names, as I’d never heard of either of them before. They’re certainly not great leaders of Protestant thought. For example, the anti-Catholic books written by Boetner and Swaggart are ranked 4,000,000 and unranked on Amazon, respectively, whereas for example the best-selling book I could find on Catholicism from an evangelical perspective was this one, ranked at 166,000:
amazon.com/Roman-Catholics-Evangelicals-Agreements-Differences/dp/0801038758/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1224011909&sr=1-1
You can disbelieve me if you want, but “RCC = Whore of Babylon” is very much a fringe belief. Unfortunately doctrinal disagreements manifest themselves as ill will on both sides at times, but as far as Protestant attitudes towards the Christianity of Catholicism, Edwin summarized the situation quite well.
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Reformed
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Sure. I even think Mormons are Christians too. However, not all who profess Christ profess the living and true Christ which saves sinners. Like Protetstants, I believe some Catholics are united to Christ (sheep) and some are still in Adam (goats).
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MarcoPolo
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You must be a young one.
Swaggart is perhaps the pioneer of televangelism in the 1980s. Another name you might want to look up is John MacArthur, he has some best sellers of his own, and currently has a prime slot on Chicago morning Christian radio (and I assume nationwide since he’s syndicated) and believes the Catholic Church is from Satan.Granted most are not, as you said, in the mainstream, but some of them do spill into it.
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SimonArizona
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Apologist Karl Keatin put out a book Catholicism and Fundamentalism that explicitly states the resurgency of Anti-Catholic behavior amongst Fundamentalists.
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redrosetea
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The pioneer of televangelism was Bishop Fulton J Sheen…He went on the air in the 1950’s
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a_mirror_dimly
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Yes I am a “young’un”, in my 20sYou must be a young one.
Granted most are not, as you said, in the mainstream, but some of them do spill into it.
Certainly there does seem to be a generational aspect to this issue. I grew up in an era where many televangelists had already been discredited, where the Vatican II declarations had already been in effect for some time, and where life seemed so far removed from the Kennedy election that the idea that is would be controversial to elect a Catholic president was downright strange.
edit – also, Keatings book is now 20 years old. I can’t speak to the situation in 1988 as I was only a child at the time, I can only speak to today, and among evangelicals I think attitudes towards Catholicism are more positive than they’ve ever been, and the general trend appears to be toward the ecumenical (though there are of course limits to that due to doctrinal differences, obviously)
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Contarini
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I’m not sure what that is supposed to mean. Fundamentalists have always been anti-Catholic. And I find Keating’s use of the concept “fundamentalist” to be vague. But I’m willing to believe that fundamentalists and others on the anti-Catholic wing of evangelicalism became more active in the 80s and 90s. Certainly conservative evangelicalism was becoming more prominent in the broader culture during those years–witness the rise of the “Religious Right.” Ironically, the political activism of conservative evangelicals did a lot to undermine anti-Catholicism, because evangelicals found that they had a lot in common with Catholics on moral issues, and this made it hard for them to see Catholics as spiritual enemies.
Edwin
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Contarini
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Good point. I didn’t check the date, so I wasn’t sure if it was written in the 80s or the 90s, but I read it in the mid-to-late 90s so I knew it was at least 10 years old.
I was 14. I lived in East Tennessee, a very fundamentalist area, so that no doubt skews my perceptions. But I would say that a lot has changed even in the past 20 years. I realized this (not with regard to anti-Catholicism) this semester, when I assigned my students a book (about what it means to be a "reflective Christian) that was also about 20 years old, and several of the students pointed out that the evangelicalism described in the book didn’t entirely match their experience. It was shriller, and the fundamentalist wing had more prominence. I teach at an evangelical college, and often I find myself addressing preconceptions I assume they have (because I did when I as their age) only to see puzzled faces. Not to say that they don’t sometimes react in stereotyped conservative-evangelical ways (you should have seen the shock of some of them last week at the idea that the word “salvation” could be use to describe a process). But much less often than I expect, or than I think students at this or a similar college would have done 20 years ago.
Edwin
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