I like Ravi. He was clearly put on the spot as many in his audience have heard this accusation before and, I am sure, some believe it. I appreciate his irenic response, but I wish he had said something more like this:
“Anyone who understands the history of Christianity knows that, until the Great Schism and the later Protestant Reformation, all the world was Catholic. The modern Catholic Church, while it has continued in the fundamental errors which caused the Reformation, can in no way be considered, theological or sociologically, a cult. While we certainly have our sharp and fundamental theological differences, we must recognize and be grateful to the Catholic Church for many things. For example, but for the Catholic Church we would not have true understanding of Christ. We also have to regard the possibility of the salvation of Catholics with some care and humility. Extra ecclesiam nulla salus, or outside the church there is no salvation, was a teaching from the very beginning. But how to understand this is a vexing problem even today. To deny the possibility of Catholics being saved is to hold that our version of protestant Christianity is “the true church” outside of which there is no salvation. But a Catholic–or anyone else, for that matter–can reasonably wonder, given the many versions of protestant Christianity, which one is the true church. Maybe we are best advised to follow our separated Catholic brothers and sisters in being hopeful but agnostic about the salvation of those outside our fold and not make any absolute and dogmatic judgments about this.”
