It is understandable that protestants try to convert catholics. BUT if you a part of a protestant denomination, my question to you is that If you believe that your denomination contains the FULLNESS of the faith as revealed by God, then why aren’t you out there converting other protestant denominations to your denomination? (And if you say that other denominations are as good as another, then are you saying contradictions are ok? because most denominations contradict each other).
It all depends on which denominations we are talking about.
Fundamentalists generally do try to convert other Protestants, particularly liberal or high-church ones. They target Catholics especially, but they go after anyone who they think is not “really a Christian,” and this would include most members of most of the older Protestant denominations–Anglicans and Lutherans especially, but the more “mainline” branches of the Reformed and Methodist traditions as well.
Evangelicals (as distinct from fundamentalists) are less likely to target people just because they belong to a particular church, but they will “share the Gospel” with anyone they don’t think has a “personal relationship with Christ,” and again that includes many Protestants as well as many Catholics.
More mainline/ecumenical Protestants do not try to convert other Protestants, but they don’t try to convert Catholics either. In fact, their problem is that they don’t really try to convert anyone, which is one reason why their numbers are declining. . . .
I think one could ask a reasonable question about conservative Reformed and Lutherans. I haven’t heard of a lot of evangelistic efforts by LCMS Lutherans, for instance. Conservative Calvinists do spread their doctrines through argument among other Protestants, but I think it’s fair to say that on the whole they don’t go after other Protestants the way they do Catholics.
Now to your main theological point–Protestant denominations don’t on the whole claim to be the true Church in the way Catholics do. They may think they have the fullness of the truth in the sense of having correct doctrines, and so they may want to argue with other Christians and try to get them to have better theology. But they don’t think that belonging to a particular church is the issue in and of itself. There are exceptions to this (Landmark Baptists, for instance). But it’s the general rule.
Finally, I’d like to note that not all Catholics feel the need to convert other Christians–in fact most probably don’t. As I’ve pointed out on another thread, even the Pope seems to think that corporate reunion should be the goal rather than individual conversion. And folks on this board are always complaining about priests who discourage conversion.
It seems to me that we should try to convert people who lack the true faith in its essentials, not people who merely lack the “fullness” of the faith. (Actually I question whether trying to convert anyone is a profitable enterprise–we are called to bear witness and make disciples, which may not be the same thing as converting people.) If people have the root of the matter, they can be brought to understand the fullness without “conversion.” That is one of the key differences between Protestants and traditional Catholicism.
Edwin
