P
powerofk
Guest
It seems that the whole “Are you Catholic or Christian?” thing probably goes back to the Protestant Reformation. Especially in majority Protestant countries (which has historically included the US), Catholics have been met with suspicion. Most Protestants (especially low church Protestants and most especially “non-denominational” Protestants) will say that Christians follow the Bible - Catholics follow the Pope. In other words, the idea is that we would obey the Pope even if the Pope were the Antichrist himself and told us to do things incompatible with the Christian faith (e.g., ordered us to worship him as God). And as many Protestant reformers (including Luther) believed that the Pope really was the Antichrist, the question really meant, “Do you follow Jesus or do you follow the Pope?” As years, decades, and centuries passed, and as more and more separation came between Protestants and Catholics, Protestants ended up having more and more misconceptions about what the Catholic Church teaches and taught their misconceptions as truth - reinforcing their ideas that Catholics really aren’t Christians at all.