Why some Protestants Believe Catholics are not Christians?

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Greetings in Christ,

The question which has plagued me for a long time, and has yet to be answered with any logical reasoning, is why some Protestant denominations do not consider Catholics as being Christian. I rest most assuredly, and maintain that they are Christian, as I do not recall any changes in the Church regarding who we worship and pray to, namely Jesus Christ Himself. It is not reasonable to assume that we are doing otherwise. Who, mainly of Protestant faith has a good logical answer for such a question? I maintain the fact that all Catholics are Christian but not all Christians are Catholic if one needs a starting argument. Please be courteous and respectful in your answers, as the writer understands the reasons why there are Protestant denominations in existence today. Cite history and be certain of your sources are reliable.

Dominus Vobiscum,
Jerald Franklin Archer
 
As a fellow Catholic, and someone who had fallen away from the Church in lieu of Protestantism (only to return some 15 years later with a renewed energy for God and the Catholic Church), I can tell you what I learned over the years with Protestants. Protestants believe that only Christians will be saved. Therefore, the question becomes what “saves” an individual. Most Protestants believe that only those who accept Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior will be saved. That’s it… end of the requirements for salvation. These Protestant groups then believe that to add anything more to it, is not Christian. Since we Catholics recognize that the Scripture says that there is more to it, we are looked at as adding to the salvation formula, which negates our being Christian.

I’m afraid that I don’t have sources to give you. My information comes from living the Protestant life for over a decade. I thank God that I came to my senses and had cleared up for me the misunderstandings I had with the Catholic Church. I’ll never leave her again!
 
Greetings in Christ!

Your post is valid enough, in and of itself, without having to cite any resources. The whole idea of salvation is complex enough. There has been written massive amounts of material on the subject alone, both by Catholic and Protestant faiths. I once too held such a view, almost to the point of Fanatical Puritanism. I simplified something (salvation) that later I realized was not so simple. God graced me in 1986 of a change of heart and called me to the Catholic Church. (What a difference!) Instead of a fire and brimstone attitude, God gave me more of a Pastoral attitude and I discovered it worked better in saving others than the attitude that I previously held, which was one of intense hell-fire fundamentalism. I always listen to the voice of God and not my own erroneous reasonings. Is it a form of simplification that some Protestants uphold that all we need is Christ alone? I can only wonder, as it remains a phenomenon to me how a Catholic could not be a Christian. It goes against all reasoning and logic. I believe Catholics have to really work hard for the attainment of salvation (as does every Christian), hence our practices of prayer and especially that of penance. Your experience is the key to understanding, as would be anyone else’s experience. Salvation is often a private affair that goes beyond what we understand as human beings, but experience bears the fruits of True Wisdom. Thanks for your continued insights and
As always: May God Bless and Protect You and Your Family!

Dominus Vobiscum,
Jerald Franklin Archer
 
Tietjen said:
As a fellow Catholic, and someone who had fallen away from the Church in lieu of Protestantism (only to return some 15 years later with a renewed energy for God and the Catholic Church), I can tell you what I learned over the years with Protestants. Protestants believe that only Christians will be saved. Therefore, the question becomes what “saves” an individual. Most Protestants believe that only those who accept Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior will be saved. That’s it… end of the requirements for salvation. These Protestant groups then believe that to add anything more to it, is not Christian. Since we Catholics recognize that the Scripture says that there is more to it, we are looked at as adding to the salvation formula, which negates our being Christian.

I’m afraid that I don’t have sources to give you. My information comes from living the Protestant life for over a decade. I thank God that I came to my senses and had cleared up for me the misunderstandings I had with the Catholic Church. I’ll never leave her again!
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Tietjen said:
I’m afraid that I don’t have sources to give you. My information comes from living the Protestant life for over a decade. I thank God that I came to my senses and had cleared up for me the misunderstandings I had with the Catholic Church. I’ll never leave her again!
Click to expand...
Your ‘source’ is more reliable and valid than most scholastic musings within ‘protestantism.’

‘Congratulations’ on your return Home, would have been in order except that now, you, with me, have to work out our salvation in fear and tremblin’ and endure until the end !!

Aww well…there’s something to be said for the bliss of ‘ignorance’ in Protestantism.

:cool:
 
Protestants fail to recognize that the Catholics were the first Christians. We have the right to call us that, as did the Apostle’s. To me it is the Protestants that aren’t Christian because they do not follow Christ and what he implies in his book, namely the bible.
Protestants want to call themselves “Christian”, but realize that the Catholics were the first ones. But, whatever makes them happy and accepted in the eyes of God.
 
Tartini,

Hi 🙂

No cited source either. One of the arguments that are used by some non-Catholic denominations to state that Catholics are not Christians is that Catholics do not have the correct Gospel, or the same Gospel of Christians. Since they (the ones claiming that Catholics are not Christian) adhere to Sola Fida and they are convinced that Catholics believe and teach that salvation is works based it is their logical conclusion that the Gospel message has been changed. Thus the adherents to the Catholic faith are not Christian because they believe a different Gospel.

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In my life of 58 years and living on three different continents twice each…to include about 14 different states… (Military brat, and 10 years service on top of it)…I have known many people of many different religions, faiths, denominations, etc…

What I have found is that many people of non-Catholic origins… really know very little about Catholicism. I don’t want to sound uncharitable…but some simply know nothing at all yet believe they know all there is to know.

I think that condition exists…because someone who either knew nothing or knew something painted a picture to fit an agenda or to build some strange justification for something.

And then there are those…who choose to believe differently in order to maintain an identity or possibly even a sense of “superiority”… or claim ownership to that which cannot be owned.

Also, as my beloved Grandmother used to say: “Ignorance is bliss.”… and I have the tendency to say: “Forrest Gump was right.” 😃
 
Hey ya’ll…
I’ve got no real source to back this up…just 22 years of being Protestant (but I do believe Catholics are Christians…) and a mother who believes that Catholics are pure evil. When I’ve asked them why they dont believe Catholics are Christian I get the following:
1: Many Protestant groups claim that because the Pope is the head of the Church on earth Catholics can’t be Christian. In otherwords, for them the only head of the Church can be Christ (look I know that protestants have ppl in charge too I’m just passing along what I’ve been told)
2: Many Protestants view Catholics as uncharitable…that is Protestants as a rule do not understand why Catholics cannot move as freely between churches as Protestants can and why Catholics seem to exclude Protestants from the height of Worship (the Eucharist).
3: A lot of it I’m sorry to say is just a lot of miss understandings…on both ends and so people get angry and this is what happens
 
I was born and raised evangelical Protestant, and only became Catholic a few years ago.

This will sting, fellow Catholics. 😦

The reason some Protestants believe Catholics are not Christians is that the Catholic(s) is/are living a sinful life and are not contrite or repentant.

Many Catholics co-habit and have sex outside of marriage, get drunk, swear, procure abortions, get divorced, cheat, skip church for months or even years, etc.–I’m sure I don’t need to remind anyone of the sins that we are guilty of.

Our talk has to be backed up with our walk, or no one will believe that we are Christians.
 
Cat said:
I was born and raised evangelical Protestant, and only became Catholic a few years ago.

This will sting, fellow Catholics. 😦
Click to expand...
Go ahead, we can take it! 😉
The reason some Protestants believe Catholics are not Christians is that the Catholic(s) is/are living a sinful life and are not contrite or repentant.
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Is this based upon hearsay, third-party gossip…or firsthand fact?
Many Catholics co-habit and have sex outside of marriage, get drunk, swear, procure abortions, get divorced, cheat, skip church for months or even years, etc.–I’m sure I don’t need to remind anyone of the sins that we are guilty of.
Click to expand...
Many (insert denomination here) co-habit and have sex outside of marriage, get drunk, swear procure abortions, get divorced, cheat, skip church for months even years, etc…

In that aspect…Catholics are not unique. In fact, a “Baptist” friend of mine asked me one day if I knew “one of the occasions that one Baptist would never know another Baptist”? I told him I didn’t know. He said… “In a liquor store”…😃

True, some Catholics will never make it to “Sainthood”, but if non-Catholics are using “stereo-typical generalizations” for judgmental purposes…how does that reflect upon them? What’s interesting is that people who constantly “bash” Catholics…seem to be “utterly sinless” in their own minds…and seem to have virtually nothing else to do…
Our talk has to be backed up with our walk, or no one will believe that we are Christians.
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I agree, though some may never believe it. Some do not want to believe it.
 
Tartini said:
Greetings in Christ,

The question which has plagued me for a long time, and has yet to be answered with any logical reasoning, is why some Protestant denominations do not consider Catholics as being Christian. I rest most assuredly, and maintain that they are Christian, as I do not recall any changes in the Church regarding who we worship and pray to, namely Jesus Christ Himself. It is not reasonable to assume that we are doing otherwise. Who, mainly of Protestant faith has a good logical answer for such a question? I maintain the fact that all Catholics are Christian but not all Christians are Catholic if one needs a starting argument. Please be courteous and respectful in your answers, as the writer understands the reasons why there are Protestant denominations in existence today.
Dominus Vobiscum,
Jerald Franklin Archer
Click to expand...
Because they are taught in their churches that Catholics are not Christians.
Cite history and be certain of your sources are reliable.
Click to expand...
My source is personal experience.
 
Cat said:
I was born and raised evangelical Protestant, and only became Catholic a few years ago.

This will sting, fellow Catholics. 😦

The reason some Protestants believe Catholics are not Christians is that the Catholic(s) is/are living a sinful life and are not contrite or repentant.

Many Catholics co-habit and have sex outside of marriage, get drunk, swear, procure abortions, get divorced, cheat, skip church for months or even years, etc.–I’m sure I don’t need to remind anyone of the sins that we are guilty of.

Our talk has to be backed up with our walk, or no one will believe that we are Christians.
Click to expand...
I’m sorry Cat I have to correct you. You were not born Protestant. You were born pagan.😉 and baptized a Christian later. Joking…

Unfortunately like Protestants Catholics fall into sin too and because of that some end up becoming Protestant or some other non-Christian faith or nothing at all… Something that really makes us look so bad is the fact that so many people who call themselves Catholic were not taught to live Catholic which is the epidomy of being Christian.

Yes, we all know what you said is true. But we must all realize that there are so many Protestants doing the same thing. It’s just more fun to pick at the Catholics…probably because we have a Pope and have so many sinners like him in the ranks of Catholicism. We are all sinners. The truth is that this has become a way of keeping their own in line in their own Protestant faiths and thus the reason anti-Catholicism is still the Last accepted prejudice…I wonder where I heard that phrase before?😉
 
and thus the reason anti-Catholicism is still the Last accepted prejudice…I wonder where I heard that phrase before?

Could it have been because it was the title to an article that I posted a link to recently? 😃
 
RobHom said:
and thus the reason anti-Catholicism is still the Last accepted prejudice…I wonder where I heard that phrase before?

Could it have been because it was the title to an article that I posted a link to recently? 😃
Click to expand...
Or could it be the title of a book => this
 
I hear it from people and from a lot of what I read on the internet and (ashamedly I admit on YouTube…is it wrong to be peruse YouTube?).

Catholics are pagan…they say…
(I warn them that they better get rid of their Christmas tree then! LoL!)

There are interesting things that occur on that YouTube.

There is this one guy, who is a very devout Christian, but apparently anti-Catholic. Here is a quote from his main page: (youtube.com/zkueker88)
“RECENT NEWS:
At the moment, I intend to tackle Roman Catholicism (the biggest non-Christian cult around) because it holds so much truth mixed in with so many lies… therefore, making Romanism very deceptive.”

I am not sure if I should be giving him publicity or not? LoL!
 
Tartini said:
Greetings in Christ,

The question which has plagued me for a long time, and has yet to be answered with any logical reasoning, is why some Protestant denominations do not consider Catholics as being Christian. I rest most assuredly, and maintain that they are Christian, as I do not recall any changes in the Church regarding who we worship and pray to, namely Jesus Christ Himself. It is not reasonable to assume that we are doing otherwise. Who, mainly of Protestant faith has a good logical answer for such a question? I maintain the fact that all Catholics are Christian but not all Christians are Catholic if one needs a starting argument. Please be courteous and respectful in your answers, as the writer understands the reasons why there are Protestant denominations in existence today. Cite history and be certain of your sources are reliable.

Dominus Vobiscum,
Jerald Franklin Archer
Click to expand...

This depends in part on the Protestant.​

Reasons include:
  • worries about the “New World Order”
  • the argument from Biblical prediction - the Papacy is foretold in Rev. 17
  • “Rome is occultic” - evidence: the upside-down cross in the Pope’s chair in a photograph
  • “RCism is the religion of Babylon”
  • “Rome hates the Bible (sometimes this takes the form “Rome hates God’s Preserved Word, the AV-KJV Bible”)”
  • Rome was Christian, but has apostasised (often: by degrees, not in one fell swoop)
  • Catholicism is hostile to the Constitution (a variant is: Rome sided with the South in the 1860s)
  • Rome’s fruits are evil
  • Popery is devil-worship
  • “The Reformers rejected the Papacy, & so should we”
  • Rome has fallen for denial of the inerrancy of the Bible
  • Romanists are blinded by the judgement of God, as Scripture says (2 Thessalonians 2), which is why they cannot see they are idolaters
  • Rome fails to condemn gambling & alcohol
  • Rome is the Church of Hitler, Franco, Mussolini, & other repellent folk
  • The existence & survival of Santeria & the Mafia show that Rome’s religion has no power to convert its followers
  • Catholic countries are backward, poor, illiterate - if they are stable at all, it is a stability based not on religious & political freedom, but on fear & tyranny
  • The laity are given no or little responsibility in the CC
  • Rome is clericalist
  • Rome has contradicted itself in doctrine
  • People in the USA do not always realise that some “RC things” matters of culture - such as the adoption of Byzantine court customs by the Papacy; & a mistake of ours is to fail to discriminate between things like that, & matters directly doctrinal.
  • Catholics have not always been sufficiently careful to express Catholic teaching accurately
  • Sometimes, Evangelicals quote pious pamphlets under the impression that the expressions used by (say) St. Louis de Montfort are of equal weight with the definitions of the Magisterium; or that because a vision accorded to a 19th-century nun has the Nihil Obstat & Imprimatur, it is Catholic doctrine to be received by all
  • Something less obvious - the CC is a sacramental Church, whereas the Divine Word of the Bible is the heart of Fundamentalist piety. So there is a lot of room for misunderstanding.
    That’s all I can think of off-hand 🙂
Some of these objections are of greater weight than others - some have been made by Catholics; some have been made by non-Christians. Most seem to be the kind of objection a Fundamentalist would make. For most if not all, there is some kind of “case to answer”. IMHO, the last thing we should do is impute bad motives to others - there are so many possible reasons for being mistaken in good conscience. 🙂

As for “reliable sources” - this can mean very different things:
  • “Pastor Billy-Bob has some very odd ideas about Catholicism - but this source for those ideas of his is reliable”
  • “What Pastor Billy-Bob says about Catholicism is, so far as it goes, accurate - & here is the source that quotes him; & it it quotes him accurately”
    No knowledge of a thing is needed for rejecting it.
 
I’ve checked out the YouTube site noted above. Apparently the creator of it is a “5 star Clavinist”. . The whole YouTube idea in inself is not necessarly bad, it all depends on how you use it. I have a page there myself (jerald1610) as I am a musician. He is, by his statement, expressing only an opinion and what he believes. One must accept reality, which seems to be something he will hopefully learn (if not in college, then sometime I assure you) These are the ones to pray for the most. He is young and we don’t know what the Lord has in store for anyone else, let alone ourselves…

Jerald Franklin Archer
 
Gottle_of_Geer said:

This depends in part on the Protestant.​

Reasons include:
  • worries about the “New World Order”
  • the argument from Biblical prediction - the Papacy is foretold in Rev. 17
  • “Rome is occultic” - evidence: the upside-down cross in the Pope’s chair in a photograph
  • “RCism is the religion of Babylon”
  • “Rome hates the Bible (sometimes this takes the form “Rome hates God’s Preserved Word, the AV-KJV Bible”)”
  • Rome was Christian, but has apostasised (often: by degrees, not in one fell swoop)
  • Catholicism is hostile to the Constitution (a variant is: Rome sided with the South in the 1860s)
  • Rome’s fruits are evil
  • Popery is devil-worship
  • “The Reformers rejected the Papacy, & so should we”
  • Rome has fallen for denial of the inerrancy of the Bible
  • Romanists are blinded by the judgement of God, as Scripture says (2 Thessalonians 2), which is why they cannot see they are idolaters
  • Rome fails to condemn gambling & alcohol
  • Rome is the Church of Hitler, Franco, Mussolini, & other repellent folk
  • The existence & survival of Santeria & the Mafia show that Rome’s religion has no power to convert its followers
  • Catholic countries are backward, poor, illiterate - if they are stable at all, it is a stability based not on religious & political freedom, but on fear & tyranny
  • The laity are given no or little responsibility in the CC
  • Rome is clericalist
  • Rome has contradicted itself in doctrine
  • People in the USA do not always realise that some “RC things” matters of culture - such as the adoption of Byzantine court customs by the Papacy; & a mistake of ours is to fail to discriminate between things like that, & matters directly doctrinal.
  • Catholics have not always been sufficiently careful to express Catholic teaching accurately
  • Sometimes, Evangelicals quote pious pamphlets under the impression that the expressions used by (say) St. Louis de Montfort are of equal weight with the definitions of the Magisterium; or that because a vision accorded to a 19th-century nun has the Nihil Obstat & Imprimatur, it is Catholic doctrine to be received by all
  • Something less obvious - the CC is a sacramental Church, whereas the Divine Word of the Bible is the heart of Fundamentalist piety. So there is a lot of room for misunderstanding.
    That’s all I can think of off-hand 🙂
Some of these objections are of greater weight than others - some have been made by Catholics; some have been made by non-Christians. Most seem to be the kind of objection a Fundamentalist would make. For most if not all, there is some kind of “case to answer”. IMHO, the last thing we should do is impute bad motives to others - there are so many possible reasons for being mistaken in good conscience. 🙂
Click to expand...
Perfect! I think you may have answered my posted question. Your logic is profound.That’s all I can think of off-hand.
 
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