Lately, as I have traversed through the mortal coil, a subject that got me seriously PO’d was my Protestant friends unable to accept that Roman Catholics are Christians also. Of course, the Fact that that the Catholic church was founded by Jesus Christ, was the only Christian Church for 1500 years and the fact that St. Peter, Jesus’s head disciple and apostle, became the first Pope, and the other apostles the first Bishops is completley irrevelant to them, because members of their church, the TRUE worshipers of Christ, were living in caves worshiping right for the past 2000 years.But seriously, a Christian is someone who follows Jesus Christ and believes he was the Messiah. Catholics believe that, so why can’t they be accepted?
As a fellow RC, I hope you of course mean “some” protestants?
There is some legitimate disagreement between protestants and Roman Catholics with the “facts” that you have presented about the papacy (and “bishops” )
Then there is that pesky “good works” issue…
As for as I know the only problem is when some elderly, celibate, professional church bureaucrat living in Italy tries to tell us how to run our lives. I suppose you are just as Christian as, say, a Methodist. But of course, I don’t know you. There may well be something about you that is really objectionable that has nothing to do with your particular take on the Faith.
Yeah, sorry about the misunderstanding. Some Protestant churches are much cooler about it than others. Ones that i have had very bad trouble with are Lutherans, The South Coast Church (?) and some Presbetarians and Baptists. Usually the churches formed in the last 100 years are the most voracious, for some reason. Example the John Chick church (at http://www.chick.com) is very wierd about this.
I am not a Catholic, and although my upbringing was Protestant, I’m presently agnostic.
I’m honestly baffled by the hostility that some Protestants have towards Catholics. I know that I was never told anything derogatory about Catholics as I was growing up. It wasn’t until I was in high school that I really learned how seriously some take the doctrinal differences between denominations. I’ll have to say that at least for me, it helped speed up my declining interest in going to church.
You may want to check out some of these threads below, where similar discussion have been held in this forum in the past.
Are Catholics Really Christian?
The first link has a hyperlink to a Jack Chick comic that is perhaps the most extreme and certainly one of the more offensive slams on Catholicism that I’ve seen. Brace yourself.
My guess is that the individuals who have trouble accepting Catholics as Christians probably have trouble accepting anyone of a different church as Christian. I say individuals because I’m pretty sure that neither Lutheran nor Presbyterian doctrine condemns all non-Lutherans or non-Presbyterians.
You mean JACK Chick, not JOHN. And he doesn’t run a church, just a scam business with those incredibly bigoted, yet oh so entertaining for their very stupidity-tracts.
Hehe.
Lapsed Catholic here.
As you should not paint all protestants with the same brush, don’t do so the same with Lutherans. The Missouri and Wisconsin Synods are extremely conservative and fundimental in beliefs but the ELCA is a whole new ball game. If anything we’re too liberal for most other protestants.
As an ELCA Lutheran, I have to chime in and agree. Of course we consider Catholics to be Christians.
In my experience, it’s those darn fundamentalists (specifically the Assembly of God churches) who think that Catholics aren’t Christian.
As a Catholic let me point out a few issues, here:
While all Christians accept that Jesus founded the Church, it is a Catholic perspective that Peter became the first pope and that the papal authority has been handed down in an uninterrupted chain throughout the last couple of millenia. While I would tend to favor most of the Catholic arguments for Apostolic succession, I am aware that those arguments cannot be made without challenge, and some of the challenges are quite cogent.
The claim that the Catholic Church was the “only” church for 1500 years simply displays an ignorance of history, I am afraid. The Orthodox churches can certainly claim the same age, and they do not accept the papacy. Similarly, the remnants of the Syriac and Coptic churches can point back to Apostolic foundations. Claiming that we are “obviously” the correct descendents will only raise hackles unnecessarily.
Having said that, I find the positions of a few of the more Fundamentalist organizations rather unChristian in spirit, but I do not find that they are a majority among Protestants. (Of course, whether or not they make up the bilk of your acquaintances is a matter of where you live.)
Similarly, while it is troubling to be confronted with a person claiming that one is not Christian, it is probably wise to remember that the RCC coined the phrase “Outside the Church, no Salvation.” And while we recognize that the phrase is actually a statement that Salvation comes through Jesus in the Body of Christ, which is the whole of fragmented Christianity, there have certainly been Catholics within living memory who used it to claim that only Catholics could get to Heaven–not a very nice claim to throw in the face of our Protestant brethren. (Of course, the when Fr. Feeney would not retract his claim that only Catholics could be saved, we excommunicated him, so I don’t know where he is spending eternity, but a lot of Protestants heard his claims before we through him out.)
millennia
and
threw him out
If we are discussing North America; originally there was a cultural and ethnic component. Protestants were dominant at the time of the American Revolution. Catholics came in large numbers when immigrants from Ireland, Germany, and other countries came after 1840 or so. Even though openly anti-Irish or anti-German prejudice is now rare, there is undoubtedly a negative carryover into religious attitudes.
Interestingly in the part of Texas where I live, anti-Catholic attitudes are historically intertwined with anti-Hispanic prejudice.
Another factor was the long wet-dry conflict in American history. Today we scoff at Prohibition as a rather silly episode in our history - but in the 60 or 70 years between the Reconstruction and the Great Depression, it was a defining issue that - in the popular imagination - reflected a Protestant-Catholic split. If I remember correctly the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920’s, which had up to 5 million members - was more a nativist anti-Catholic, anti-Prohibition movement than it was anti-black. If you study the campaign of Al Smith, a Catholic, in 1928 - and read the vitriol that was spread against him in the Bible Belt, you’d see what I meant. Something that divisive has to leave a legacy - even if alcohol itself is no longer a national issue.
Also when Kennedy ran for president, there was a lingering suspicion that a Catholic president would “take orders from Rome”. Of course that argument didn’t sway most Protestant Americans, but that idea is still heard among more strident anti-Catholics today.
martinez, a lot of people in my old church (Southern Baptist) were reluctant to call Catholics “Christian.” Fortunately, that was not the case for my family, and there are plenty of people in my church of like mind.
The church that has the biggest problem with the Catholics is probably the Church of Christ in my town, which has openly condemned Catholics before.
Then again, I’ve met a few (thankfully, very few) Catholics who didn’t believe Protestants were Christians.
MARTINEZ, I think it’s inarguable that for all but the very extremest types of liberal Christian sects, there has historically been overt anti-Catholic prejudice. But I think it is much less today, to the point that it is no longer accurate to say that it is a generally held tenet in American Protestantism.
Personal example over three generations of my family: My grandfather’s sister was quite literally disowned for marrying a Catholic (in the '20s); my aunt (grandfather’s daughter) married a Catholic and wasn’t cast out but my grandparents were none too happy about it initially, though they later grew to love my uncle (late '40s); my father (grandfather’s son) wouldn’t give a rat’s ass if any of his kids married a Catholic – it just doesn’t concern him.
And please do not cite Jack Chick as an example of anything but rampant loonyism. It pains me to see him cited as an example of what any moderate thinking Christian believes.
Jodi said:
It would ahve been simpler if you just left out the word “moderate” and replaced “Christian” with “human being,” ya know. 
Are you saying that Jack Chick might’ve been wrong when he claimed that Dungeons & Dragons teaches youngsters to cast real spells?! :eek:
Of course he was wrong. That’s what Magic: The Gathering is for.
Actually, I’ve found that the vast majority of them believe that some Catholics ARE genuinely Christian, but not all Catholics are. Of course, conservative Protestants also believe that there are many Baptist, Methodists, Assembly of God members, etc. who aren’t Christians either.
In other words, they say that membership in a church does not automatically make you a Christian. They would not say “Catholics are Christians,” but neither would they say that “Baptists are Christians” or “Pentecostals are Christians.”
Now they do have fundamental disagreements with the Catholic doctrines regarding salvation, but this come as no surprise. Basically, the conservative Protestants that I know say that you can not become saved through the Catholic plan of salvation (which includes indulgences and the Catholic sacraments). They also say that there are Catholics who are saved despite the strict teachings of their church.
I don’t believe that it was the intent of the poster to imply that the more conservative Lutheran groups don’t consider Catholics Christians, But just in case anybody was confused.
The Missori Synod church does consider anybody who believes in Jesus to be a true christian.
While I was raised nominally in the Lutheran church, one thing the Catholic church has going for it is it doesn’t roll over on “difficult” social issues like every other denomination around. This pisses me off. I’m just guessing, but Theology seems to me something that shouldn’t be determined by the lowest common denominator.
While there may be controversy, at least it’s consistent, and I don’t think it’s a hobgoblin of little minds. Frankly, I respect the Catholic faith while I don’t always agree with the dogma. I’ve watched my Lutheran church congregation split over some silly issue (Luther, you’ll recall, originally started the Reformation) and all the splinter groups presumably then split off from that, and so on, ad nauseum, ad infinitum. I think there’s a definite disgust with some protestants in the U.S. who are conservative, who might be better served in the Catholic Church. On the other hand, I know a few ‘recovering’ Catholics who are active members of Protestant churches. Hm.
Still, from what I understand, if one isn’t baptized Catholic, you’re screwed. That’s not real comforting.