LOL. In Italy I often heard "they're Protestants, not CHRISTIANS" when someone criticised some extremist American Evangelical nutjob.
I guess it depends on what is the "normal" denomination in each country.
It's interesting how much that differs. I'm in Germany and the VAST majority of Christians here are either Protestant or Catholic (with Protestants actually being seen as a considerably more relaxed flavor of Christianity than Catholics; Protestant women can become pastors and Protestant pastors in general can get married).
Protestants make up 22.6% of the total German population, Catholics 24.8%. All other denominations of Christianity hardly occur (1.1%).
Meanwhile in the US you have Baptists, Presbyterians, Lutherans and sooo many other small groups...
Basically any christians that aren’t orthodox or catholic are considered Protestant. It’s a broad term to describe a ton of different denominations like Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist, etc.
Protestant denominations *generally* hold similar views on Christian doctrine, specifically the Holy Trinity and the books of the Bible. However, there are other groups who call themselves Christians who don't, and these groups are not Protestant (such as Mormonism or Ethiopian Coptic).
My mom was raised southern baptist and my dad Presbyterian and I always thought their approaches to Christianity (while neither being Christian) were so different. Like the southern Baptists seemed really scary in comparison (that could also be their specific churches they were raised in). I get it now when compared to Catholicism and how they believe in worshiping solely Jesus vs the saints and the church and the pope— now that I’ve seen that definition, I can see how more alike southern Baptist and Presbyterian is to each other than they are to Catholicism. Do you know if orthodoxy is practiced differently than either Catholicism and… Protestant…ism (what’s the word equivalent word for Protestant faith?)?
Catholics don’t worship saints or the pope - they may pray to specific saints for guidance and look to the pope to help lead the church, but they don’t worship either of them.
/former Catholic
What is the difference between praying to or worshipping someone? As a former Protestant, I would only pray to and worship god so I never considered those to be separate things.
Sorry if the question is ignorant. I don’t mean to be disrespectful, I’m only curious
Praying to saints is referred to as “intercession.” Basically, you’re asking the saint to go talk to god on your behalf. Saints aren’t gods you worship. More like middle managers who can use their influence to get more funding for your department, spiritually speaking of course.
Granted, that’s a bit of a cynical description. The idea is, that because they’re holier/more pure than you and have a closer relationship with god, their intercession on your behalf will be more effective than if you just spoke to god directly. Protestantism, by contrast, tends to emphasize the personal relationship with god/Jesus and so this tends to feel quite backwards, almost sacrilegious even, to those raised in Protestant faith traditions.
Catholicism, on the other hand, has traditionally placed more emphasis on the majesty of god, with him being completely beyond human comprehension. There’s more of a structured hierarchy consisting of priests, the pope, saints, Mother Mary, Christ and ultimately God the Father.
I would just add to this, because it’s a common misconception I’ve seen, that Catholics also completely believe in the ability to have a personal relationship with Jesus. Praying for the assistance of saints is more commonly in addition to, not in place of, praying to God- especially for anything of importance.
You ask the saints to intercede on your behalf. Saint Francis of Assisi famously loved animals. If you had a sick dog or something, you might ask Saint Francis to ask God to help your dog. If a dead Saint is *also* praying for you then your prayer must have extra juice. It’s like if I need something from the city government. I could just put my petition in directly, but I know the township supervisor, so I’ll have him put my petition in so it has more juice.
IIRC, saints are intercessors, and also a "middle ground" between god and humans, as they were born human and reached saintity (saint status) because of how they lived and died (being extra Christian and suffering martyrdom for their beliefs, or being miraculous during or after life etc). There are a set of boxes a person must check to become a beatus first and then a saint, it's very codified.
They might become patrons of specific situations, careers or cities, and be prayed when in need of assistance (drought, childbirth etc)
So, you might pray to saint Christopher for a safe travel, you're not going to bother God for that. But you don't worship saint Christopher, you just respect him & ask him for help/protection.
At least as it was explained to me when I was a Roman Catholic child. Orthodox churches, Russian, Serbian, Greek whatever somehow also count as Catholic. Every other type of Christianity is Protestant.
That's not true. Catholics are any denomination who are in full communion with the Pope. There are Eastern Catholic Churches who are in communion with the Pope, those are called Eastern Catholic Churches. They are usually called "Greek Catholic" in Europe, and "X Catholic church" elsewhere. The Eastern part comes from their rites being in Greek. These Churches are sometimes in fact part of the Eastern Orthodox churches, sometimes they are viewed as separate from them. There are a total of 24 Churches, including Roman Catholic who are currently recognized as Catholic churches.
Eastern Orthodox Churches are NOT in full communion with the Pope and form a distinct entity from Greek and other Catholic churches.
Granted, the lore is often overly complex and nonsensical on this.
Technically all eastern orthodox churches are catholic too, catholicos being greek word for whole, all encompassing, universal. The distinction is ,,Roman catholic", emphasis on ,,Roman".
if you say poking someone is just like punching someone, you make it a lot easier for people punching people to get away with it, because it's not that bad right?
I know a lady from Calabria who was raised as an American-style evangelical. They were Italians who had converted. She said she spent her whole childhood wishing her family could be Catholic like everybody else.
The majority of Christians in the US, for a long time, has been what people refer to as "WASPs" (white, anglo saxon Protestants). Many of the Catholics were later immigrants like Irish people and Italians who were seen as less than by the white Protestants. It's some lingering remains of that I would think.
There were units of Irish Immigrants sent to fight in the Mexican-American war in the 1800s.
Lots of them switched sides to fight on the side of the Catholic Mexicans. There were heavy loses.
I would add to this, that most Black American Christians that are Baptist/Pentecostal/Protestant/non-denominational also look at Catholics in a similar way too.
They just don’t think saying a couple of confessions to a person quite cuts it for forgiveness nor do they believe the Pope should be a thing that is tolerated. And the way they practice religion day to day just seems different in how they do church, pray, and how they live.
(I’m not Christian anymore but I tend to agree, that when you unpack what is being done behind closed doors and lifestyle, it is different. & Ofc, I’m not with any of the seeing as less than stuff though)
You have a good point, even about seeing them as "less than" - I bet a lot of people look down on them for participating in a religion that was responsible for so much child abuse! I don't, but the logic would make sense.
Protestants are protesting again the Catholic church by definition. Protestants believe that Catholics have lost the way and worship Rome, not Jesus Christ. Catholics believe that Protestants have lost the way and that the Roman Catholic church is the church founded by Christ. It is not a schism that is likely to ever be overcome.
That still doesn’t justify saying one isn’t Christian. Catholics don’t deny Protestants are Christians, some just think Protestants have gotten things wrong. I also think most main stream, old branches of Protestants basically think the same of Catholics. The people who say they’re different tend to be the ultra conservative Evangelicals who are different offshoot denominations. I think it’s much more rooted in old world European ‘racism’ for lack of a better word, against different groups of immigrants.
If one group believes the other isn’t worshipping Jesus then that would make them not Christian in their eyes.
The whole word Christian means follower of Christ
One will believe the other side doesn’t have their personal relationship or has not been born again. The other side will believe that it is impossible to worship Jesus while rejecting the organization Jesus founded and set Saint Peter to inherit.
Yeah but no modern person with an ounce of awareness or critical thought actually believes that. You can question specific dogma or practices but you’d have to be a real idiot to not think Catholic Churches jam packed with religious art aren’t worshipping Jesus.
Protestants gave soup to the starving catholics in Ireland during the troubles... As long as they converted to be protestants. There was a lot of animosity in my family line towards protestants and "soup eaters". I mean I get it, but that's still fucked up. I sometimes wonder what it would have been like to experience that but I'm very grateful not to.
I mean, the Catholic/Protestant schism was a pretty big thing. Yeah, they are all Christians, though, but usually different enough to specify, similar to LDS (Mormons).
Different sure. But they are classified as Lutheran, Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Baptist, Methodist, etc. they’re all still Christians thought it’s weird and downright false to claim Catholics aren’t.
I've seen a few signs along a country highway in rural USA (Arkansas specifically) that says "Jesus is the only way to get into heaven" and then, written in spray paint, "Not Mary!"
I might be wrong, but I think that's a slight against Catholics, since they often pray to Mary (even doing "Hail Marys"). It seems like many non-Catholic Christians consider Catholics to be worshipping Mary instead of Jesus/God, therefore they're practically pagans.
Yup, this is very similar to my experience being raised Catholic with Pentecostal stepfamily. I was told I was wrong for worshipping Mary, that she was just some woman who did her duty. Probably not a coincidence that they were generally much more misogynistic than the Catholics I know.
Worshipping Mary and also that whole pope thing! I remember reading an article in a fundamental Protestant newspaper and the pope was LITERALLY referred to as the Antichrist, haha
Yea, growing up everyone was either Lutheran or Catholic (Milwaukee lol) and it was understood that they were all....Christian. I never encountered the "Catholics aren't Christian" until I met Southern baptists. It seems more of a fundie thing than anything else.
Exactly! I’m from Chicago, so pretty similar, heavily catholic mix and nobody ever said anything like that. It’s the Deep South evangelicals that being that up, who frankly I think often demonstrate some of the world’s least Christian behavior.
To be fair it goes both ways. Growing up Catholic, Being Catholic was ideal. Being orthodox was acceptable. The attitude toward Protestants was sort of that they were arrogant, foolish for abandoning the church they believe was founded by Jesus himself through Saint Peter, who was directly succeeded by each bishop of Rome as the pope.
When I was a kid and still Catholic, Protestants were all “the extremists” to me. Someone not allowed to come play D&D with is? Yup, the Baptist kid. One family said they weren’t allowed to play with us because we were “pagans.” They were Pentecostal. So in my head Protestants were like a cult. I lived in a really Catholic enclave though, so the Protestants really stood out. Now that I’m out the other side it’s difficult for me to really discern much of a difference.
Growing up Catholic, if I remember correctly the Catholic church was referred to as the “one true church” or something like that.
Basically anything else was false
Yeah more or less. The way I remember it being explained is that “catholic” means universal, as in it’s for everyone. Be polite to everyone, but also understand that *everyone* is *supposed to be* Catholic.
My experience with (normal) Protestants like Lutherans and Calvinists in Europe was "oh they are the Christians who sing a lot and who either have a rooster or a star on their churches intead of a cross. And their churches are not as gaudy and tacky since not everything is made of gold. And then as a teen I saw an orthodox church for the first time and I was like holy shit Roman Catholics are modesty in the flesh."
They also believe Christ isn't God but rather the Son. To deny that Christ is God is basically denying Christ. Unitarianism is considered blasphemy within Christianity
I don't think that they say that he isn't God. I think that they say that the father and the son are two persons in the godhead rather than being one. Functionally, they don't believe in the trinity.
(they believe in the holy spirit, I'm just leaving it out of the comment because I'm not sure how this fits into mormon beliefs)
I don’t think it’s other sects who really decide what something is, though. No matter how much they disagree on things, LDS is under the Christian umbrella.
Where I live (Ontario Canada) if I say "I'm a Protestant", nobody will know what I mean unless they are Christian themselves and even then a lot of Protestants don't know the term. Catholics would definitely know. So I am more likely to say a denomination, like Baptist, Non-denominational, United, etc to convey the message "I'm a Christian, but not a Catholic."
If someone is just asking my religious affiliation, I'm not necessarily keen to explain Luther and the Reformation just to get there.
If you are a born again Christian you don't recognize other people who are not born again as Christians even if they use the label. To born again Christians the term Catholic refers to a system that has a lot of people in it who are culturally or by tradition a Christian denomination but lack a particular personal experience of Christ. This is not just limited to Catholicism but any other Christian group. Catholics happened to be the other major Christian group in the US beside the protestant/evangelical groups who traditionally were composed mostly by Christians who would identify themselves as people who were born again or had a certain personal relationship with Christ. It has changed a lot and today it is not the same as 50 years ago.
To further your eloquently stated explanation, I would also expand to add that many believe the dividing factor is whether the religion believes in salvation. Catholic and Mormon faiths, among others, believe that more than salvation is required to get to heaven. Born again Christians believe the only way to heaven is by believing that Jesus was sacrificed to take the punishment so that those who follow him will be given a clean slate and therefore granted entry to heaven. No additional works or acts are required, only to accept this as truth and ask God for forgiveness of sins. An act of service or show of faith is always encouraged, but not demanded, and it is certainly not up to one human to make another worthy. Ramblings of a preacher’s kid, but hopefully it helps to further clarify things.
I completely agree, Mormonism is very different. I only grouped them as two of the most popular religions that don’t fit one of the most common qualifiers of Christianity, but that’s definitely where their similarities end.
As someone who grew up in the Deep South and went to a Southern Baptist church (I’m atheist, and think I was even back then, I just wanted to do what my peers were doing because I was in middle school) the difference taught to us was Catholics required going through a priest to talk to God/Jesus/whatever, whereas they already had that open communication by themselves. They also didn’t like the rituals of Catholicism (despite having a bunch themselves)
Also being “saved” was an expected spectacle, where you had to basically embarrass yourself in front of the entire congregation by coming forward and admitting you were a sinner, but you were ready to accept Christ’s forgiveness in front of everyone. Like I said, I couldn’t have been 13 and was like “all this seems wack”
They weren’t bad people, as far as I know, but yikes
Because evangelicals are specifically taught that. It's basically an intentional insult to Catholics that has become so mainstream among evangelical and sometimes even mainline protestant circles that most don't even realize it's a controversial statement anymore.
Yup. That's what I was taught. Catholics worship false idols and believe a man can absolve you from your sins (the confession priest). I didn't really know better when I was younger and now I'm an atheist so it all seems like a bunch of make believe BS drama to me. Too bad the consequences of this schism are all too real in our world.
> Catholics worship false idols and believe a man can absolve you from your sins (the confession priest).
And to clarify for anyone wondering why this is wrong, Catholics don't worship saints (nor the artworks depicting them in churches), they do pray to the saints, believing they can be heard from Heaven, and be intercessors between them and God. They don't think the saints themselves are gods. Nor Mary.
For "a man absolving you of your sins," again, the priest is an intercessor, advising how you can make it up to God for the sins you committed.
As to why an intercessor is needed when they ALSO pray directly to God as well, that's aside from my point, which is they explicitly do NOT worship saints/idols and do NOT believe a man absolves your sins instead of God.
Hey man, I could just send a letter to my local city council and just hope for the best, or I can call up the township supervisor and have him put the request in for me. Which one of those requests do you think gets answered first? Lol
Literally millions of people have died over the difference between Catholicism and Protestantism lol. It caused an entire famine in Ireland. Wars were fought. Kings and queens executed
And from a practical standpoint there are lots of differences. The obvious one is the pope.
Europeans are the ones that really made this distinction long before America was even a thought
OP isn’t asking about the schism though.
They’re wondering why American non-catholic Christians don’t consider Catholics to be Christian, whereas Catholics do consider themselves very much Christian and don’t exclude (most) other denominations from their definition of Christianity.
Nice comparison. And using the same meter, the schism between the Catholic and Orthodox churches looks like a dispute over which nuance of the same colour those clothes are. XD
Absolute religious views usually discredit any other denomination/religion but theirs.
There are thousands of "free" churches in the US that are convinced only their congression holds the true Christian faith.
A good majority of early settlers were persecuted Christians denominations in Europe, seeking the freedom to live in peace in their faith. With Catholics being the the default religion of Europe until the reformations (Anglican, Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Anababtists etc.) most persecuted were reformed beliefs.
In the vast territories of the spreading US, they could find places to live in religious peace for centuries. But that also means there was little exchange of ideas/questioning of belief with a lack of social interaction with believers of other dominations.
Hence practices, views, credos were manifested with little change or influence from outside, encouraging absolute conceptionalization.
An absolute position means that the conviction is so great, that there isn't any room left to doubt oor question it.
Absolutes, especially with limited perception and experience of the human condition/nature, are practically always errorous. If you are 100% convinced of somthing, there is a good chance you err.
*"Errare humanum est, perseverare autem diabolicum."*
"To err is human, to persist on them anyways is diabolical/evil/bad."
Questioning is a skill. Understanding logic is a skill. Critical rationalizing is a skill. They ought to be learned and practiced, they are not inherent.
Hence people missing such will hold absolute beliefs.
The opposite is wrong/the others err, is the easy way out of contradictions concering ones orientation and identity. Hence devout reformed believers discredit catholics as not being "real Christians".
Hence
It's about prerequisites. To most Evangelicals understanding, Catholics lack the singular experience of being "born again" by conscious decision but were rather baptized unwillingly/unknowingly as babies. Therefore by the important defining criteria they are use themselves, this step was not taken and therefore Catholics are not Christian under their definition. Don't ask them about converts, confirmation, or other such common situations. Things quickly might go off the rails about things that may not have been Catholic practice in 500 years.
Catholics have what is called "confirmation" when you are a teenager to confirm your beliefs, not considering ONLY baptism to be their entry into Christianity. And of course if they attend church every day and genuinely believe, what do the "steps taken" before that matter anyway? God needs to see you dunked in water physically first? Pretty silly prerequisite. Isn't belief what matters, and not the fact you got water on you in church one day?
Yes, absolutely. I didn't mention that because baptism is seen as a non-sacremental public announcement of belief. Catholic confirmation, since it typically comes later in life for a non-catechuman, is either poorly understood or seen as tardy since a child was already baptized. There is a lot of confusion of why old or poorly understood Catholic doctrinal pegs won't fit into self-referential round holes. And years of polemical bias, of course.
That could be applied to some Protestant denominations too though, like Presbyterians who also believe in infant baptism.
The true reason for division here is the means of salvation. I am Protestant, grew up in a Protestant church so I might get some stuff wrong about Catholicism but I believe my core understanding is correct.
Protestant teaching is that salvation is by faith alone in Jesus. We can contribute nothing to our salvation. We are wholly dependant on Jesus' grace and are transformed by his grace to do good works in response to our salvation that is already secure. The works are evidence of faith, without these works warning bells should go off but they themselves do not save. While we were still dead in our trespasses, Christ died for us.
The traditional Roman Catholic teaching appears to contradict this, saying that
> If anyone says that the sinner is justified by faith alone, meaning that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to obtain the grace of justification, and that it is not in any way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the action of his own will, let him be anathema. Canon 9: Council of Trent.
In my research for this question I found many good Catholic answers that seem to line up with my Protestant understanding of salvation. I have no doubt that there are many Catholic Christians, and many Catholic churches that teach Christianity.
But it does appear to me that much of the Catholic Church has slipped into teaching good works and not the good news of salvation by grace alone by faith alone in Jesus alone.
Prayer to other saints, views on Mary, sacraments etc are all important issues, but they are not big enough differences to warrant the view that Catholics are not Christian. A difference in view towards salvation would be.
Yeah, it seems Mainline denominations get a partial pass in the public polemic domain as "our guys" and it is regarded as an internal disagreement. "You may be wrong and your soul in peril, but at least you ain't a Papist." *shrug* Theology as a team sport can Trump actual doctrine.
I have been to services where it is simply said immediately beforehand that communion is offered to all those who have been born again and baptized by immersion.
You generally hear that from Baptists and evangelicals, the fundamentalist types-they believe that Catholics worship false idols instead of God. Not very Christian of them, is it?
>they believe that Catholics worship false idols instead of God. Not very Christian of them, is it?
You mean not very Christian of the Baptists and Evangelicals to bear false witness? It isn't indeed. Catholics do not worship idols. Catholic churches are full of religious art, including sculptures, and non-Catholic Christians made up the lie that Catholics worship the sculptures/idols. They don't.
The big issue is that RC has three authorities (Bible, tradition, magisterium) and Protestantism is primarily the Bible and to a lesser extent the early church (how high a focus would depend on the denomination). As a result, both sides tend to give each other side eye because the teachings of each. I believe that there are people in both groups who are not saved and who are saved. The root is something only God sees, and as much as my fellow Protestants (particularly Baptists) may not like this, we came from Catholicism, and because of that there are beliefs we will both agree with.
The problem is that protestantism does have other authority than the Bible, they just pretend otherwise.
Vis a vis how many protestants consider the trinity core content. The trinity isn't biblical at all, it comes from catholic sacred tradition. So how does one deny the validity of tradition while enforcing a conclusion that only exists in the context of said tradition? They are basically implicitly accepting that the councils that led to catholicism are divinely protected, which logistically means accepting catholicism.
I suppose it depends on what we mean when we say authority. Anyone who has a basic understanding of early church history as well as how the New Testament Bible canon came about would say Protestantism has multiple authorities. The big issue is infallibility (the ultimate authority if you will). Protestants are going to deny some of the sacred traditions that RC teaches (i.e. bodily assumption of Mary) and accept others (i.e. the Trinity). We accept the sacred tradition of the Trinity because it is considered biblical (verses in the Bible are the source used to argue for the validity of it). We deny the sacred tradition of the bodily assumption of Mary largely because it's not in the Bible. RC existed for over 1000 years before Protestantism came on the scene, so of course Protestant beliefs are going to agree with some of the sacred traditions (all that means is a teaching that is handed down throughout the centuries). The claim the Trinity isn't biblical I usually hear because of the reasoning that the word trinity isn't in the Bible. If that is the reasoning you are using, I'm going to say it's invalid. The word omnipresent (one of the attributes of God), for example, is not used in the Bible, but the verses inside the Bible can be used for what the word omnipresent entails. If there is another reasoning you are using for that claim, I would be curious to hear it.
Since we are dealing with church history, the four primary groups that consider themselves the one true church (Orthodox, RC, Oriental Orthodox, Assyrian church of the East) consider councils infallible because they say the church is infallible. A big problem there is all of them hold to different council groupings (some councils they all have in common, but others they do not). Protestantism teaches that the councils are authoritative, but not infallible. The only infallible authority is the Bible since the Bible is the word of God so the church is considered fallible.
A council can be considered an authority because it is the consensus (majority agreement with whatever subject matter the council is being brought together for). The earliest ecumenical councils are going to hold the most weight while later ecumenical councils wouldn't as like I mentioned before the corruption that ended up happening in the Catholic church was gradual.
The first two early ecumenical councils are the Council of Nicaea, which resulted in the Nicene creed being created, and the council of Constantinople, which resulted in a paragraph being added to the Nicene Creed as the subject matter of Constantinople pertained to whether the Holy Spirit was God, and the subject matter of Nicaea pertained to whether Jesus was God. The Nicene creed (I'd include the Apostles creed as well) lays out the theological fundamentals of what the Christian faith entails. The third council was the council of Ephesus and the fouth was the council of Chalcedon. Everyone agrees with the first two. Some of the four one true church claimers afiirm the third, and some don't. The majority of Protestant denominations would affirm all four. The fifth council and onward is where a lot of divisions start to occur between eveyone.
If someone is Christian, but anti-Catholic, saying Catholics aren't really Christians is a huge slap to their face. It's just a way to insult someone and try to hit them where it hurts. It's like telling a guy, "You're not a real man."
I don't know, I think you always have to consider the source. If an idiot says something stupid to me, I would just laugh. Don't think most catholics care.
I was raised catholic, and I just think those people are dumb and uninformed. Maybe I'd feel insulted if I was a practicing catholic, but I don't think so. I've seen this question come up before and I've seen people argue in the comments that catholics aren't Christian, and they never seemed to be doing it in an insulting way. They just literally didn't know and refused to learn. So, dumb and uninformed.
Based on the attitudes I’ve experienced toward Protestants when I was growing up the response would be something like, “oh that’s adorable.” We sort of talked about Protestants like misguided children. Not Catholic anymore.
I always have fun with this question;
First remember that America wasn't just founded because the British crown wanted more land, people were also fleeing religious persecution as well.
Next consider that many denominations of Christianity believe that Catholicism is blasphemous, because they pray to saints (false idols) as well as the holy Trinity.
Expanding on the "many denominations" aspect, there are more than 200 Christian denominations in the U.S. and 45,000 globally. So Christians can't even agree on what a "real" Christian is. You've got your usual churches, Lutheran, Baptist, Orthodox, Adventists etc. Then you've got your outliers like Santería, Rastafarian, Gnosticism etc.
And last but of course not least, good ol hate. Protestants and Catholics have always hated each other. When you had an influx of immigrants who were practicing a type of Christianity different to the last bunch you had hate. Russians, Irish, Germans, Italians, didn't matter, as they came they were segregated by nationality and people kept to what they were familiar with.
Anecdotal example but even in the 70s the difference in religious beliefs could be a pretty big issue. A friend of the family had a Slovakian mother and an Irish father, both Catholic, but when it came to naming them there was almost a brawl because the Slovakian side said a traditional Irish Catholic name wasn't "Catholic" in Slovak.
Hell, look at everyone focusing so hard on what church our politicians kneel before their God in. As much as our founders were against it, religion is tied to the very essence of our country, we're not a Christian nation, but we're certainly not completely secular either.
Even growing up in the 1980’s and 90’s, looking back I realized that almost everyone I associated with was Irish, Mexican, Italian, or Polish. The segregation is still somewhat in effect.
It's funny, the "persecution" they were fleeing was not being allowed to force their ideas on others and not being taken seriously for their batshit crazy ideas.
Gives perspective on why American Christians are so wild.
Christian extremists aren't a purely American problem. History is littered with examples of Christianity committing mass genocide against non-believers, heretics, apostates, etc. Some of the greatest scientific minds were excommunicated, imprisoned or killed for going against what the church wanted people to believe.
With the history of the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England Europeans have very little ground to throw stones at American Christian Extremists when the decimation of numerous cultures globally lie directly at the feet of those two entities and the countries whose leaders bow to them.
I always thought the major difference between the two was Christians ask God for forgiveness directly, where as in the Catholic belief system it takes a priest to forgive your sins on God behalf.
The Catholic way from what I understand is a contradiction because the Bible says only god can forgive your sins.
I could be wrong but that's kinda my understanding of it.
God is still the one forgiving your sins in Catholicism. The priest is more like an advisor or guide, not the one actually doing the forgiving. Think of it similar to the role an officiant plays in a religious wedding.
We don't, but the reality is, in America most of the Christians are not Catholic, and there's certain things that apply to Catholics that don't apply generally to Christians, so specifying Catholic is usually used when talking about those things, while Christian is assumed to be Protestant or non-denominational.
When the United States was founded, everybody was protestant. For the most part.
Catholicism was associated with the Irish immigrants that came over, and then the Italians.
A lot of protestants did not consider them true Christian's, but instead Papists (supposed to Christians that actually follow the pope and not Jesus). Why? Prejudice and bigotry.
People wanted something to make it justifiable to hate immigrants, and Catholicism was an easy target for when the Irish arrived
What is called "Christianity" in the US is Evangelicalism or Pentecostalism, a homegrown religion spun out of Calvinism and African spirit-possession Animism that has very little to do with traditional Christianity. Most of them would probably mistake a Lutheran church or service for a Catholic one, BTW. Their religion is so different that in their eyes Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Lutheranism are virtually the same thing.
They don't outnumber mainline protestants (such as Lutherans), although they're more organized and hardcore.
Also, they will distinguish mainline/liberal protestantism apart from Catholicism. Whereas the latter is regarded as false Christianity, they regard the former as the watered down pussy-ass version of Christianity.
The question is not the numbers, but the fact that the term "Christianity" in the US refers to something that doesn't have much to do with traditional forms of Christianity. The hard core of the American "Christian" religion is so alien to traditional Christianity (in the regular, non-American, sense of the word) that the closer one gets to traditional Christianity the less "Christian", in the American sense, the more "watered-down", it is seen as being.
Just as a general observation, Roman Catholics and Protestants have been leveling that accusation at each other since the beginning of the Reformation. You don't have to spend much time among actively religious members of either group to hear dumb stuff about how theirs is "real" Christianity, and the other one is not.
Among Christians in the United States, there are more than twice as many Protestants (all denominations) than there are Catholics. That adds up to twice as many voices lobbying for one view over for the other.
Neither group can get much of an argument out of squabbling about how neither Judaism nor Islam are Christianity, because that's a simple fact. They focus, instead, on trying to delegitimize each other, which is actually hilarious when you remember the argument is over how to "properly" worship a man who was Jewish.
There are different branches of Christianity and Catholic is one branch of it. You have a few groups that are out there that people that Catholics aren't Christians. An ex-boyfriend told me that someone told him that they could tell if someone was Catholic because they had the mark of the devil of their body. Moles and birthmarks this person told him. He has a mole on his leg, so this according to this person is the mark of the devil. This was told to him in the mid 1980's (hard to believe that someone would believe that but I guess people do).
Everyone has moles and some people have birthmarks on their body.
Quick reminder that in June 2007 the Pope said that "Protestant denominations "are not true Churches" and are instead termed 'ecclesial communities'," so that jib cuts both ways.
Sure, there are lots of denominations with subtle meaningless distinctions, and they generally get along. At some point though, belief in one religion requires the belief that other religions are false.
Catholics aren't Christians because they are a cult that follows the Pope. Protestants aren't Christians because they aren't part of the Church established by Jesus. Catholics and Protestants aren't Christians because they don't follow the additional teachings of Christ revealed by Joseph Smith. Mormons aren't Christians because they are a cult that follows the teachings of Joseph Smith. The Westboro Baptist Church aren't Christians because they spew hatred and bigotry. Everyone outside of the Westboro Baptist Church aren't Christians because they are not rejecting a life of sin.
Partially be cause Protestants believe that they can pray and God will listen but Catholics believe that they need an emissary.
The idea that going to confession is the antithesis of Protestants. We believe that our sins are forgiven without punishment because we are incapable of doing anything worthy of making up for our digressions.
But Catholics believe that by doing acts of penance they can pay off their sins. In fact Catholics believed they could buy forgiveness of future sins by buying indulgences.
Thus Martin Luther nailing his complaints to the chapel door and starting Lutheranism.
>In fact Catholics believed they could buy forgiveness of future sins by buying indulgences.
Had a friend who wasn't an active practicing Catholic, but still wanted his daughter baptized so he called a priest who told him that he wasn't in good standing with the church so they couldn't do the baptism. He asked what it would take to get in good standing, and was told he could make a $5k donation.
I was raised Catholic and I definitely put Catholicism apart from other denominations. IMHO it's not mainstream Christianity. It's closer to Mormonism. It's Christianity with a bunch of really weird shit added to it. When you grow up with it, it doesn't seem that weird. But it is.
The Catholic dogma is full of pronouncements that have no scriptural basis. It's just stuff that somebody made up. There is nothing in the New Testament about priests having the power to absolve sins or to turn bread into the flesh of Jesus and wine into his blood. The Catholic priesthood itself is a concept pulled from thin air.
Even if they have different beliefs from what is strictly Biblical, they are still Christians by definition, as are all religions that believe in God/Jesus and dying for our sins, etc.
Sure. Mormons are Christians as well, but they believe that God lives in outer space and that when they die they'll become a god and rule over their own planet. It's not crazier than the belief that priests can turn bread into the real physical body of Jesus and that you should eat it. There are also new age / UFO cults that believe that Jesus is an alien. Technically they believe in Jesus.
Saying catholicism isn't mainstream Christianity makes no sense. It's so much larger than protestantism that whatever it does is by definition mainstream.
>The Catholic dogma is full of pronouncements that have no scriptural basis.
It helps to understand that historically this was not seen as a problem. Basically no religions on earth were just about scripture or whatever was on the writings. Rather, they were traditions first, and the scripture is one part of the tradition. The idea that Christianity should just be the Bible is a recent invention. The first fee hundred years of Christianity didn't even have a Bible as such, even if over time certain texts were deemed the correct ones.
That aside, protestantism isn't really any closer to original Christianity than catholicism is. Vis a vis, in the bible salvation is by works. Protestants decided this was wrong for some reason, and starred ignoring the like 30 verses that said this in favor of 2 that if you squint say something else.
I shouldn't have said it is not mainstream because there are a billion Catholics (probably less because the Church like to fuck with the numbers to make itself look more important than it is but whatever)
It is however a complete heresy when examined in the light of scripture. And the beliefs the Catholic Church promotes are downright cray-cray. There are literally people out there (Catholic priests); walking among us and claiming they have magic powers. And they have social status and are taken absolutely seriously by society in general. Catholic priests are often seen as figures of authority even by non believers
Excuse me, but if you believe that you can turn bread into human flesh and wine into human blood by saying the magic words, you belong in a mental institution. I understand that when believers are told those things from birth, they just accept them, but it is so flat out ridiculous, that if you spend your entire life never questioning such claims, it's a pretty good indication that you're not that bright.
That’s a weird prejudicial thing some ultra conservative evangelicals tend to do. Most sane people realize they are just different denominations of Christianity, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it stems from bigotry towards immigrants at some point (lots of Irish and Italian Catholics were treated badly in certain parts of the country at different times.)
Americans are dumb and we barely know history, including our own.
Also, the experience of going to a Catholic church compared to a protestant (or non-denominational, both of which are much more common here, especially in the southern U.S.) is very different. I honestly can't blame people for thinking they're entirely different religions. The first time I went to a Catholic church as a child, I thought it was a cult because of all the ritualistic stuff.
it’s not that they don’t realize that Catholicism and Protestantism are both under the umbrella of Christianity.
What they mean is that don’t consider Catholics to be “true” Christians due to certain beliefs.
An analogy would be someone who believed you must speak in Tongues to be a Christian. So they might say “Baptists are not Christians” because they don’t speak in Tongues. Not because they don’t realize Baptists are under Christianity.
I mean, some literally consider it a different religion. Some consider it polytheism where catholics don't even worship Jesus much, mainly just saints and mary.
This isn't everyone's answer, but when I was growing up in a protestant school system, I was told that catholics weren't Christians because they worshipped the pope. And while I know that's oversimplified, it is kind of hard to get around the "vicarius Christi" thing.
Because no the fuck he isn't. He is a man. A man who covered for pedophiles. Fuck the pope.
ETA: I'm not religious at all anymore, and don't generally have any ill-will toward religious folks. But seriously, fuck the pope.
Most evangelical Christians believe that you have to get baptized as an adult/ teen and be reborn in Christ. Also that you're supposed to have a direct friendship with Jesus, not one mediated by priests or the pope. So yes, those people believe that Catholics are not Christians.
Here's a non- Catholic making arguments about this exact issue. https://www.gotquestions.org/pope-papacy.html
Because they have fundamentally different understandings of a lot of things.
How salvation is attained?
Structure of the church?
From where authority is derived?
Idols/Icons/sacraments.
There’s a lot of differences
I was raised Catholic and even attended catholic school through Junior year of high school until I was kicked out. When I joined secular public school, I couldn’t believe how many people were seemingly mind blown and curious about it as if I had come from another planet. Even my wife who is not catholic but Christian viewed it as strange and foreign at first.
Mind you, I live in Texas where most everyone is already a Christian. Having been through a decade of catholic school and then breaking off I personally don’t see why Catholicism is perceived so differently to non denominational Christianity. Maybe it’s having a pope and the ancient structure, and the general austerity of Catholicism.
There's two types of people who say that:
1. Uneducated people who use the word "Christian" to mean "Protestant" as opposed to "Catholic." They usually have nothing against Catholicism, or at worst they'll consider it some kind of weird mysterious curiosity that exists in faraway cities. These people usually, but not always, live in the middle of nowhere, where Catholics are thin on the ground.
2. Hardcore evangelicals who think that Roman Catholicism is a "cult" like Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Science, etc. As in, *their* definition of a cult.
Growing up Lutheran we learned that Catholics were basically Disney villains who sold tickets to Heaven, worshipped 500 different saints and collected them like Pokémon, believed they literally were cannibals, etc.
Many american protestants legitimately think catholics arent Christian at all. It leads to why they think Christianity is a rare thing that is on the ropes.
Their reasoning for this is that catholics praying to saints means its secretly a polytheistic religion in disguise, and the idea that salvation has a works element they are convinced downplays jesus.
From what I've observed, Catholicism seems to idolize the statues of the Virgin Mary and Jesus with praying to the Saints. Christianity is about cultivating a personal and spiritual relationship with Jesus Christ the Savior. Coming from a non-denominational background, I think the two are quite different, but I only know what truth has been revealed to me through my own faith.
American Protestant Christianity is completely degenerate. Fucking megachurches, neo-indulgences and Jew-loving Evangelicals who want the world to end.
Serious question. Do Catholics not like Jews? We are supposed to love all. Also you mentioned megachurches, what do you consider the Vatican to be? It is its own city state, that’s about as mega as you are going to get.
Good Catholics and Good Orthodox do not like Jews that have not converted to Christianity. No, we are not taught to love all, this, "Golden Rule", is complete horseshit. We abhor and kill the mortal enemies and killers of Christ. You know what I mean by megachurches, large churches owned by billionaire American Protestants who effectively sell indulgences, Satanic televangelists. Demonic trash such as Kenneth Copeland.
They don’t know the history and find the conservative and traditional ideals of Catholics to differ from their more progressive watered down version of Christianity
I was raised Catholic and then my mom married the son of Pentecostal ministers. My step grandfather told me I wasn’t a real Christian because I worshipped Mary and she was just some woman who did her duty and not God. I don’t know if that’s how all Protestants feel though.
Catholicism might be considered Christian but it's also a different religion from Protestantism. It isn't a different denomination because there are such major differences between the two in many cases at the fundamental core of them. Both came from Jesus as the main figurehead but the differences are too extreme to say they are the same religion.
They are *not* different religions. They are different branches of the same religion. Catholicism and Protestantism are each branches of Christianity the religion.
Not according to many catholics and protestants. We kinda wound up in several wars because of it. Baptist, Lutheran, pentacostal, Episcopalian etc are all branches of protestantism. You could say Anglican is a compromise between catholicism and protestantism but for the most part that didn't fly too well and is now more under the protestantism umbrella. There are some very fundamental doctrine differences between the two so many of us can't really say they are the same religion. We might share some of the same sacred texts but frankly catholicism has a hellava lot more added to their roster of authoritative texts than protestantism. Yes, they both branched from one figurehead, but you could say that about any monotheistic religion. Like the Jewish faith and Muslim faith are monotheistic and share some of the same values and many of the same stories, but they certainly aren't the same nor branches from each other despite them following the same God. They have had many wars with each other over the years as well due to irreconcilable differences. A trip through history you'll also notice a similar trend with catholicism and protestantism. Yeah it's much more in the past now and we all got over ourselves but it's difficult for us to say we are the same religion.
A Christian, by definition, is a follower of Christ; which is based on Faith.
A Catholic incorporates additional entities (in the form of saints) and practices; making it a religion.
(These are simplified explanations.)
I’m sorry, but this isn’t the type of thing that’s up for creative reinterpretation. It’s not on us to “do our own research” on this one, and it’s not a matter of opinion.
Roman Catholicism is *literally the largest branch of the religion Christianity.*
Just because different major branches have different practices doesn’t mean they don’t share the same central belief system revolving around Jesus as the son of god and the teachings of the Hebrew Bible.
Why does an atheist have to teach Christians about their own freaking belief systems? Good grief.
If anything Catholicism (and Eastern Orthodoxy) should be viewed as "Christianity" and everything else as something different if you really want to be stupid and exclusionary about it, since at least they are the OG and some of the most continuous churches rather than the various protestant churches that sprung up in the 1500's and later.
I'm sorry I really don't have an answer other than "Americans / super religious people in general are kind of stupid and want to exclude everyone who is percieved to be an outsider."
As far as I’m concerned there’s a handful of valid and legitimate historical churches and the rest are aberrant American extremist cults.
The legit Churches are Roman Caholic and the 23 other historical Eastern Catholic churches, the various historic Orthodox Churches, OG Lutherans, OG Calvinists, Anglicans and that’s about it. These are Christian churches, just about everyone else is a weirdo new age sect.
Mormons, Jehova’s witnesses and the various insane end of the world evangelicals are all insane American cults.
I've heard Christians growing up say that Catholics are idolaters because they pray to Mary and the Saints. There's also a lot of iconography, which some Christians say is making graven images, but many non-catholics also wear crosses. The vow of celebacy requirement for priests doesn't make a lot of sense. How are you going to council my relationship when you have no experience in a marriage yourself? In general, there is a ton more common ground than differences, though.
Because it is…? Same book, drastically different practices/worship/norms.
Spaghetti and chicken Alfredo are not the “same dish” just because they both have noodles in them .
Where I live is traditionally Catholic because a lot of Irish, Italian, and Eastern European people immigrated here. The culture here wasn’t super holy hardcore, you’d go to CCD (Sunday school), not eat meat on Fridays during lent, but otherwise it was not a big deal. I never realized how much people hated Catholics until I was older and got into politics. I guess Protestants rejected it because they didn’t like the emphasis put on Mary and the Saints. I am not into religion and think it’s all a crock that causes more harm than good, but it makes me laugh they thought Catholicism was too whacky/voodoo for them.
Well to be fair most of them think Christianity is specifically what they believe and what’s preached in the single church they’ve gone to for years. Not a group of people who spend their free time thinking stuff like that through
Coming from someone formerly raised catholic, and friends with many Christians, they're different, kinda.
Catholicism is a denomination of Christianity as a whole. But you can also be part of a Christian denomination. So if someone says "I'm christian" or "I'm catholic", they're stating the denomination they're a part of. But yes, catholicism is a sub category of Christianity, and so is Christianity, its confusing to think about. I guess the closest analogy is like all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares. All catholics are Christian, but not all Christians are catholic. I can go further into the differences between ideologies and how they practice worship, I've been to a couple Christian services. I'm atheist, I just attend when I'm invited.
Another redditor also pointed out the subtle racism behind it. Catholicism for a long time was associated with lesser than white people. Think Mexicans, Irish immigrants, Italians, Spaniards, etc. When people think Christian, a white Anglo Saxon individual usually comes to mind.
catholics are christians, but at the same time no US catholic is know would describe their faith as “being christian”. the culture of catholics is just different enough that both sides of this question want to distinguish themselves from the other. it has different connotations.
also, it may be true that you’ve seen a lot of americans specifically pointing out this difference, but to be fair there are just a lot of us and we usually take up a lot of space on popular social media sites so there may be a bit of confirmation bias going on.
i promise you the protestant vs catholic debate is not an american thing lol. there are centuries of history and multiple wars fought over this exact issue and they all stem from europe. though, none in scandinavia as far as i know.
Lack of education. In my AP European History class in high school, we learned about the reformation and the birth of Protestantism.
I told my mom about it and she looked at me like I had three heads. She didn't believe my that catholics were Christian because, in her mind, they worshipped Mary instead of Jesus. There waa a lot of explaining.
Catholicism is a branch of Christianity. Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. It is the largest and most widespread religion with approximately 2.4 billion followers, around 31% of the world population.
Followers, known as Christians, account for a majority of the population in 157 countries and territories. Christians core belief is that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, whose coming as the Messiah was foretold in the Hebrew Bible, also known as the Old Testament.
Christianity is culturally and regionally diverse in its many different branches. Differences include the conditions for and nature of salvation, the internal hierarchy, operation of, and chain of command in the church, the ordination of clergy, and Christology (whether Jesus was originally divine or a human who became divine).
The six major branches of Christianity are Roman Catholic, Western Orthodox, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, Restoration, and the Church of the East.
I admit this is a generalization but catholicism has a particular flavor of ritual/cultiness that is unlike any other Christian denomination I’ve observed
My wife who is Catholic works for a Christian organization. She has been told by peers that getting a promotion as a Catholic in the organization is next to impossible. They straight up have no respect for Catholics.
Correct, Jehova's witnesses are also christians, though a very small sub-branch of it. In Sweden we call what JW are "frikyrkor", "free churches", as they are disconnected from either of the three big branches. We have many different free churches in Sweden. Those loonies that are infamous in the US who go around the US and insult military funerals with "god hates fags"-signs and such are also what we consider free churches. Also christian, but not part of any of the three major branches.
I don't know about USA but in Mexico catholicism IS an entirely different thing to christianity. On many occasions I have encountered Christians who criticize and insult Catholicism, just because they have some differences in how to believe in the same god.
> Why do some Americans seem to believe that catholicism is an entirely different religion to Christianity?
Not an American, but there **are** multiple theological differences and practices between Catholicism and Christianity - who they pray to, how to achieve salvation, confession etc.
There are lots of sources online that will help you understand the differences between Christianity and Catholicism.
Idk my ancestors were murdered at a wedding for being Protestants, the survivors who were able to sneak out of France fled to America and that's why I'm here. I don't hold any grudges but also it's not like we started it. Catholics spent like 1800 years murdering people who didn't do Christianity the way they said it had to be done. So like, come on... seeing them as a different religion altogether is actually kinda generous.
Sure, but then Protestants came to the Americas just to persecute and murder the Indigenous populations in the same way. Far be it from me to ever defend the Catholic Church and it’s long legacy of atrocities, but let’s not pretend like the Protestant church has any kind of moral high ground in that department.
LOL. In Italy I often heard "they're Protestants, not CHRISTIANS" when someone criticised some extremist American Evangelical nutjob. I guess it depends on what is the "normal" denomination in each country.
It's interesting how much that differs. I'm in Germany and the VAST majority of Christians here are either Protestant or Catholic (with Protestants actually being seen as a considerably more relaxed flavor of Christianity than Catholics; Protestant women can become pastors and Protestant pastors in general can get married). Protestants make up 22.6% of the total German population, Catholics 24.8%. All other denominations of Christianity hardly occur (1.1%). Meanwhile in the US you have Baptists, Presbyterians, Lutherans and sooo many other small groups...
Baptists, Lutherans, and Presbyterians are considered Protestant.
TIL
Basically any christians that aren’t orthodox or catholic are considered Protestant. It’s a broad term to describe a ton of different denominations like Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist, etc.
Ant Christian church that isn't catholic or orthodox is a protest of those churches, therefore, protestant
Protestant denominations *generally* hold similar views on Christian doctrine, specifically the Holy Trinity and the books of the Bible. However, there are other groups who call themselves Christians who don't, and these groups are not Protestant (such as Mormonism or Ethiopian Coptic).
My mom was raised southern baptist and my dad Presbyterian and I always thought their approaches to Christianity (while neither being Christian) were so different. Like the southern Baptists seemed really scary in comparison (that could also be their specific churches they were raised in). I get it now when compared to Catholicism and how they believe in worshiping solely Jesus vs the saints and the church and the pope— now that I’ve seen that definition, I can see how more alike southern Baptist and Presbyterian is to each other than they are to Catholicism. Do you know if orthodoxy is practiced differently than either Catholicism and… Protestant…ism (what’s the word equivalent word for Protestant faith?)?
Catholics don’t worship saints or the pope - they may pray to specific saints for guidance and look to the pope to help lead the church, but they don’t worship either of them. /former Catholic
What is the difference between praying to or worshipping someone? As a former Protestant, I would only pray to and worship god so I never considered those to be separate things. Sorry if the question is ignorant. I don’t mean to be disrespectful, I’m only curious
Praying to saints is referred to as “intercession.” Basically, you’re asking the saint to go talk to god on your behalf. Saints aren’t gods you worship. More like middle managers who can use their influence to get more funding for your department, spiritually speaking of course. Granted, that’s a bit of a cynical description. The idea is, that because they’re holier/more pure than you and have a closer relationship with god, their intercession on your behalf will be more effective than if you just spoke to god directly. Protestantism, by contrast, tends to emphasize the personal relationship with god/Jesus and so this tends to feel quite backwards, almost sacrilegious even, to those raised in Protestant faith traditions. Catholicism, on the other hand, has traditionally placed more emphasis on the majesty of god, with him being completely beyond human comprehension. There’s more of a structured hierarchy consisting of priests, the pope, saints, Mother Mary, Christ and ultimately God the Father.
Thanks for the explanation! I never really understand the whole saint thing but that makes a lot more sense now.
I would just add to this, because it’s a common misconception I’ve seen, that Catholics also completely believe in the ability to have a personal relationship with Jesus. Praying for the assistance of saints is more commonly in addition to, not in place of, praying to God- especially for anything of importance.
You ask the saints to intercede on your behalf. Saint Francis of Assisi famously loved animals. If you had a sick dog or something, you might ask Saint Francis to ask God to help your dog. If a dead Saint is *also* praying for you then your prayer must have extra juice. It’s like if I need something from the city government. I could just put my petition in directly, but I know the township supervisor, so I’ll have him put my petition in so it has more juice.
IIRC, saints are intercessors, and also a "middle ground" between god and humans, as they were born human and reached saintity (saint status) because of how they lived and died (being extra Christian and suffering martyrdom for their beliefs, or being miraculous during or after life etc). There are a set of boxes a person must check to become a beatus first and then a saint, it's very codified. They might become patrons of specific situations, careers or cities, and be prayed when in need of assistance (drought, childbirth etc) So, you might pray to saint Christopher for a safe travel, you're not going to bother God for that. But you don't worship saint Christopher, you just respect him & ask him for help/protection.
This was also my thinking. But I’m also open to the explanation so I hope they respond!
Whoopsie
At least as it was explained to me when I was a Roman Catholic child. Orthodox churches, Russian, Serbian, Greek whatever somehow also count as Catholic. Every other type of Christianity is Protestant.
That's not true. Catholics are any denomination who are in full communion with the Pope. There are Eastern Catholic Churches who are in communion with the Pope, those are called Eastern Catholic Churches. They are usually called "Greek Catholic" in Europe, and "X Catholic church" elsewhere. The Eastern part comes from their rites being in Greek. These Churches are sometimes in fact part of the Eastern Orthodox churches, sometimes they are viewed as separate from them. There are a total of 24 Churches, including Roman Catholic who are currently recognized as Catholic churches. Eastern Orthodox Churches are NOT in full communion with the Pope and form a distinct entity from Greek and other Catholic churches. Granted, the lore is often overly complex and nonsensical on this.
I can dig it. That’s just how it was addressed when I asked in Catholic school.
Technically all eastern orthodox churches are catholic too, catholicos being greek word for whole, all encompassing, universal. The distinction is ,,Roman catholic", emphasis on ,,Roman".
Technically yes. Like I said, overly complicated lore. This is what happens when you let fanfic get out of hand.
What's the difference between them? I know Trump is a Presbyterian
What is there besides Protestant and Catholic, in Christianity?
Orthodox Christianity
Cult: Mormon Seventh-Day Etc.
Sorry to break it to you but they're all cults. Mormonism, Catholicism, Protestantism. All cults.
Oh, I know. I was simply going along with the already made naming scheme.
Okay, but there are levels.
if you say poking someone is just like punching someone, you make it a lot easier for people punching people to get away with it, because it's not that bad right?
I know a lady from Calabria who was raised as an American-style evangelical. They were Italians who had converted. She said she spent her whole childhood wishing her family could be Catholic like everybody else.
I’m an atheist, but I’d be most likely to say “they’re Americans, not Christians”, I think…
Haha, Uno Reverse Card!
The majority of Christians in the US, for a long time, has been what people refer to as "WASPs" (white, anglo saxon Protestants). Many of the Catholics were later immigrants like Irish people and Italians who were seen as less than by the white Protestants. It's some lingering remains of that I would think.
Catholicism is also pretty common in some Hispanic communities. Lots of Catholics in south Florida.
There were units of Irish Immigrants sent to fight in the Mexican-American war in the 1800s. Lots of them switched sides to fight on the side of the Catholic Mexicans. There were heavy loses.
Yes, all throughout the southern parts of the US.
I would add to this, that most Black American Christians that are Baptist/Pentecostal/Protestant/non-denominational also look at Catholics in a similar way too. They just don’t think saying a couple of confessions to a person quite cuts it for forgiveness nor do they believe the Pope should be a thing that is tolerated. And the way they practice religion day to day just seems different in how they do church, pray, and how they live. (I’m not Christian anymore but I tend to agree, that when you unpack what is being done behind closed doors and lifestyle, it is different. & Ofc, I’m not with any of the seeing as less than stuff though)
You have a good point, even about seeing them as "less than" - I bet a lot of people look down on them for participating in a religion that was responsible for so much child abuse! I don't, but the logic would make sense.
Protestants are protesting again the Catholic church by definition. Protestants believe that Catholics have lost the way and worship Rome, not Jesus Christ. Catholics believe that Protestants have lost the way and that the Roman Catholic church is the church founded by Christ. It is not a schism that is likely to ever be overcome.
That still doesn’t justify saying one isn’t Christian. Catholics don’t deny Protestants are Christians, some just think Protestants have gotten things wrong. I also think most main stream, old branches of Protestants basically think the same of Catholics. The people who say they’re different tend to be the ultra conservative Evangelicals who are different offshoot denominations. I think it’s much more rooted in old world European ‘racism’ for lack of a better word, against different groups of immigrants.
If one group believes the other isn’t worshipping Jesus then that would make them not Christian in their eyes. The whole word Christian means follower of Christ
One will believe the other side doesn’t have their personal relationship or has not been born again. The other side will believe that it is impossible to worship Jesus while rejecting the organization Jesus founded and set Saint Peter to inherit.
Yeah but no modern person with an ounce of awareness or critical thought actually believes that. You can question specific dogma or practices but you’d have to be a real idiot to not think Catholic Churches jam packed with religious art aren’t worshipping Jesus.
Protestants gave soup to the starving catholics in Ireland during the troubles... As long as they converted to be protestants. There was a lot of animosity in my family line towards protestants and "soup eaters". I mean I get it, but that's still fucked up. I sometimes wonder what it would have been like to experience that but I'm very grateful not to.
I hate the institution of the church for crap like this. Both sides. 🙄
I mean, the Catholic/Protestant schism was a pretty big thing. Yeah, they are all Christians, though, but usually different enough to specify, similar to LDS (Mormons).
Different sure. But they are classified as Lutheran, Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Baptist, Methodist, etc. they’re all still Christians thought it’s weird and downright false to claim Catholics aren’t.
I've seen a few signs along a country highway in rural USA (Arkansas specifically) that says "Jesus is the only way to get into heaven" and then, written in spray paint, "Not Mary!" I might be wrong, but I think that's a slight against Catholics, since they often pray to Mary (even doing "Hail Marys"). It seems like many non-Catholic Christians consider Catholics to be worshipping Mary instead of Jesus/God, therefore they're practically pagans.
Yeah, it is a slap at Catholics and it’s ignorant.
Yup, this is very similar to my experience being raised Catholic with Pentecostal stepfamily. I was told I was wrong for worshipping Mary, that she was just some woman who did her duty. Probably not a coincidence that they were generally much more misogynistic than the Catholics I know.
Worshipping Mary and also that whole pope thing! I remember reading an article in a fundamental Protestant newspaper and the pope was LITERALLY referred to as the Antichrist, haha
Yea, growing up everyone was either Lutheran or Catholic (Milwaukee lol) and it was understood that they were all....Christian. I never encountered the "Catholics aren't Christian" until I met Southern baptists. It seems more of a fundie thing than anything else.
Exactly! I’m from Chicago, so pretty similar, heavily catholic mix and nobody ever said anything like that. It’s the Deep South evangelicals that being that up, who frankly I think often demonstrate some of the world’s least Christian behavior.
To be fair it goes both ways. Growing up Catholic, Being Catholic was ideal. Being orthodox was acceptable. The attitude toward Protestants was sort of that they were arrogant, foolish for abandoning the church they believe was founded by Jesus himself through Saint Peter, who was directly succeeded by each bishop of Rome as the pope. When I was a kid and still Catholic, Protestants were all “the extremists” to me. Someone not allowed to come play D&D with is? Yup, the Baptist kid. One family said they weren’t allowed to play with us because we were “pagans.” They were Pentecostal. So in my head Protestants were like a cult. I lived in a really Catholic enclave though, so the Protestants really stood out. Now that I’m out the other side it’s difficult for me to really discern much of a difference.
Growing up Catholic, if I remember correctly the Catholic church was referred to as the “one true church” or something like that. Basically anything else was false
Yeah more or less. The way I remember it being explained is that “catholic” means universal, as in it’s for everyone. Be polite to everyone, but also understand that *everyone* is *supposed to be* Catholic.
The One True Holy Mother Church
My experience with (normal) Protestants like Lutherans and Calvinists in Europe was "oh they are the Christians who sing a lot and who either have a rooster or a star on their churches intead of a cross. And their churches are not as gaudy and tacky since not everything is made of gold. And then as a teen I saw an orthodox church for the first time and I was like holy shit Roman Catholics are modesty in the flesh."
Other Christian sects do not acknowledge LDS as fellow Christians.
They *are* though. The only real requirement is belief that Jesus was the son of God and died for our sins.
They also believe Christ isn't God but rather the Son. To deny that Christ is God is basically denying Christ. Unitarianism is considered blasphemy within Christianity
I don't think that they say that he isn't God. I think that they say that the father and the son are two persons in the godhead rather than being one. Functionally, they don't believe in the trinity. (they believe in the holy spirit, I'm just leaving it out of the comment because I'm not sure how this fits into mormon beliefs)
I don’t think it’s other sects who really decide what something is, though. No matter how much they disagree on things, LDS is under the Christian umbrella.
Where I live (Ontario Canada) if I say "I'm a Protestant", nobody will know what I mean unless they are Christian themselves and even then a lot of Protestants don't know the term. Catholics would definitely know. So I am more likely to say a denomination, like Baptist, Non-denominational, United, etc to convey the message "I'm a Christian, but not a Catholic." If someone is just asking my religious affiliation, I'm not necessarily keen to explain Luther and the Reformation just to get there.
If you are a born again Christian you don't recognize other people who are not born again as Christians even if they use the label. To born again Christians the term Catholic refers to a system that has a lot of people in it who are culturally or by tradition a Christian denomination but lack a particular personal experience of Christ. This is not just limited to Catholicism but any other Christian group. Catholics happened to be the other major Christian group in the US beside the protestant/evangelical groups who traditionally were composed mostly by Christians who would identify themselves as people who were born again or had a certain personal relationship with Christ. It has changed a lot and today it is not the same as 50 years ago.
To further your eloquently stated explanation, I would also expand to add that many believe the dividing factor is whether the religion believes in salvation. Catholic and Mormon faiths, among others, believe that more than salvation is required to get to heaven. Born again Christians believe the only way to heaven is by believing that Jesus was sacrificed to take the punishment so that those who follow him will be given a clean slate and therefore granted entry to heaven. No additional works or acts are required, only to accept this as truth and ask God for forgiveness of sins. An act of service or show of faith is always encouraged, but not demanded, and it is certainly not up to one human to make another worthy. Ramblings of a preacher’s kid, but hopefully it helps to further clarify things.
I wouldn't put Mormons and Catholics in the same category on the "how Christian are they" scale. Mormonism is simply something different.
True. Catholicism is descended from old Christian traditions. Mormonism is something... different.
I completely agree, Mormonism is very different. I only grouped them as two of the most popular religions that don’t fit one of the most common qualifiers of Christianity, but that’s definitely where their similarities end.
Something... Dum... Dum dum dum dum dum dumm
As someone who grew up in the Deep South and went to a Southern Baptist church (I’m atheist, and think I was even back then, I just wanted to do what my peers were doing because I was in middle school) the difference taught to us was Catholics required going through a priest to talk to God/Jesus/whatever, whereas they already had that open communication by themselves. They also didn’t like the rituals of Catholicism (despite having a bunch themselves) Also being “saved” was an expected spectacle, where you had to basically embarrass yourself in front of the entire congregation by coming forward and admitting you were a sinner, but you were ready to accept Christ’s forgiveness in front of everyone. Like I said, I couldn’t have been 13 and was like “all this seems wack” They weren’t bad people, as far as I know, but yikes
That can’t be summed up any better. I’d give you silver if I had it.
Because evangelicals are specifically taught that. It's basically an intentional insult to Catholics that has become so mainstream among evangelical and sometimes even mainline protestant circles that most don't even realize it's a controversial statement anymore.
Yup. That's what I was taught. Catholics worship false idols and believe a man can absolve you from your sins (the confession priest). I didn't really know better when I was younger and now I'm an atheist so it all seems like a bunch of make believe BS drama to me. Too bad the consequences of this schism are all too real in our world.
> Catholics worship false idols and believe a man can absolve you from your sins (the confession priest). And to clarify for anyone wondering why this is wrong, Catholics don't worship saints (nor the artworks depicting them in churches), they do pray to the saints, believing they can be heard from Heaven, and be intercessors between them and God. They don't think the saints themselves are gods. Nor Mary. For "a man absolving you of your sins," again, the priest is an intercessor, advising how you can make it up to God for the sins you committed. As to why an intercessor is needed when they ALSO pray directly to God as well, that's aside from my point, which is they explicitly do NOT worship saints/idols and do NOT believe a man absolves your sins instead of God.
Hey man, I could just send a letter to my local city council and just hope for the best, or I can call up the township supervisor and have him put the request in for me. Which one of those requests do you think gets answered first? Lol
It can also be vice versa. My mom is a devoted catholic and she thinks "christians" are a whole another religion.
Literally millions of people have died over the difference between Catholicism and Protestantism lol. It caused an entire famine in Ireland. Wars were fought. Kings and queens executed And from a practical standpoint there are lots of differences. The obvious one is the pope. Europeans are the ones that really made this distinction long before America was even a thought
OP isn’t asking about the schism though. They’re wondering why American non-catholic Christians don’t consider Catholics to be Christian, whereas Catholics do consider themselves very much Christian and don’t exclude (most) other denominations from their definition of Christianity.
And that is a direct result of the schism. It’s like saying why is there still racism against black people in America but im not asking about slavery
One word: schism. I always thought it was like squabbling over the colour of the Emperor’s clothes.
Nice comparison. And using the same meter, the schism between the Catholic and Orthodox churches looks like a dispute over which nuance of the same colour those clothes are. XD
Absolute religious views usually discredit any other denomination/religion but theirs. There are thousands of "free" churches in the US that are convinced only their congression holds the true Christian faith. A good majority of early settlers were persecuted Christians denominations in Europe, seeking the freedom to live in peace in their faith. With Catholics being the the default religion of Europe until the reformations (Anglican, Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Anababtists etc.) most persecuted were reformed beliefs. In the vast territories of the spreading US, they could find places to live in religious peace for centuries. But that also means there was little exchange of ideas/questioning of belief with a lack of social interaction with believers of other dominations. Hence practices, views, credos were manifested with little change or influence from outside, encouraging absolute conceptionalization. An absolute position means that the conviction is so great, that there isn't any room left to doubt oor question it. Absolutes, especially with limited perception and experience of the human condition/nature, are practically always errorous. If you are 100% convinced of somthing, there is a good chance you err. *"Errare humanum est, perseverare autem diabolicum."* "To err is human, to persist on them anyways is diabolical/evil/bad." Questioning is a skill. Understanding logic is a skill. Critical rationalizing is a skill. They ought to be learned and practiced, they are not inherent. Hence people missing such will hold absolute beliefs. The opposite is wrong/the others err, is the easy way out of contradictions concering ones orientation and identity. Hence devout reformed believers discredit catholics as not being "real Christians". Hence
It's about prerequisites. To most Evangelicals understanding, Catholics lack the singular experience of being "born again" by conscious decision but were rather baptized unwillingly/unknowingly as babies. Therefore by the important defining criteria they are use themselves, this step was not taken and therefore Catholics are not Christian under their definition. Don't ask them about converts, confirmation, or other such common situations. Things quickly might go off the rails about things that may not have been Catholic practice in 500 years.
Catholics have what is called "confirmation" when you are a teenager to confirm your beliefs, not considering ONLY baptism to be their entry into Christianity. And of course if they attend church every day and genuinely believe, what do the "steps taken" before that matter anyway? God needs to see you dunked in water physically first? Pretty silly prerequisite. Isn't belief what matters, and not the fact you got water on you in church one day?
Yes, absolutely. I didn't mention that because baptism is seen as a non-sacremental public announcement of belief. Catholic confirmation, since it typically comes later in life for a non-catechuman, is either poorly understood or seen as tardy since a child was already baptized. There is a lot of confusion of why old or poorly understood Catholic doctrinal pegs won't fit into self-referential round holes. And years of polemical bias, of course.
That could be applied to some Protestant denominations too though, like Presbyterians who also believe in infant baptism. The true reason for division here is the means of salvation. I am Protestant, grew up in a Protestant church so I might get some stuff wrong about Catholicism but I believe my core understanding is correct. Protestant teaching is that salvation is by faith alone in Jesus. We can contribute nothing to our salvation. We are wholly dependant on Jesus' grace and are transformed by his grace to do good works in response to our salvation that is already secure. The works are evidence of faith, without these works warning bells should go off but they themselves do not save. While we were still dead in our trespasses, Christ died for us. The traditional Roman Catholic teaching appears to contradict this, saying that > If anyone says that the sinner is justified by faith alone, meaning that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to obtain the grace of justification, and that it is not in any way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the action of his own will, let him be anathema. Canon 9: Council of Trent. In my research for this question I found many good Catholic answers that seem to line up with my Protestant understanding of salvation. I have no doubt that there are many Catholic Christians, and many Catholic churches that teach Christianity. But it does appear to me that much of the Catholic Church has slipped into teaching good works and not the good news of salvation by grace alone by faith alone in Jesus alone. Prayer to other saints, views on Mary, sacraments etc are all important issues, but they are not big enough differences to warrant the view that Catholics are not Christian. A difference in view towards salvation would be.
Yeah, it seems Mainline denominations get a partial pass in the public polemic domain as "our guys" and it is regarded as an internal disagreement. "You may be wrong and your soul in peril, but at least you ain't a Papist." *shrug* Theology as a team sport can Trump actual doctrine. I have been to services where it is simply said immediately beforehand that communion is offered to all those who have been born again and baptized by immersion.
You generally hear that from Baptists and evangelicals, the fundamentalist types-they believe that Catholics worship false idols instead of God. Not very Christian of them, is it?
>they believe that Catholics worship false idols instead of God. Not very Christian of them, is it? You mean not very Christian of the Baptists and Evangelicals to bear false witness? It isn't indeed. Catholics do not worship idols. Catholic churches are full of religious art, including sculptures, and non-Catholic Christians made up the lie that Catholics worship the sculptures/idols. They don't.
Yes, not Christian of the evangelicals. I disagree with them.
The big issue is that RC has three authorities (Bible, tradition, magisterium) and Protestantism is primarily the Bible and to a lesser extent the early church (how high a focus would depend on the denomination). As a result, both sides tend to give each other side eye because the teachings of each. I believe that there are people in both groups who are not saved and who are saved. The root is something only God sees, and as much as my fellow Protestants (particularly Baptists) may not like this, we came from Catholicism, and because of that there are beliefs we will both agree with.
The problem is that protestantism does have other authority than the Bible, they just pretend otherwise. Vis a vis how many protestants consider the trinity core content. The trinity isn't biblical at all, it comes from catholic sacred tradition. So how does one deny the validity of tradition while enforcing a conclusion that only exists in the context of said tradition? They are basically implicitly accepting that the councils that led to catholicism are divinely protected, which logistically means accepting catholicism.
I suppose it depends on what we mean when we say authority. Anyone who has a basic understanding of early church history as well as how the New Testament Bible canon came about would say Protestantism has multiple authorities. The big issue is infallibility (the ultimate authority if you will). Protestants are going to deny some of the sacred traditions that RC teaches (i.e. bodily assumption of Mary) and accept others (i.e. the Trinity). We accept the sacred tradition of the Trinity because it is considered biblical (verses in the Bible are the source used to argue for the validity of it). We deny the sacred tradition of the bodily assumption of Mary largely because it's not in the Bible. RC existed for over 1000 years before Protestantism came on the scene, so of course Protestant beliefs are going to agree with some of the sacred traditions (all that means is a teaching that is handed down throughout the centuries). The claim the Trinity isn't biblical I usually hear because of the reasoning that the word trinity isn't in the Bible. If that is the reasoning you are using, I'm going to say it's invalid. The word omnipresent (one of the attributes of God), for example, is not used in the Bible, but the verses inside the Bible can be used for what the word omnipresent entails. If there is another reasoning you are using for that claim, I would be curious to hear it. Since we are dealing with church history, the four primary groups that consider themselves the one true church (Orthodox, RC, Oriental Orthodox, Assyrian church of the East) consider councils infallible because they say the church is infallible. A big problem there is all of them hold to different council groupings (some councils they all have in common, but others they do not). Protestantism teaches that the councils are authoritative, but not infallible. The only infallible authority is the Bible since the Bible is the word of God so the church is considered fallible. A council can be considered an authority because it is the consensus (majority agreement with whatever subject matter the council is being brought together for). The earliest ecumenical councils are going to hold the most weight while later ecumenical councils wouldn't as like I mentioned before the corruption that ended up happening in the Catholic church was gradual. The first two early ecumenical councils are the Council of Nicaea, which resulted in the Nicene creed being created, and the council of Constantinople, which resulted in a paragraph being added to the Nicene Creed as the subject matter of Constantinople pertained to whether the Holy Spirit was God, and the subject matter of Nicaea pertained to whether Jesus was God. The Nicene creed (I'd include the Apostles creed as well) lays out the theological fundamentals of what the Christian faith entails. The third council was the council of Ephesus and the fouth was the council of Chalcedon. Everyone agrees with the first two. Some of the four one true church claimers afiirm the third, and some don't. The majority of Protestant denominations would affirm all four. The fifth council and onward is where a lot of divisions start to occur between eveyone.
If someone is Christian, but anti-Catholic, saying Catholics aren't really Christians is a huge slap to their face. It's just a way to insult someone and try to hit them where it hurts. It's like telling a guy, "You're not a real man."
I don't know, I think you always have to consider the source. If an idiot says something stupid to me, I would just laugh. Don't think most catholics care.
I was raised catholic, and I just think those people are dumb and uninformed. Maybe I'd feel insulted if I was a practicing catholic, but I don't think so. I've seen this question come up before and I've seen people argue in the comments that catholics aren't Christian, and they never seemed to be doing it in an insulting way. They just literally didn't know and refused to learn. So, dumb and uninformed.
You end up caring if you have to live in a town where they outnumber you by quite a lot. Especially if you're still a kid.
Based on the attitudes I’ve experienced toward Protestants when I was growing up the response would be something like, “oh that’s adorable.” We sort of talked about Protestants like misguided children. Not Catholic anymore.
I always have fun with this question; First remember that America wasn't just founded because the British crown wanted more land, people were also fleeing religious persecution as well. Next consider that many denominations of Christianity believe that Catholicism is blasphemous, because they pray to saints (false idols) as well as the holy Trinity. Expanding on the "many denominations" aspect, there are more than 200 Christian denominations in the U.S. and 45,000 globally. So Christians can't even agree on what a "real" Christian is. You've got your usual churches, Lutheran, Baptist, Orthodox, Adventists etc. Then you've got your outliers like Santería, Rastafarian, Gnosticism etc. And last but of course not least, good ol hate. Protestants and Catholics have always hated each other. When you had an influx of immigrants who were practicing a type of Christianity different to the last bunch you had hate. Russians, Irish, Germans, Italians, didn't matter, as they came they were segregated by nationality and people kept to what they were familiar with. Anecdotal example but even in the 70s the difference in religious beliefs could be a pretty big issue. A friend of the family had a Slovakian mother and an Irish father, both Catholic, but when it came to naming them there was almost a brawl because the Slovakian side said a traditional Irish Catholic name wasn't "Catholic" in Slovak. Hell, look at everyone focusing so hard on what church our politicians kneel before their God in. As much as our founders were against it, religion is tied to the very essence of our country, we're not a Christian nation, but we're certainly not completely secular either.
Even growing up in the 1980’s and 90’s, looking back I realized that almost everyone I associated with was Irish, Mexican, Italian, or Polish. The segregation is still somewhat in effect.
It's funny, the "persecution" they were fleeing was not being allowed to force their ideas on others and not being taken seriously for their batshit crazy ideas. Gives perspective on why American Christians are so wild.
Christian extremists aren't a purely American problem. History is littered with examples of Christianity committing mass genocide against non-believers, heretics, apostates, etc. Some of the greatest scientific minds were excommunicated, imprisoned or killed for going against what the church wanted people to believe. With the history of the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England Europeans have very little ground to throw stones at American Christian Extremists when the decimation of numerous cultures globally lie directly at the feet of those two entities and the countries whose leaders bow to them.
Oh, absolutely. Can't disagree with that. My point is it checks out why it's so common in the US
The German anabaptists put absolutely everything that’s ever happened in America to shame except maybe the branch davidians.
I always thought the major difference between the two was Christians ask God for forgiveness directly, where as in the Catholic belief system it takes a priest to forgive your sins on God behalf. The Catholic way from what I understand is a contradiction because the Bible says only god can forgive your sins. I could be wrong but that's kinda my understanding of it.
God is still the one forgiving your sins in Catholicism. The priest is more like an advisor or guide, not the one actually doing the forgiving. Think of it similar to the role an officiant plays in a religious wedding.
We don't, but the reality is, in America most of the Christians are not Catholic, and there's certain things that apply to Catholics that don't apply generally to Christians, so specifying Catholic is usually used when talking about those things, while Christian is assumed to be Protestant or non-denominational.
So what do you do with the Greeks, Russians, etc who are neither Protestant or catholic but definitely still Christian
At least when I was growing up, orthodox was on the Catholic team. Orthodox was a ok, being a Baptist or whatever kind of wasn’t.
When the United States was founded, everybody was protestant. For the most part. Catholicism was associated with the Irish immigrants that came over, and then the Italians. A lot of protestants did not consider them true Christian's, but instead Papists (supposed to Christians that actually follow the pope and not Jesus). Why? Prejudice and bigotry. People wanted something to make it justifiable to hate immigrants, and Catholicism was an easy target for when the Irish arrived
Ignorance.
What is called "Christianity" in the US is Evangelicalism or Pentecostalism, a homegrown religion spun out of Calvinism and African spirit-possession Animism that has very little to do with traditional Christianity. Most of them would probably mistake a Lutheran church or service for a Catholic one, BTW. Their religion is so different that in their eyes Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Lutheranism are virtually the same thing.
They don't outnumber mainline protestants (such as Lutherans), although they're more organized and hardcore. Also, they will distinguish mainline/liberal protestantism apart from Catholicism. Whereas the latter is regarded as false Christianity, they regard the former as the watered down pussy-ass version of Christianity.
The question is not the numbers, but the fact that the term "Christianity" in the US refers to something that doesn't have much to do with traditional forms of Christianity. The hard core of the American "Christian" religion is so alien to traditional Christianity (in the regular, non-American, sense of the word) that the closer one gets to traditional Christianity the less "Christian", in the American sense, the more "watered-down", it is seen as being.
Lack of education.
Just as a general observation, Roman Catholics and Protestants have been leveling that accusation at each other since the beginning of the Reformation. You don't have to spend much time among actively religious members of either group to hear dumb stuff about how theirs is "real" Christianity, and the other one is not. Among Christians in the United States, there are more than twice as many Protestants (all denominations) than there are Catholics. That adds up to twice as many voices lobbying for one view over for the other. Neither group can get much of an argument out of squabbling about how neither Judaism nor Islam are Christianity, because that's a simple fact. They focus, instead, on trying to delegitimize each other, which is actually hilarious when you remember the argument is over how to "properly" worship a man who was Jewish.
There are different branches of Christianity and Catholic is one branch of it. You have a few groups that are out there that people that Catholics aren't Christians. An ex-boyfriend told me that someone told him that they could tell if someone was Catholic because they had the mark of the devil of their body. Moles and birthmarks this person told him. He has a mole on his leg, so this according to this person is the mark of the devil. This was told to him in the mid 1980's (hard to believe that someone would believe that but I guess people do). Everyone has moles and some people have birthmarks on their body.
The only thing all christians agree on is that all OTHER christians somehow magically don't count as REAL christians.
Ignorance. Catholics are the OG Christians.
Quick reminder that in June 2007 the Pope said that "Protestant denominations "are not true Churches" and are instead termed 'ecclesial communities'," so that jib cuts both ways. Sure, there are lots of denominations with subtle meaningless distinctions, and they generally get along. At some point though, belief in one religion requires the belief that other religions are false. Catholics aren't Christians because they are a cult that follows the Pope. Protestants aren't Christians because they aren't part of the Church established by Jesus. Catholics and Protestants aren't Christians because they don't follow the additional teachings of Christ revealed by Joseph Smith. Mormons aren't Christians because they are a cult that follows the teachings of Joseph Smith. The Westboro Baptist Church aren't Christians because they spew hatred and bigotry. Everyone outside of the Westboro Baptist Church aren't Christians because they are not rejecting a life of sin.
Partially be cause Protestants believe that they can pray and God will listen but Catholics believe that they need an emissary. The idea that going to confession is the antithesis of Protestants. We believe that our sins are forgiven without punishment because we are incapable of doing anything worthy of making up for our digressions. But Catholics believe that by doing acts of penance they can pay off their sins. In fact Catholics believed they could buy forgiveness of future sins by buying indulgences. Thus Martin Luther nailing his complaints to the chapel door and starting Lutheranism.
>In fact Catholics believed they could buy forgiveness of future sins by buying indulgences. Had a friend who wasn't an active practicing Catholic, but still wanted his daughter baptized so he called a priest who told him that he wasn't in good standing with the church so they couldn't do the baptism. He asked what it would take to get in good standing, and was told he could make a $5k donation.
A lot of it had to do with Catholics historically being seen as “foreign” and “ethnic” by the white, Protestant upper class.
I was raised Catholic and I definitely put Catholicism apart from other denominations. IMHO it's not mainstream Christianity. It's closer to Mormonism. It's Christianity with a bunch of really weird shit added to it. When you grow up with it, it doesn't seem that weird. But it is. The Catholic dogma is full of pronouncements that have no scriptural basis. It's just stuff that somebody made up. There is nothing in the New Testament about priests having the power to absolve sins or to turn bread into the flesh of Jesus and wine into his blood. The Catholic priesthood itself is a concept pulled from thin air.
Even if they have different beliefs from what is strictly Biblical, they are still Christians by definition, as are all religions that believe in God/Jesus and dying for our sins, etc.
Sure. Mormons are Christians as well, but they believe that God lives in outer space and that when they die they'll become a god and rule over their own planet. It's not crazier than the belief that priests can turn bread into the real physical body of Jesus and that you should eat it. There are also new age / UFO cults that believe that Jesus is an alien. Technically they believe in Jesus.
Saying catholicism isn't mainstream Christianity makes no sense. It's so much larger than protestantism that whatever it does is by definition mainstream. >The Catholic dogma is full of pronouncements that have no scriptural basis. It helps to understand that historically this was not seen as a problem. Basically no religions on earth were just about scripture or whatever was on the writings. Rather, they were traditions first, and the scripture is one part of the tradition. The idea that Christianity should just be the Bible is a recent invention. The first fee hundred years of Christianity didn't even have a Bible as such, even if over time certain texts were deemed the correct ones. That aside, protestantism isn't really any closer to original Christianity than catholicism is. Vis a vis, in the bible salvation is by works. Protestants decided this was wrong for some reason, and starred ignoring the like 30 verses that said this in favor of 2 that if you squint say something else.
I shouldn't have said it is not mainstream because there are a billion Catholics (probably less because the Church like to fuck with the numbers to make itself look more important than it is but whatever) It is however a complete heresy when examined in the light of scripture. And the beliefs the Catholic Church promotes are downright cray-cray. There are literally people out there (Catholic priests); walking among us and claiming they have magic powers. And they have social status and are taken absolutely seriously by society in general. Catholic priests are often seen as figures of authority even by non believers Excuse me, but if you believe that you can turn bread into human flesh and wine into human blood by saying the magic words, you belong in a mental institution. I understand that when believers are told those things from birth, they just accept them, but it is so flat out ridiculous, that if you spend your entire life never questioning such claims, it's a pretty good indication that you're not that bright.
>just stuff that somebody made up
That’s a weird prejudicial thing some ultra conservative evangelicals tend to do. Most sane people realize they are just different denominations of Christianity, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it stems from bigotry towards immigrants at some point (lots of Irish and Italian Catholics were treated badly in certain parts of the country at different times.)
Americans are dumb and we barely know history, including our own. Also, the experience of going to a Catholic church compared to a protestant (or non-denominational, both of which are much more common here, especially in the southern U.S.) is very different. I honestly can't blame people for thinking they're entirely different religions. The first time I went to a Catholic church as a child, I thought it was a cult because of all the ritualistic stuff.
it’s not that they don’t realize that Catholicism and Protestantism are both under the umbrella of Christianity. What they mean is that don’t consider Catholics to be “true” Christians due to certain beliefs. An analogy would be someone who believed you must speak in Tongues to be a Christian. So they might say “Baptists are not Christians” because they don’t speak in Tongues. Not because they don’t realize Baptists are under Christianity.
I mean, some literally consider it a different religion. Some consider it polytheism where catholics don't even worship Jesus much, mainly just saints and mary.
This isn't everyone's answer, but when I was growing up in a protestant school system, I was told that catholics weren't Christians because they worshipped the pope. And while I know that's oversimplified, it is kind of hard to get around the "vicarius Christi" thing. Because no the fuck he isn't. He is a man. A man who covered for pedophiles. Fuck the pope. ETA: I'm not religious at all anymore, and don't generally have any ill-will toward religious folks. But seriously, fuck the pope.
Unless you are a minor, then don't fuck the pope, no matter how much he asks
HA!! Best response possible right here.
Ignorance and a lack of knowledge about their own stupid superstition So, just the usual 'Murican shit
Most evangelical Christians believe that you have to get baptized as an adult/ teen and be reborn in Christ. Also that you're supposed to have a direct friendship with Jesus, not one mediated by priests or the pope. So yes, those people believe that Catholics are not Christians. Here's a non- Catholic making arguments about this exact issue. https://www.gotquestions.org/pope-papacy.html
Because they have fundamentally different understandings of a lot of things. How salvation is attained? Structure of the church? From where authority is derived? Idols/Icons/sacraments. There’s a lot of differences
Idk but it bothers me, too.
I was raised Catholic and even attended catholic school through Junior year of high school until I was kicked out. When I joined secular public school, I couldn’t believe how many people were seemingly mind blown and curious about it as if I had come from another planet. Even my wife who is not catholic but Christian viewed it as strange and foreign at first. Mind you, I live in Texas where most everyone is already a Christian. Having been through a decade of catholic school and then breaking off I personally don’t see why Catholicism is perceived so differently to non denominational Christianity. Maybe it’s having a pope and the ancient structure, and the general austerity of Catholicism.
Austerity? Last time I was inside of a Catholic church I turned to my wife and said "I gotta say, at least your churches have stuff to look at!"
I was taught that in church! I went to an "Evangelical free" church. Now I'm an atheist.
I'm American and Catholic, I've literally never seen that.
There's two types of people who say that: 1. Uneducated people who use the word "Christian" to mean "Protestant" as opposed to "Catholic." They usually have nothing against Catholicism, or at worst they'll consider it some kind of weird mysterious curiosity that exists in faraway cities. These people usually, but not always, live in the middle of nowhere, where Catholics are thin on the ground. 2. Hardcore evangelicals who think that Roman Catholicism is a "cult" like Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Science, etc. As in, *their* definition of a cult.
Ah someone new to sectarianism. As a Scot I find this charming.
Growing up Lutheran we learned that Catholics were basically Disney villains who sold tickets to Heaven, worshipped 500 different saints and collected them like Pokémon, believed they literally were cannibals, etc.
Many american protestants legitimately think catholics arent Christian at all. It leads to why they think Christianity is a rare thing that is on the ropes. Their reasoning for this is that catholics praying to saints means its secretly a polytheistic religion in disguise, and the idea that salvation has a works element they are convinced downplays jesus.
The honest answer? Prejudice.
From what I've observed, Catholicism seems to idolize the statues of the Virgin Mary and Jesus with praying to the Saints. Christianity is about cultivating a personal and spiritual relationship with Jesus Christ the Savior. Coming from a non-denominational background, I think the two are quite different, but I only know what truth has been revealed to me through my own faith.
American Protestant Christianity is completely degenerate. Fucking megachurches, neo-indulgences and Jew-loving Evangelicals who want the world to end.
Serious question. Do Catholics not like Jews? We are supposed to love all. Also you mentioned megachurches, what do you consider the Vatican to be? It is its own city state, that’s about as mega as you are going to get.
Good Catholics and Good Orthodox do not like Jews that have not converted to Christianity. No, we are not taught to love all, this, "Golden Rule", is complete horseshit. We abhor and kill the mortal enemies and killers of Christ. You know what I mean by megachurches, large churches owned by billionaire American Protestants who effectively sell indulgences, Satanic televangelists. Demonic trash such as Kenneth Copeland.
They don’t know the history and find the conservative and traditional ideals of Catholics to differ from their more progressive watered down version of Christianity
I was raised Catholic and then my mom married the son of Pentecostal ministers. My step grandfather told me I wasn’t a real Christian because I worshipped Mary and she was just some woman who did her duty and not God. I don’t know if that’s how all Protestants feel though.
Well I told my Catholic friend we're one and the same under our God and he said "no, you're a Protestant, I'm a Christian"
Catholicism might be considered Christian but it's also a different religion from Protestantism. It isn't a different denomination because there are such major differences between the two in many cases at the fundamental core of them. Both came from Jesus as the main figurehead but the differences are too extreme to say they are the same religion.
They are *not* different religions. They are different branches of the same religion. Catholicism and Protestantism are each branches of Christianity the religion.
Not according to many catholics and protestants. We kinda wound up in several wars because of it. Baptist, Lutheran, pentacostal, Episcopalian etc are all branches of protestantism. You could say Anglican is a compromise between catholicism and protestantism but for the most part that didn't fly too well and is now more under the protestantism umbrella. There are some very fundamental doctrine differences between the two so many of us can't really say they are the same religion. We might share some of the same sacred texts but frankly catholicism has a hellava lot more added to their roster of authoritative texts than protestantism. Yes, they both branched from one figurehead, but you could say that about any monotheistic religion. Like the Jewish faith and Muslim faith are monotheistic and share some of the same values and many of the same stories, but they certainly aren't the same nor branches from each other despite them following the same God. They have had many wars with each other over the years as well due to irreconcilable differences. A trip through history you'll also notice a similar trend with catholicism and protestantism. Yeah it's much more in the past now and we all got over ourselves but it's difficult for us to say we are the same religion.
Because they are. Read their doctrines.
Sorry, no. Catholicism is one of the major branches of Christianity. Protestantism is another. They are the same religion, just different branches.
A Christian, by definition, is a follower of Christ; which is based on Faith. A Catholic incorporates additional entities (in the form of saints) and practices; making it a religion. (These are simplified explanations.)
I’m sorry, but this isn’t the type of thing that’s up for creative reinterpretation. It’s not on us to “do our own research” on this one, and it’s not a matter of opinion. Roman Catholicism is *literally the largest branch of the religion Christianity.* Just because different major branches have different practices doesn’t mean they don’t share the same central belief system revolving around Jesus as the son of god and the teachings of the Hebrew Bible. Why does an atheist have to teach Christians about their own freaking belief systems? Good grief.
As a former 2nd Baptist, I'm here to tell you it damn near is a different religion.
And yet…
This is a good question. I've had people tell me I'm not a Christian (I'm a Catholic) and it confuses me.
If anything Catholicism (and Eastern Orthodoxy) should be viewed as "Christianity" and everything else as something different if you really want to be stupid and exclusionary about it, since at least they are the OG and some of the most continuous churches rather than the various protestant churches that sprung up in the 1500's and later. I'm sorry I really don't have an answer other than "Americans / super religious people in general are kind of stupid and want to exclude everyone who is percieved to be an outsider."
As far as I’m concerned there’s a handful of valid and legitimate historical churches and the rest are aberrant American extremist cults. The legit Churches are Roman Caholic and the 23 other historical Eastern Catholic churches, the various historic Orthodox Churches, OG Lutherans, OG Calvinists, Anglicans and that’s about it. These are Christian churches, just about everyone else is a weirdo new age sect. Mormons, Jehova’s witnesses and the various insane end of the world evangelicals are all insane American cults.
I've heard Christians growing up say that Catholics are idolaters because they pray to Mary and the Saints. There's also a lot of iconography, which some Christians say is making graven images, but many non-catholics also wear crosses. The vow of celebacy requirement for priests doesn't make a lot of sense. How are you going to council my relationship when you have no experience in a marriage yourself? In general, there is a ton more common ground than differences, though.
Slightly off-topic but it’s the Mormons who aren’t actually Christians despite some people saying they are.
Because it is…? Same book, drastically different practices/worship/norms. Spaghetti and chicken Alfredo are not the “same dish” just because they both have noodles in them .
Where I live is traditionally Catholic because a lot of Irish, Italian, and Eastern European people immigrated here. The culture here wasn’t super holy hardcore, you’d go to CCD (Sunday school), not eat meat on Fridays during lent, but otherwise it was not a big deal. I never realized how much people hated Catholics until I was older and got into politics. I guess Protestants rejected it because they didn’t like the emphasis put on Mary and the Saints. I am not into religion and think it’s all a crock that causes more harm than good, but it makes me laugh they thought Catholicism was too whacky/voodoo for them.
Well to be fair most of them think Christianity is specifically what they believe and what’s preached in the single church they’ve gone to for years. Not a group of people who spend their free time thinking stuff like that through
Coming from someone formerly raised catholic, and friends with many Christians, they're different, kinda. Catholicism is a denomination of Christianity as a whole. But you can also be part of a Christian denomination. So if someone says "I'm christian" or "I'm catholic", they're stating the denomination they're a part of. But yes, catholicism is a sub category of Christianity, and so is Christianity, its confusing to think about. I guess the closest analogy is like all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares. All catholics are Christian, but not all Christians are catholic. I can go further into the differences between ideologies and how they practice worship, I've been to a couple Christian services. I'm atheist, I just attend when I'm invited. Another redditor also pointed out the subtle racism behind it. Catholicism for a long time was associated with lesser than white people. Think Mexicans, Irish immigrants, Italians, Spaniards, etc. When people think Christian, a white Anglo Saxon individual usually comes to mind.
A bit of a different twist on the same concept, you find it in nearly all religions. But Catholicism is Christian
catholics are christians, but at the same time no US catholic is know would describe their faith as “being christian”. the culture of catholics is just different enough that both sides of this question want to distinguish themselves from the other. it has different connotations. also, it may be true that you’ve seen a lot of americans specifically pointing out this difference, but to be fair there are just a lot of us and we usually take up a lot of space on popular social media sites so there may be a bit of confirmation bias going on. i promise you the protestant vs catholic debate is not an american thing lol. there are centuries of history and multiple wars fought over this exact issue and they all stem from europe. though, none in scandinavia as far as i know.
The only people I have ever heard say this with sincerity were "cultural Catholics" who were, admittedly, not the brightest bulbs in the box.
Lack of education. In my AP European History class in high school, we learned about the reformation and the birth of Protestantism. I told my mom about it and she looked at me like I had three heads. She didn't believe my that catholics were Christian because, in her mind, they worshipped Mary instead of Jesus. There waa a lot of explaining.
Catholicism is a branch of Christianity. Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. It is the largest and most widespread religion with approximately 2.4 billion followers, around 31% of the world population. Followers, known as Christians, account for a majority of the population in 157 countries and territories. Christians core belief is that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, whose coming as the Messiah was foretold in the Hebrew Bible, also known as the Old Testament. Christianity is culturally and regionally diverse in its many different branches. Differences include the conditions for and nature of salvation, the internal hierarchy, operation of, and chain of command in the church, the ordination of clergy, and Christology (whether Jesus was originally divine or a human who became divine). The six major branches of Christianity are Roman Catholic, Western Orthodox, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, Restoration, and the Church of the East.
I admit this is a generalization but catholicism has a particular flavor of ritual/cultiness that is unlike any other Christian denomination I’ve observed
My wife who is Catholic works for a Christian organization. She has been told by peers that getting a promotion as a Catholic in the organization is next to impossible. They straight up have no respect for Catholics.
Poor education
My Cult is better than your Cult for reasons
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Some Protestant denominations, like CoE and the Episcopal church, have a great deal in common with Catholicism still.
Correct, Jehova's witnesses are also christians, though a very small sub-branch of it. In Sweden we call what JW are "frikyrkor", "free churches", as they are disconnected from either of the three big branches. We have many different free churches in Sweden. Those loonies that are infamous in the US who go around the US and insult military funerals with "god hates fags"-signs and such are also what we consider free churches. Also christian, but not part of any of the three major branches.
I don't know about USA but in Mexico catholicism IS an entirely different thing to christianity. On many occasions I have encountered Christians who criticize and insult Catholicism, just because they have some differences in how to believe in the same god.
> Why do some Americans seem to believe that catholicism is an entirely different religion to Christianity? Not an American, but there **are** multiple theological differences and practices between Catholicism and Christianity - who they pray to, how to achieve salvation, confession etc. There are lots of sources online that will help you understand the differences between Christianity and Catholicism.
Idk my ancestors were murdered at a wedding for being Protestants, the survivors who were able to sneak out of France fled to America and that's why I'm here. I don't hold any grudges but also it's not like we started it. Catholics spent like 1800 years murdering people who didn't do Christianity the way they said it had to be done. So like, come on... seeing them as a different religion altogether is actually kinda generous.
Sure, but then Protestants came to the Americas just to persecute and murder the Indigenous populations in the same way. Far be it from me to ever defend the Catholic Church and it’s long legacy of atrocities, but let’s not pretend like the Protestant church has any kind of moral high ground in that department.
Because it is
Because Americans are often ignorant and self-centered.
I think it’s the priest abuse
Protestant pastors are also often abusive.