Catholisism is still Christianity!!!?

Question

I know this to be true, but so many people think Catholisism is different than Christianity along with Baptists, Presbyterians, and so on. How can I explain this to people who don't believe being Catholic is still being a Christian!

Answer 1

You can't. People are closed minded. I really do wish you luck with in your endeavor.

Answer 2

A Catholic CAN be a Christian, but being Catholic does not make someone a Christian, nor does being Baptist or Methodist or whatever. A Christian is a Christ follower. Not a "Church" follower or a "Doctrine" follower.

Every religion to my knowledge teaches something that isn't Biblical. To one extent or another. Ask yourself this, is the doctrine of the religion more important to me than the doctrine of Christ and the Bible? If you wouldnt change your mind according to what the Bible says about something, then you likely trust the religion more than the Bible. I used to be Catholic, I am non denominational now. I believe the Bible and I trust Christ for my salvation. I have had to change my ideas on subjects many times as I read the Bible. Are you (anyone in a religion in general not YOU perse) willing to do the same?

Answer 3

What id contradiction between Catholicism and the Bible?
1. Statutes of Mary - Exodus 20:4 prohibits this.
2. Mary without sin. - All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Only Jesus remained sinless and the sacrifical lamb.
3. Confessionals - Only God can forgive sins and blot the out. Priests have no power over this unless the transgression was against them.
4. Baby Baptism - Nowhere the Bible does it bring up baby baptism. even Jesus waited til He was 30 before He was baptized.
5. prayers to saints. - 1 Timothy 2:5 There is ONE mediator between God and man, the Lord Jesus Christ.
6. purgatory. Jesus taught of heaven and hell. Nowhere did any teach on a place of "purification" for those who were "not so good to enter heaven." It is unScriptural where monies and prayer are given to release someone for purgatory.
7. Hail Mary penance. Jesus warned of repetitious prayers and the poor practice of praying to the mother of Jesus.
8. Tradition. This is one that peeves me the most. This elevates the Catholic tradition on the level of the Word. In essence, the Word is ineffective without the Catholic beliefs and tradition to agree with it. But it doesn't always agree.
I was a former Catholic and I saw the errors that did not agree with Scripture. What I could not understand is, if the Catholics claim to write the Bible, how come they don't follow it and invent their own doctrine?

Answer 4

What makes a catholic a Christian?

What did you do and remain doing that makes you a disciple of Christ?

Why are you praying too saints to help you, and not praying to and through Jesus Christ?

Where in the New Testament, did Jesus say "Hail Mary my mother?

Where and when did Jesus Christ say to use Rosary Beads? for what purpose? When?

Jesus Christ is the HIGH Priest. Why you and others confess sins too man? Jesus said not too.

Show me the Word Catholic in the New Testament. In the Greek. Christian is only mentioned 3 times.

How do you come up with Catholics started the first religion when Christian is mentioned 3 times in the Bible?
church of Christ
church of God
church of the Brethren
church of the Believer's.
Jehovah's Witness
Baptists.
church of the Pentacost
church of the Corinth.
They are all mentioned in the Bible.

Not catholic.

Answer 5

Well, as a woman who married a Catholic man, I can tell you from experience that it isnt the same.

When was the last time, if ever, that you took your very own bible out and read it? It is the word of GOD, by your own churches defintion. Please read it.

In the bible, there are many things in Gods word that your practice that are so against Gods word.

Believing that you are automatically in heaven ,because you were baptized as an infant.
The bible states that you must pray the sinners prayer, and ask Jesus into your heart, and submit yourself (self will) to him.
Then and only then do you receive the free gift of salvation that the bible speaks volumns about in the new testament.

Your baptism would come after that point, as an outward expression of your inward change.

The bible states "do not pray in repetition as the heathens do"

The catholic church holds onto repetitive prayers strongly, even though the bible speaks out against it point blank.

There is so much more, but these are good ones for you to look up and study. Another quick one to look up is why you should not call your pastor 'father', it is a point blank no'no, as only GOD is the father.
Good luck

By the way, I had nothing to do with my husband leaving the church he grew up in, but I did own a bible and did encourage him to read it for himself. I am not sure about all catholics that finally read their bibles, but my husband got very angry at first when he read and saw the wrongs that he had been taught his whole life.
Please try not to get angry, just the knowing that you can still come to Jesus on his terms and not the churches should create Joy in your heart, that for the first time, you will really know in your heart that you are saved.

Answer 6

A Christian is someone who believes in Christ. Just being a believing Christian is not enough. Some of the other answers deal well with what is means to be a Christian living a Christian life.

Answer 7

That's funny - my husband's (obviously non-Christian) family thinks that all Christians are Catholic... he had no idea until he went to college that there were things like Lutheran, Baptist, etc... all of which are considered Christians. The easiest way to explain would probably be to take them to a Catholic church and show them the giant crucified Christ figure on the altar (or a picture of one from a prayer card).

Answer 8

The major issue is that people do not realize that there are three major branches of Christianity:
* Orthodox Christiantiy;
* Catholic Christianity
* Protestant Christianity.

I'll skip which books they consider to be protocanonical, or deuterocanonical, for the Old Testament, because this is more dependent upon the specific group, than it is upon the branch of Christianity.

For the most part, all groups within those three branches accept the same 27 books of the New Testament.
[The exceptions are The Syriac Orthodox Church, which does its best to ignore five of them, The Armenian Orthodox Church, which adds 3 Corinthians, The Coptic Orthodox Church, which includes roughly 40 books for the NT, in the Narrower Canon of Eighty One, and an obscure sect that includes the Epistle to the Laodocians.]

What all these groups differ on, is their understanding of what those 27 books of the New Testament mean.

* Orthodox Christianity adhers to the rulings of the first six councils, in terms of what the theology of Christianity is.
* Catholic Christianity broke away from Orthodox Christianity, because of a change in the wording of the basic Creeds of the Church. [The Pope of the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church excommunicated the entire Orthodox Christian Church, claiming it to be heretical. ]
* Protestant Christianity was created when the Pope declared that those who wish to reform the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church to be heretics. [Ironically, he then began to carry out some of the changes requested by the reformers.]

If one is looking for a litmus test for Christianity, the only question that all three branches agree on is "Do you accept Jesus as the Son of God, and as your Personal Savior?"
If the answer is "Yes", then you are a Christian. If the answer is "No", then you are not a Christian.

Each group within each branch will have additional requirements, before allowing one to partake of communion within that group.

Each group within each branch has its own beliefs, and practices about what it means to live the Christian life.

It is much easier for somebody to say that practice "x" is scriptural --- especially when one does not know the biblical passage that practice "x" is based upon --- than it is for that individual to study the Bible, to determine why practice "x" might be considered to be scriptural.

If, for example, somebody thinks that the Pope is wrong in ruling that Catholics should not use contraceptives, study the Bible to determine why that is a scriptural justified policy.

If somebody thinks that Orthodox Christianity is wrong, in praying for the Dead, study the Bible to find out why that might be a Biblical sound practice.

If somebody thinks that Protestant Christianity is wrong, to require immersion as part of the Baptismal Rite, study the Bible to find out why that might be a scriptural sound policy.
[And yes, I know that only some groups within Protestant Christianity have that belief. I can not think of any belief, or practice, that is common to all groups within Protestant Christianity. ( The Church of Christ rejects The Apostle's Creed. Lutheran's reject the idea that one has to be completely immersed, to be baptized.) ]

The first minor issue is that most people who profess to be Christians do not know the tenants of the group that they are a part of. As such, their secular practices may not be --- and according to at least one Christian Cleric, usually are not --- in accordance with the practices that Jesus commanded his followers to adhere to.

The second minor issue is that the beliefs and practices of Protestant Christianity are so divergent, that the only way they can be grouped together, is that they started off by rejecting Catholic Christianity. And thus Catholic Christianity is perceived as being the only form of Christianity out there.

Answer 9

Of course Catholics are Christians. The Catholic Church was the first Christian Church and the only Church founded by Jesus.

johnusmaximus1: You obviously don't know very much about the Catholic faith. All the sacraments of the Church (Marriage, Baptism, the Eucharist, etc) are all Biblically based. I won't make this post exceedingly long by posting all the verses but most can be found here http://www.scripturecatholic.com/index.html

Answer 10

If you ask me, the important thing is to go back to the cross. A belief in Jesus' sacrfice is all that's required to be a Christian. Growing spiritually comes later.

Turn to I Corinthians 1. I hope you have a Bible handy. If not go to http://www.blueletter.org Near the middle, it mentions how the saints at the city of Corinth were arguing and even bragging about who baptized them -- whether it was Apollos or Cephas or Jesus Christ Himself who baptized certain people. The deal was, certain believers held themselves to be more important depending on who they were baptized by.

Cephas probably means Peter. Saint Peter is considered to be the first Pope by Catholics and was one of the apostles. Therefore, Paul himself, also an apostle of Christ, said we should not divide ourselves like that. Furthermore he said, "Thank God I baptized none of you."

It's not about the church you're a part of. It's about believing that Jesus' sacrifice was good enough for you.

Your Protestant friends probably don't like the non-Biblical stuff Catholics do, like pray to saints for intercession, hailing Mary, teaching about Purgatory, etc. But if those things are wrong, then by submitting yourself to the Holy Spirit, God will tell you Himself whether those things are wrong. Whether or not a Catholic is a Christian or not is not the issue. The issue is whether we have yielded our lives to God and hidden His Holy Word in our hearts.

Answer 11

I think that the most common argument made would be that the Roman Catholic religion teaches a salvation by works of the flesh and by religious sacraments where the Bible teaches salvation by faith in Jesus alone.

I told my Mom (Roman Catholic her entire life) once, during a heated debate on this topic that that was where I saw the primary difference and she stated, "I don't get my teaching from the Bible, I get it from the Pope".

There are a great many differences betwen the way mainstream Protestant believers live out their Biblical faith and the way Roman Catholics live out their religious faith.