Further question for those Christians who don't think Catholics are Christians...?

Question

Yesterday I asked if Christianity was in fact only 500-odd years old if your view is that Catholicism is a false religion - presumably up until the Reformation, whatever was called "Christianity" was a false religion. You're welcome to see what other people answered:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Ag35Q9PRUphwhQAVSuq83IXsy6IX?qid=20061127162200AAqtaNO

My follow up question is, specifically for those who don't accept that Catholics are Christians --- how many Christians are there in the world if Catholics aren't Christian? I keep hearing figures of around 2 billion (VERY doubtful), but once predominantly Catholic nations like Brazil, Italy, France, Spain, Ireland, et cetera are taken out of the picture, doesn't this number rather collapse?

I want to know if Christianity is a large, 2,000 year old world religion with many followers, or a latecomer, much younger than Islam, with a scattering of members, mostly in the US, Canada, Britain and northern Europe.

Answer 1

Actually, if you do not wish to count Catholics, Africa is the continent with the most deep rooted Christian population.

Answer 2

I can only answer for myself when I say that I grew up in the catholic church, and never, at any time, heard the pure straight unadulterated Gospel, and I was a catholic for 28yrs. They go by tradition over Bible, pomp and ceremony over sincerity, and Jesus ALONE is not exalted as Saviour.
Christianity goes back to the Biblical followers of Christ. There have been Christians, ever since the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord. The catholic church came to be around the 3rd century AD.
It was through reading about catholicism from their OWN writings that I was convinced it was false.
I dare say, that true numbers of actual Biblical Christians are much much smaller than what those studies say. They don't go into DETAILS about just WHAT a person is basing their Salvation in; and if it's in a church, a pope, a dead saint, their good works, or the sacraments, than that is catholic teaching and not scriptural, So according to GOD'S definition of a Christian, this person doesn't fit the bill.
EDIT:
It's also very fair to say that if I lived in a different times, the catholic church that I was raised in would consider me a heretic now for reading the Bible, and trusting in Jesus Christ ALONE for the security of my eternal soul, and would burn me at the stake, as they did many of my predecessors who believed as I do.

Answer 3

The True Christian Faith began on the day of Pentacost following Jesus' assention to Heaven. This was not The Roman Catholic cults begining. That occured sometime around 300 yrs latter. The RC were not the first church nor have they ever been the only church. The RCs do not have any assurance of their Salvation, by there own decree in their own law. Even the pope dose not know if he will get into heaven or not. The RC priests are not allowed to tell any one that their Salvation is assured. this teaching alone is against the teaching of Jesus The Christ. and this alone is enough to disqualify them from claiming to be Christian. There is a long list of other examples, that are readaly available to any one who wants to look them up, that disqualify RS from the claim of being christians.

Those of The True Christian Faith have the Absolute Assurance of their Salvation...their place in Heaven is confirmed.

All who come to God in The Way He proscribes will receive His free gift of Salvation and become of The Body of The Church of Which Jesus The Christ is The Head. These are the ones who are of The True Christian Faith. Only those of The Church will enter Heaven.

there are, among the RCs, a few who are of The True Christian Faith. But these came to The Faith not from following the dogma of the RCs but from breaking that dogma. They choose to remain in the RC because of family and other ties and most do not reveal there beliefs to other RCs.

There are far fewer "Christians" in this world than is believed by the world.

While The Church of which Jesus The Christ is The Head was formaly commisioned just over 2000 yrs ago, the Only Way for any to enter Heaven has always been through The Way, which is Jesus who is God. Those who ended there mortal existance befor the Sacrifice of Christ, and who were faithful to God's Law, went to a place called Paradise. There they waited for Christ to come and take them to Heaven. Which He did after He left His mortal body on The Cross. Now The only way to Heaven is To come to God in The Way He proscribes...and the ones who do so, when there souls leave the mortal body, will sleep untill Jesus calls them to join Him

Answer 4

The entire answer to your question really depends on your definition of Christianity.

The biblical definition would be followers of Jesus Christ and his teachings rather than a mans interpretation of his teachings.
Literally speaking, did you read the sermon on the mount or did you rely on some person to tell you what the sermon was?

In the book of Acts, it is spelled out even more clearly. The apostles were having troubles with people in the early church splitting into little groups and following the teachings of Apollos, Paul, Peter, etc. Paul wrote urging the people to stop doing this. He told them they were to be followers of Jesus Christ, not of the teachers.

The univeral church (modern day Catholic) ignored this warning and called themselves followers of Peter, even after being warned not to do this.

When using the biblical definition of Christianity, this would exclude not only Catholics, but Lutherans, methodists and any one else who follows the teachings and interpretations of a man rather than straight from the bible. This would put me in a much smaller group than the broad definition of a Christian that the world follows as being a believer in Jesus Christ.

There is a great difference in believing and following. I have been around Catholics for over 25 years now and yes, they believe that the bible is not good enough. They believe that only the teachings of the pope are straight from God and when these teachings go against the bible it is because God has given the pope new revelations.

The problem with this,is that in the bible itself, God states that this cannot and should not be done. His word has been revealed and cannot go against itself.

As for me and my house, we believe in and follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. When mans teachings go against the teachings in Gods word, we stick with Gods word, not mans.

Answer 5

Good question.
How many TRUE Christians are there in the world? Very few. Perhaps out of two billion or so as you say just a couple hundred million.
People who belong to the Catholic Church IF they are truly born-again, bible believing individuals are such in spite of the Catholic Church. They have rejected the man-made tradition and just accepted what the Bible says. I have a friend whose family is in the Catholic Church. She feels she has no choice but to attend it or else be rejected by her family, but she herself deep down rejects the false gospel of Catholicism.
Jesus said, "In vain do they worship me, taking for commandments the traditions of men." God hates man-made tradition.

Answer 6

Christianity, as a whole, including Catholics (this is the number I've been getting) is ONE billion....

If you cut out all the Catholics, that number would DRASTICALLY reduce. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if the majority of Christians are strictly American....

Does that mean that all other branches of Christianity need to get their own name too? Lutherans, Baptists, Episcopalians....

Heck, even Mormons consider themselves CHRISTIANS, just not a part of Christianity.

Ugh...I have a headache again. Atheism is so much easier...

Answer 7

There a 2 different types of Christians. Those that keep and do the word of God and those that profess to be christians by beleiving that they can do whatever they want to and just believe in christ and he will save you. Like go to church on sunday, celebrate pagen holidays and eat swines flesh. If one is a true chritian they no that thes things are not to be done and they are an abomination to God.

Answer 8

Catholics (both Roman and Orthodox) are the oldest form of Christianity, so how can they not be Christians? If there were no Catholics, there would be no other Christians. The Reformation just split the effort.asunder.

Answer 9

Define "Catholic".

If you mean "Roman Catholic" - you need to say so.

I am 100% Catholic. But I'm not of the "Roman" variety.

Kath = Greek for "According to"

Holos or Holon - from where we get the word "holistic" = Greek for "the whole".

The creeds know of only ONE kind of church. The One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic kind that was started by Jesus Christ.

Of that Church, all Baptized persons are the members.

Answer 10

Bad Liberal,

You and I are about as opposite as they come politically. I have to give you credit on this observation of yours, it is very astute of you. I guess there is hope for you after all. At the same time I don't expect 10pts. I just give credit where credit is due and you've earned it this time.