why do some protestants say they are christians but Catholics are not?

Answer 1

They’d like to think they are the only ones who can apply the word “Christian” to themselves. There are 2 parts to this phenomena:

1) a very unloving, unChristian arrogance.

2) a certain threat they feel from the Roman Catholic Church, as the true Church, founded by Jesus Himself instead of the men who founded their denominations and churches.

Let’s remember that it’s way too easy to get angry at these people, and lash out at them for their arrogance, but picture them like little Chihuahua dogs yapping and nipping at the heels of a Great Dane whom they’ll never equal in strength or power or truth. These protestant fundamentalists need our prayers, not our anger.

Answer 2

Catholicism teaches a works salvation and they place the traditions and rituals of the catholic church above the Word of God. They reverence the pope as the holy father which is blasphemy against the Holy God. Jesus called God Holy Father in His high priestly prayer in the Gospel of John chapter 17. The pope is not God and he also accepts worship of himself. The catholics are a very deceived people who are being led to eternal damnation by the millions because they do not believe that the sacrificial atoning death of Jesus is enough but, they must add to what Jesus accomplished on the cross. Most of them are sincere but, a person can be sincere and be sincerely wrong and lost. They put their confidence in the church traditions and the pope. They believe Mary was sinless, and a perpetual virgin, they believe in purgatory, and the bible does not teach that. They believe they must confess their sins to a man, who has no power to forgive them for God. They believe their good works are going to get them to God and they pray for dead people. Many of them are very ignorant of the Word of God and many of them are also very ignorant of the teachings of their church. They have a bible with added books that are not inspired by God, therefore they are not part of the bible. If you mention the Counsel of Trent to many of them they do not even know what it is and that is where many of their teachings originate.
The deceiver is doing what he does best with these people.

Answer 3

Because they never wanted to be called Protestants so they want to monopolize the name Christian and believe they owns it. It's a shame that Martin Luther, considered to be the founder of Protestantism is a bad model who uses vulgar and violent language throughout his career, just read his works, like his "The Jews and Their Lies" that even revived anti-semitism and was one reason that inspired the Nazis to act against the Jews.

Answer 4

Many evangelical Christians associate Christianity with a "born again" experience. Catholicism does not teach about Salvation by grace, but teaches more of a works salvation. This is why some protestants don't believe Catholics are Christian. Because they aren't "born again".

Answer 5

Ignorance.

They don't want to accept that their religion stems from Catholicism, both of which fall under the umbrella of Christianity.

Answer 6

JonM's right, but stated it more politely than I might. I would add that there may be a bit of self-righteousness invovled.
Solly Redux raises a good point as well

Answer 7

Christians will disagree with other Christians because out of 3,000 different religions none can agree because they have adopted their own beliefs and religion to suit there taste.

Answer 8

neither protestants nor catholics know god's will for the human race.

Answer 9

It all stems from the Reformation of the church. They have different points of view of who has Apostolic Succession.

Answer 10

They do that to further validate themselves in their own minds.

I've heard several people refer to Catholicism as a "cult" because they think that priests and speaking latin and having a more set-in-stone way of doing their thing makes them weird and threatening... and weird and threatening, to them, makes them "not of Jesus."