Another week means another community question for members and readers of the Coming Home Network, and we have one that we hope sheds some light on how Christians of good will understand one another. It goes as follows:
Before becoming Catholic yourself, did you consider Catholics to be true Christians?
Did you believe that Catholics were well-intentioned, but condemned by their own ignorance of the true Gospel? Perhaps you thought that some Catholics were Christians, but the average Catholic-on-the-street wasn’t. Maybe you didn’t consider Catholics to be Christians at all, or maybe you considered them to be Christian in a sense, but misled on several key points- we’d love to hear your feedback! Please share in the comments below, and visit our Community Forum to find threads related to previous CHNetwork Community Questions.
Absolutely 100%. Anybody who takes the Bible as scripture and believes in Jesus, fully God and fully human, crucified for our sins and resurrected into Heaven, is a Christian. What baffled me is that Catholics don’t seem to identify as Christians, but rather drop that and just say “I’m Catholic”. I wanted to include them under the “big tent” but they seemed to want to be excluded.
I should clarify, takes the Bible as the ONLY scriptures.
I’m Catholic and your perspective is a bit wrong. We are Christians and I don’t know how you came up with the view of our wanting to be excluded from the big tent.
Hey Arvid, this is just a personal experience of mine. I’m dating a Catholic, his whole family is Catholic, and I’m starting RCIA at the moment plus multiple years of intensive study of Catholicism and mass attendance. So it’s a little odd to have you call my perspective “wrong”. When I’ve asked my boyfriend what his religion is, he tells me “Catholic”…and then says when I ask “oh yes I suppose that means I’m Christian”. This is, I have found, a near-universal response among Catholics. There is also a strong desire to differentiate from Protestants (which is true of Protestants towards Catholics as well).
I’d also point out that this is a perspective that answered “DID” you consider Catholics to be Christians – as in, in the past. The more time I’ve spent with Catholicism the more I’ve come to appreciate it. But a few years ago when I’d had almost no exposure, I definitely had plenty of misconceptions about Catholics and Catholicism (and some correct or partially-correct conceptions).
I “came up with my view” through personal experience. Please give myself and the other converts here a little grace to have thought things that may or may not be accurate! This is a forum for converts by converts; we all understand that where we COME from is not necessarily where we ARE now.