All things which existed before the Protestant Reformation.No offense taken.
I get what you are saying, and while I'm sure there are plenty of things you can point to that says they're the same as Christians, there are also things that point to them not being Christian. For example the infallibility of certain men, ala Popes and Priests; their version of Baptism; the Church forgiving sins; the Virgin Mary being a part of the Trinity; the Sacraments; etc. etc.
Branching off from an entity and then claiming you are the entity is nonsensical. It would be like Sheaus and Randy Orton leaving the WWE, starting a promotion and then claiming they are the true WWE. We'd laugh at those people.
I have no problem at all with sects branching off from the Catholic Church and claiming they are also Christian. But to branch from the church and then claim the original church wasn't the TRUE Christian is nothing more than thinly veiled propaganda.
Outside of the stupid people, no.So can you see or at least understand why some people do not view them as what they identify with as Christian?
I understand Catholicism was around first, but it's still vastly different from the Protestant denominations. Just because something came first doesn't mean they got it right.
While Catholicism certainly has its faults, both currently and historically (lots of them, in fact), having grown up in a Catholic church and visiting numerous Catholic churches over the years, the one thing I've never heard from any of them is the idea other churches who claim to be Christian are just pretenders. In my experience, it is only Protestants who have been so arrogant to make such a claim (and I have seen firsthand said arrogance, from the church my grandparents used to attend, no less).
Catholics are Christian. They were Christian before the Protestant Reformation. To be a Christian essentially means to believe in Christ and his teachings (and historically, through baptism), things which the Catholic church was doing from the very beginning.
So no, there is no logical way to claim Catholics are not Christian, unless one is completely closed minded, completely immune to the idea that even a slight variation of what they believe can still be considered Christian.
No, they are not. Catholicism is not a different religion from Christianity, whether in history or in practice.I view soda in your analogy here as religion, not Christianity. Christianity and Catholicism are different religions with some similarities, but still very different.
That doesn't make sense. When you went to a Catholic church, you went to a Christian church. Perhaps you now attend the church of a different sect of Christianity, but you've always went to a Christian church.I was raised Catholic, btw. Then as a teenager I started going to a Christian church. They're two different Worlds.
Exactly.Барбоса;5351279 said:What do you mean by a 'Christian Church'?
The Catholic church is a Christian church.
'Christian' is the umbrella term; Catholic, Protestant etc. are the denominations. To say that Catholicism and Christianity are separate is factually incorrect.