What criteria do protestants use to exclude Catholics from Christianity?

It has to be considered when pondering such a question that by it`s very nature Protestantism is a critical concept, and by this spirit of criticism validates itself over and against any other faith.

One of the most used criticisms is that which falsely states that Catholicism is not Biblical,another is that the Catholic church only came about by the power of the Emperor Constantine.

An intelligent researcher makes rubbish of these claims firstly by showing that it was the Catholic church which gave the Bible to the world,and that the doctrines of the Catholic church can be proven to be the very same as practised by the early church by reading the early church Fathers.The strange thing is that as Protestantism thrives by it`s spirit of criticism it cannot do otherwise or else it must return to the one true faith of Catholicism,this one fact keeps Protestantism aggressive and unrelenting.

It all began with Father Martin Luther. When he publicized the (true) misdeeds of some Catholic officials, he was hoping to start a debate, but instead, he found himself facing excommunication, in an age when you were Catholic-- or heathen. In order to save his Christian credibility, he had to find a way to undermine the authority of his opponents. He focused on a verse that said God considered Abraham justified by his faith in him, rather than by any deed he did. Luther interpreted this to mean that ONLY faith can justify, NEVER "works". Luther called this new doctrine "sola fide", expanding it to mean that nothing any human (except Jesus, of course) ever does can affect the salvation of any other human being. By extension, none of the Catholic sacraments are valid and priests have nothing useful to do.

But to be extra sure, Luther came up with another doctrine: "sola scriptura", which means that no teaching that can't be based directly on scripture is valid. That means that most of what the Catholic Church teaches is wrong. Never mind that the New Testament didn't exist until years after Christianity started, or that it wasn't officially scripture until the Church declared it so in councils at the end of the Fourth Century, or that the Book of Acts describes just how new doctrine can be developed through such councils. And disregard the numerous scripture verses on which Catholic teachings are based. And of course ignore those verses that clearly contradict either sola scriptura or sola fide. (Luther had to remove several books from the Bible just to keep the contradictions down.) What was important was to cut the legs out from under the Roman hierarchy and keep Luther in the game.

It could all have been avoided if a few bishops had been more humble and admitted their ecclesial abuses. The original complaints Luther had complained about were finally condemned at the next Catholic council (although his new "doctrines" weren't endorsed). But new problems arose. By junking all that Catholic "tradition", the new "Protestants" had to re-imagine the idea of "Church" and what it was supposed to do. And without all that human history, Protestants also ran into problems that their Catholic ancestors had dealt with centuries before (establishing "traditions" in the process). Worst off all, people did not always agree on what a passage of scripture meant. There was no reason to assume that Luther was the expert, so there were soon a half dozen Protestant churches, then a hundred, then thousands, all split from each other over some doctrinal interpretation or ambiguous verse or another.

Meanwhile, the Catholics still had their hierarchy and their magisterium. Sure it was rather inflexible and oppressive, but at least everyone knew where to start an argument from. And it wasn't splitting into "denominations". The great embarrassment of Protestantism is its continual fracturing. And the denominations most distantly split from the original few bear the most embarrassment, so are consequently the most insistent that "Catholic aren't Christians."

That's a good question. If you look at some history of the Reformation, you will find that there were a few Reformations. In the Lutheran Reformation, Luther and his colleagues did not believe that the Roman Catholic Church was intrinsically unchristian. The central article of faith which the Lutherans and Catholics disagreed on was Justification. The Lutheran position is that God imputes His own righteousness to the sinner through giving the sinner faith in Christ. This faith then is a justifying faith, and by virtue of being justified, the Christian is a Saint and does not need to worry about purgatory. The Roman Catholic position on Justification is that God gives you grace in a two-fold way. First, he gives you His graces through means i.e. through His word, through Baptism, through the Lord's Supper. Second, He gives you his grace immediately (without means; He stirs your heart). This grace then communicates to you the merits of Christ and gives you the ability to do them. Through imitating the merits of Christ, guided by the Holy Spirit with the Word, you eventually become righteous and just, and you are thus justified. Lutherans believe that good works are of the law and do not justify you before God. Good works, rather, are proof to others that your faith exists, and they are for the sole purpose of serving your neighbor. When it boils down to it, although Roman Catholics teach that God must give grace in order for you to be saved, they define grace differently than Lutherans define it. For Lutherans, grace involves absolutely no works of the law. Instead, works from the law are a response which add nothing to grace; they only prove its existence. For Roman Catholics, grace does not truly exist unless the response of grace is there, which are the works of the law. Grace basically helps you along while you become righteous.

Lutherans believe that the teaching of the Catholics on Justification is not Biblical and thus not Christian; however, since they believe that God's word is what creates faith, and the Catholics still preach from the Bible, Baptize, give Holy Absolution, and administer the Body and Blood of Christ for the forgiveness of sins, members of the so called hidden or invisible Church (those who have faith, since only that individual and God know for sure if he really believes) certainly exist in the Catholic Church. The other Reformation movements, of which the Lutherans condemn in the Formula of Concord, were very radical. They did not center their doctrine on justification, but rather on being anti-establishment. These were known back then as the Anabaptists, who stressed that God came to them without the Scriptures or the sacraments. They deny baptismal regeneration and the real presence of Christ's body and blood in the Supper. From these groups you have many mainstream protestant groups which look at Rome as evil because they have so much "tradition." What is funny is that everyone has a tradition of some kind or another. It is popular for these groups to disregard much of the history of the Church and her fathers (e.g. Ignatius of Antioch, Clement of Rome, Jerome, Augustus, Athenasius, The Capodoshian fathers etc.), and they only look at the Bible. Thus you have the name "Bible Thumper." This is because they resent any kind of tradition at all. Some are more extreme than others, but the basic mentality seems to be that since Rome has so many traditions, they trust them over the word of God. Lutherans say this to an extent as well, but it obviously is not that simple. Lutherans have a much deeper theological quarrel with Rome. I hope this gives you some info.

Funny. Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians make up the bulk of Christianity. Each says the other is Christian, so in a vote, the "catholics are not Christians" subgroups of Protestantism lose.

The criteria Protestants use is their own reasoning. The worship of God has been replaced in their system by the *understanding* of God. Since RC/O Christians understand God and the worship of Him (as inherited from the early church) differently from sola-scriptura Protestants, the P's claim RC and O Christians are not. These Protestants are, in a word, mistaken. Sola scriptura is a term invented by the reformers, and could not possibly have been a doctrine held by the early church, which preceded the writing of the New Testament by many, many decades. How such a teaching took hold in Protestantism is baffling, and is *not a reasonable position.

Blessings

/Orthodox

read the bible and compare it to the catholic church, they completely contradict each other on teachings. catholics are ignorant thinking that the apostles were catholic and not christian. the vatican is very corrupt. there with the illuminati,they percecuted christians, they broughed up hitler and tried to get rid of the bible, they have made these new bible versions. so we must stick to the kjv

Only a few loud fundies get people to think that with their revisionist history. Almost all Protestants include catholics in Christianity, as it should be. We follow Jesus Christ, we are Christian.

But, there are those arrogant enough to say, no, you don't know Jesus, only those with my belief know Jesus. It is sad really.

EDIT: O dear, so much ignorance. No, the Church does not say salvation by works, that would be the heresy of Pelagianism.

Brought up Hitler, nope, not even going to dignify with a response.

Tried to get rid of the Bible, that one doesn't even sound like a fundie could think it was true.

I think most Christians tend to see the differences between different groups as significant and important on one hand, but yet see that in the big picture we are all Christians and are all imperfect because we are humans. It is unfortunate that the relative few who focus on differences and thrive on strife get so much attention, because they are missing the point of their own teachings.

The church you belong to doesn't make you a Christian. What you do on Christmas and Easter doesn't make you a Christian. What church your parents go to doesn't make you a Christian. Having crosses on the wall or around your neck doesn't make you a Christian.

A Christian is a person that believes Jesus Christ when he says "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son."

Sadly, there are many people in Catholic churches, in Baptist churches, in Methodist churches, in Presbyterian churches, and in every other denomination that don't believe in Jesus the way he described. They go through the motions of church because it makes them feel better, or because it's tradition, or because that's what their mother told them to do. And that doesn't do them any good.

Being a Christian is an individual thing, not a congregational thing.

Main reason and a wrong reason, is that Catholicism teaches works for salvation. Debunked and false. The Bible teaches that without works faith is dead, so if Catholics are doing works, then they obviously have the faith they love to proclaim. Catholics ARE Christians.

To be a Christian one must believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the Christ.

Catholics believe Jesus is the Son of God and the Christ.

Therefore, Catholics are apart of Christianity.

However; Catholics and Protestants differ on many theological issues.

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I see that I am getting a lot of thumbs down on this one. Let me make it clear that I do not support Catholicism, but I do recognize that fact that it is Christian by definition.

Catholics are indeed christians. In fact, Christ himself created the Catholic church. All other forms of Christianity branched off of the church latter when the church was going through a rough patch in its history.