Are Protestants Really Christians?

©1985 by Jack T. Chick LLC
Used in this blog under the fair use clause

Okay, buckle your seatbelts, helmets and eye protection is recommended because we are about to descend into the murky anti-Catholic world of Jack Chick.  Don't worry, we are not going to hang with him long because quite honestly both your and my time is too valuable to listen for long to the nonsense he prints in his tracts. In this gem, he patiently goes through the life of a Catholic girl and comes up with reasons that although she is a Catholic, she is not a Christian. Here is a brief summary of what he says:

• She is not a Christian because she was baptized as a baby.
• She is a citizen of two countries, the USA and the Vatican.
• She goes to confession which he says is not Biblical.
• He casts doubt on priests, nuns, monks and says that these are not mentioned in the Bible.  Then again, neither is the Trinity nor is there any mention of a pastor. 
• He rejects the Real Presence of the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament in spite of the Biblical evidence in the Gospel of John. 
• Jack then condemns the Sacrament of Confirmation, the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick and says that the Catholic girl is hell bound because she was never "saved." 
• Next, he accuses Catholics of worshipping Mary. He states that our affection for Mary is caused by a devilish plot to take our eyes off of Jesus. 
• Finally, he says that what we should do is to pray his version of the sinner's prayer, can't find that in the Bible, but he is okay with that and we should reject the Catholic Church as the whore of Babylon. 

Good Grief!  Let's rise up out of this muck and mire and get back to the clean world!  Jack and his poison pen are tools of the devil.  It is very sad but some Catholics can be pulled away from the Church because they are not well-grounded in the truths of the faith.  It is a sad thing in this day and age that otherwise intelligent men and women do not take an interest in learning about their faith. But that is a subject for another post.  I want to tackle the question that forms the title of this post, "Are Protestants Really Christian?"

In the Bible, we are granted something amazing.  We are privy to a conversation between Jesus and God the Father.  Jesus pours his heart out to God. In this prayer, he prays that all be unified even as He and the Father are unified. At this very meal, he made it possible for us to be one with Him when He instituted the Holy Eucharist.  For over fifteen-hundred years there was no doubt about what the Eucharist was. It was believed by all Christians that it was the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ. It is this sacred meal that makes us one.  Most Protestant denominations do not believe in the True Presence, they see the bread and wine (they use crackers and grape juice) as mere symbols that have no meaning outside of a memorial to Christ. The unity conferred by the Eucharist is therefore broken between the Catholic Church and the Protestant denominations.  But does this take away their birthright to be called Christian? 

Martin Luther did have a good reason for being upset at some of the practices that were going around in the sixteenth century.  The sale of indulgences by a minority of clergy was abhorrent and took something that is good, holy, and part of the treasury of faith administered by the Church and put it into a bad light. Protest against this was a righteous act and Martin Luther was right to condemn it.  However, Martin strayed into sin when he decided that it was his way or the highway.  He did no favors for the world by striking out and forming a new church. He was culpable for the sin of schism. Those that followed him away from the church also sinned by association. Once broken the unity of the Church started to run like an old sock. Today we have thousands and thousands of denominations of Christians that are not in full communion with the Catholic Church, the Church founded by Christ which is the vehicle that will help us attain salvation. 

Are the people that meet in the Baptist Church down the street or the Presbyterian Church on the next block, are they Christians?  After all, they worship outside of the unity that Christ prayed for and their forefathers sinfully split the Church asunder so can they be considered Christians?  Without a validly ordained clergy can these thousands of offshoots have any claim on being Christian? 

The answer, of course, is yes.  Those of us that call Jesus, Lord, are brothers and sisters in the Lord.  Unlike the dreary world of Jack Chick, the Catholic Church does not impute guilt to those, through no fault of their own, are born into a different Christian tradition.ey are in fact our brothers and sisters in the Lord.  They do not carry the burden of the sin of schism on their souls.  The fact is, many of our separated brothers and sisters love the Lord more than we do.  Many of them model their lives more directly akin to that of Christ than some of those born into the Catholic faith.  So, we must pray that someday, and that day may not be until the return of Jesus, that all will be one again.  The fact is simple, there will be one flock and one Shepherd.  

What about Catholics that are ripped from union with the Church by fundamentalist evangelists?  I, for one, cannot fathom why one would leave the Eucharist for the Book. The Bible is an important way to meet Christ and it is said that ignorance of the Bible is ignorance of Christ. The fact is that people who leave the Catholic Church do so because they are not well grounded in their faith.  Every Monday night I watch a show on EWTN called "The Journey Home."  This show features former Protestants, former atheists, reverted Catholics all sharing their testimony and prove that all spiritual roads lead to the Catholic Church.  I am not qualified to say whether or not these poor people have sinned in leaving the Chruch. Perhaps it is a situation similar to the act of suicide.  In old days the souls of a suicide were consigned to hell. Today we have a better appreciation for the complexities of the human mind and very often the person doing away with himself is not able to fully consent to the act because of mental disturbance and therefore has not committed a mortal sin.  A Catholic kidnapped by the honey-laced words of an evangelical is in a similar situation.  He is unable to defend his faith because he does not have the requisite knowledge. I do not believe that our God who knows what is in our hearts would reject the hijacked should because of the soul's ignorance of Catholic doctrine.  

Finally, I do believe that there are people out there that would do anything to bring down the Catholic Church. I do not fear them because their mission is doomed to fail.  The Jack Chick's of the world base their teaching on hate and discord and it shall never, ever, prevail.  We as Catholics have a duty to remember that all that profess the name of Jesus as savior are brothers and sisters in the Lord.  We as Catholics have a duty to be willing to defend the Church from those who wish it ill.  We as Catholics have a duty to work towards the unity and brotherhood of all in the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. We as Catholics have a duty to learn about our faith and safeguard it as the treasure it really is.  We have the duty to evangelize our separated brothers and sister while respecting them as kindred spirits. 

Live Truth - Live Catholic.