Are Catholics Christians?

our Catholics Christian this is a pretty important question don't you think and we're gonna answer it right now hey it's Keith and I wanted to do a little series about questions people have about Catholicism and the series is gonna be called do slash are Catholics dot dot dot question mark maybe that's supposed to be question mark question mark question mark or dot dot dot I don't know what the answer is but anyway you get the idea we're gonna be looking at some fundamental questions that people have about Catholicism things that maybe seem obvious to some people but other people look at and go no that's a legit question like do Catholics worship statues and do Catholics read the Bible stuff like that so we're gonna start though with this fundamental question of our Catholics even Christians and I know that to me like that honestly sounds like a ridiculous question to ask our Catholics Christians well duh but I remember a time of my life anyway when I wasn't so sure and so I know for a fact that there are lots of people out there that they have that question and in their minds a lot of people might say things like no so some of the some of the answers that I've seen out there to this question are you know some people say well yes of course Catholics or Christians other people will say well absolutely not they're not Christians they worship the Pope and they have statues and they don't believe in salvation by faith alone so no they're not Christians and then there's other people that say well maybe some Catholics are Christians but probably in spite of their Catholic faith not because of their Catholic faith so they can be Christians if they believe like other people and they just go against their church but anybody who actually knows what the Catholic Church teaches and believes it they can't be a Christian you see these you know these different responses from people so I want to just dig into this question a little bit and and talk about it I think the reason why this is a tough question for people or why some people really want to answer this question other than to say well yeah of course they're Christians is because we have grown up especially those of us in America and I know not everybody on this channel is from America but I need to just say how I grew up you know I grew up going to church with a pretty narrow view of what Christianity was and a very narrow view of who Christians are and of course you know in my understanding a Christian is someone who believes certain things about Jesus but also has this type of religious experience that when I looked at Catholics it just didn't seem like they had that or Orthodox now I agree what when I grew up I didn't know a thing about Orthodox I don't understand anything about it and you know as I've grown up and learned more about oh my goodness there's all these people across the world that have been followers of Jesus since the times of the Apostles and they have this different kind of faith that just seems so different than what I was used to growing up in sort of normal Protestant and evangelical Christianity and I think that that mindset affects how we look at other people and how we decide what it means to be a Christian so for a lot of people they attach all of these cultural things and all of these experiences with their idea of what makes something a Christian or someone a Christian and when they look at Catholicism orthodoxy they go well that can't be right now this really comes from this lack of a greater view of the worldwide ancient Christian faith that spans all the way back to the times of the Apostles and the vast majority of people on this planet that follow Jesus Christ and claim to be his followers they have a different type of faith in what it seems like a lot of regular normal Protestant people will have which leads people to just sort of have a suspicion do you guys remember when Hank hang her off the Bible answer man when he became an Orthodox a few years ago now if you don't know who Hank Hank are office look him up he was one of these guys that gets on the radio with this program the Bible answer man people call in and he answers their questions about the Bible and it was shocking to people when he converts to orthodoxy and every and I saw people losing their minds on YouTube about this I think anger off has a pasta sized the Christian faith and he no longer believes in biblical Christianity anymore he's an Orthodox people freaked out about that stuff and I remember looking at that going well that's kind of cool you know so according to some people Catholics Orthodox really anything outside of their view probably as a Christian and this isn't even just about Protestants because even within Protestantism there are lots of people who look at other Protestants and say well they're not a Christian if they don't read the King James Bible they're not a Christian if they don't believe in believers only baptism they're not a Christian if they don't believe in the doctrines of Calvinism they're not a Christian and and sometimes you can find your way into this worldview where like there's almost nobody who's a Christian anymore except for you and your friends I remember talking to a guy recently and he he's a he's a reformed Christian and he said to me he said you know in the church I go to which is a what you would call a Bible believing Church he said there's like only three people in my church that are saved and of course he's one of them and I'm like whoa dude how do you know that how can you look at everybody and say that and and the reason why now he didn't have a good answer for that but I know the reason why the reason why is because not too many people agree with his theology and this is what can happen and this is what does happen is that people can get into their minds this idea of theology and what we call systematic theology and they can sort of attach a lot of conditions to people's salvation as to where it lines up with their systematic theology now let's talk about what this looks like being a Christian of course according to some people isn't about just having the right view of Jesus or having a love for Jesus it's about being able to explain everything about the faith and salvation and Jesus through this system that people create that's why we call it systematic theology now here's the deal there isn't just one systematic theology there's lots of them okay and what systematic theology attempts to do it's it's very exactly what it says it is it takes theology the study of God and it systematizes it and what ends up happening with systematic theology and and by the way the allure of systematic theology is very is very it's very it appreciates logic so it draws you into it because we want things to make sense don't we we want to be able to have explanations for things so what systematic theology does is it takes this this view of God in this view of theology and then it begins to try to answer every other question about the faith through that lens and then it comes up with like this formulaic thing now here's the problem following Jesus and the Scriptures and all of the things associated with that doesn't quite always match up with what people's systemic view looks like because let's face it there's stuff in the Bible that contradicts what no matter what your theology somebody else is gonna be able to come to you and say well that's not my theology and they're both gonna have the Bible so let's take two the two main systems of theology or whatever some a theology you got the Calvinist side and the Armenian side okay so Calvinism is the view again you know the the the the tulip and look that up I'm not gonna explain it here but it's basically the side of theology that says that there God predestined everyone to have if God chooses you for heaven then you're saved and there's nothing that can change that but if he chooses you for hell then you are damned you're called the reprobate and there's nothing you can do about that either the Armenian side believes that we have free will and that human beings can freely choose whether to accept the grace of God or whether to reject the grace of God so these two systems battle it out all the time and it's a common question when I was a youth pastor that was you know like the question people tell us about predestination so people battle those things out and guess what they both have their Bible verses they both have their scriptures that seem to support what they're trying to say the one ends up happening is you have one side that has to end up arguing with the biblical texts of the other side as far as their proof texts okay and so what you have is these dueling Bible verses going back and forth and at the end of the day you have to just kind of throw your hands up and say well we can't really figure this out now that's not what a lot of people do what a lot of people do is they say no we have figured out and you're just wrong so that's what I call systematic theology I don't buy into that to be honest with you I feel like the doctrines of the faith of Christ and the teachings of Christ and the scriptures that following God is so mysterious and yes there are things in the scriptures that we believe about God that don't logically make sense the way that math makes sense or the way that physics make sense like for example the Trinity have you ever seen I mean you've probably seen if you're especially if you're a process you've seen some really bad children's sermons revolved around the Trinity right trying to explain this little kids you know like they take an egg and they say well this is the shell then they crack it open this is the yolk and this is the white and all three of these things are the egg but they're all different so that's like God he's a Trinity or you might say to someone well here's water and when it's liquid form at these temperatures it's liquid but if you heat it up it becomes a gas and if you freeze it it becomes a solid so all three different things well basically you know what you wound up doing whenever you try to explain the Trinity in those types of ways you wind up becoming a heretic without even realizing it so the fact is this some things are just mysterious and they're not to be understood and systematized that way but we humans we we don't accept that we want to be able to nail everything down so that's where we get these this systematic theology well when you sell out to that and when you say okay I'm all-in on that I want to make it make sense I wanted to be explained now what you have to do is you have to recognize that if you take one piece of the system out the whole thing falls apart so as you start to dig deeper into your system and you start to run into things that don't make sense you have to have an answer but if somebody else denies even a part of your system eventually if you play this thing out logically you get to a place where you have to doubt that they're even a Christian because it's all interconnected and it's all so related to each to itself which is kind of weird and it's kind of difficult but that's where we wind up sometimes so when people do that with Catholics it's it doesn't take them long to go well okay these Catholics they just can't be Christian I just watched the video from a guy who's a professor of church history at some protestant seminary and he made a video about this and he said well you know catholics are saved only if they believe in salvation by faith alone through grace alone according to the scripture alone so basically he like takes up he he he rolls out the theology of the reformers and says that if a Catholic person buys into that then they're a Christian but if they don't then they're not so to me that's just madness and I'll tell you why I'm just gonna give you some facts here which I know some of you will dispute but don't argue with me about facts that's what they are they're that they're just real okay and if you don't believe that these are facts then do some research do some homework and and and we'll go from there so here's fact number one Catholicism and orthodoxy okay so I'm gonna I'm gonna lump Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy into the same group here okay because ultimate Ruth is they both get beat up about the same thing when it comes to are they Christian okay so if someone's saying well Catholics aren't Christian they're probably also saying that Orthodox aren't Christian either now let's just create a fact here or state of fact here Catholicism / orthodoxy is the original ancient Christian faith this is the faith of the Apostles this is the faith of the disciples this was the faith that if you were a Christian in the first century you were part of this group this Catholic / Orthodox faith it is the ancient church so it's kind of interesting to me when when people today will say well that's you know Catholics and Orthodox aren't really Christians well then who is okay and when did that happen so it's just interesting and I usually ask a simple question and the question is this who started your church if you're gonna tell me that your Reformed Baptist or your you know Pentecostal Church or your Methodist Church or non-denominational Church or whatever that that's real Christianity well what was there before that because if you travel back in in in history 300 years probably 90% of the Protestant denominations that exist today didn't exist he traveled back in time 500 years okay then 99.9% of the Protestant denominations that exist today didn't exist if you travel back 600 years then you don't even have it anymore okay if you were a Christian you were a Catholic or you were Orthodox that's what you were and if you travel back before the Year 1000 or whatever people want to say I know that it's kind of squishy when the when that's split from the east and the west happened okay let's just say you travel back to the Year 900 AD okay there's just one faith one church one holy catholic apostolic church that's all there was okay so 100 just claiming to go back to the Apostles only the Catholic / Orthodox Church so think about that for a second if you're gonna be one of these people that's gonna say that the Catholics aren't Christians and we're the real Christians then then what was there for almost 2,000 years before your church got started by some dude okay well what was there before that think about it for a second and and you know I'm gonna get on a tangent here for a second but when people say well you Catholics you follow man-made doctrines okay okay man-made your church was man-made like less than a hundred years ago give me a break dude so look back in history and see that if you're gonna say these that Catholics and Orthodox aren't Christians you got a big problem on your hands okay so what you have to ultimately do then is to say well there was some big falling away then when the church originally was on track and then it fell away and then after Martin Luther and the Reformers and then even later because those guys didn't agree with each other then now we've come around to you know the first whatever Church of the this or the that today you know in my north american town that we're the real christians okay we're the right ones I don't buy that I'm sorry it find me show me when did the church fall away okay you know who says the church fell away like that that's like the Mormons man they're the ones that say there was this great apostasy and the disciples the Apostles failed in their mission and they fell they fell completely away and that the real faith of Christianity was was forever lost until Joseph Smith found those tablets up on the hill someplace right well I know people like to tease the Mormons for thinking that way but a lot of a lot of Protestants kind of act like that team don't they they act like the church fell away at some mysterious unknown point in time nobody can ever say that's when it happened it just they just take for granted that it happened somewhere along the line and then it was all lost and messed up and then you know somewhere along the road you know we got it back who Luther okay are you Lutheran probably not Calvin are you a Calvinist my independent baptist friends no you're not so when when did you get it back these are hard questions but you got to answer them if you're gonna say that cat which Orthodox aren't Christian and you are then you got to deal with the history issue right you got to deal with that so the other thing I want to point out this is a fact is that even the fundamental ancient doctrines of the Christian faith that that all Christians believe that God is a Trinity that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man okay that we have a New Testament of Scripture these doctrines these ancient faiths were all brought to you by you guessed it the Catholic / apostolic Orthodox Church okay that's where this stuff came from so the fact that you even know what a Christian is that you can even define that in terms of who is Jesus Christ what does it mean to follow him what what happened on the cross would happen on the empty tomb and the doctrines of who Jesus is all of that stuff is present in this ancient faith brought to you by God through the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox churches okay now I know P was Roman Catholic just lump them all together for the sake of this video okay so kick that around if you're gonna say that this group wasn't Christian then then what group then gave this teaching that you accept to you this apostate Church that fell away the same apostate was it was the church apostate when it came up with the Nicene Creed in 325 AD that talks about the nature of Christ was that church apostate okay or was it later or was it before we don't really know according to some people okay now let's talk about this what some what some people want to talk about is you know well the Catholic Church they can't be Christians because look at all the sinful things that are happening in the Catholic Church look at all the sinful Pope's that we've had over the years look at all the hypocrites look at the church at the clergy scandal look at all this stuff how can you tell me that with all of that that Catholics are Christians give me a break how can you say that right you know that's that's a tough thing to to to deal with because here's the thing the Catholic Church never ever claimed that its followers were going to behave perfectly for all all eternity that's just not a thing that ever that was ever promised I mean if that were the standard then Jesus doesn't even live up to that standard does he because he had Judas so if we're gonna look at the followers of a faith and say well if they don't live up to their faith perfectly then the whole faith is chucked well then guess what nobody's Church can stand nobody's Church can make it because there isn't one of you out there who can stand up and say yep I'm perfect my church is perfect it's just that because the the Catholic and the Orthodox Church are so large and if our worldwide and have such a long history there's a lot more there's a lot more to mine there too to see what human beings do when they sin and it's true and it is true so we got to take that into consideration we can't throw out the teaching of a church based on people who don't follow it okay I mean that's ridiculous that's like if I decided to go on a weight-loss program and I didn't follow it and then you judge the weight-loss program and said oh that program doesn't work no you don't judge it by people who don't do it you judge it by people who do it so think about that for a second okay now I want to go back to this idea again that you know this this thing where people wanna they want to be somewhat charitable and say well again you know individual Catholics can be saved if they you know reject the teaching of their church well let's talk about that you know what does that look like what kind of person rejects the teaching of their church okay I mean do you reject the teaching of your church if you're a Protestant do you do that do you do you say well I go to this church but I don't agree with this part and I don't agree with that part maybe you do I don't know I don't think it's a good idea if you don't agree with the teaching of your church then you need to turn yourself around and and become a person who does and and submit yourself to the authority of that church or you need to maybe take stock of that Church which again is of course why we have all these different denominations but when you don't have anyone who can claim ultimate authority then of course just just bolt and go start a new church right that's is that does that sound like what Christianity is supposed to be you see who gets to ultimately say that who gets to ultimately look at a person an individual Catholic or whatever or an individual Orthodox or even an individual whatever you are and say well yeah there's that guy he's not saved if you believe that he's not a Christian who gets to do that what you wind up with is basically like this good old boys group of narrow-minded arrogant self-righteous people who exclude everyone but the people that fit into their little systematic theology now what's really interesting is when they start to have disagreements within themselves and they invariably do then you have people who once were like super tight now they hate each other and now they say oh well you weren't really ever a Christian and you're messed up and all this kind of stuff like that that's what's gonna happen that's what's gonna happen so let's answer this question are Catholics Christians well depending on how you look at it I'm not gonna say it's a simple yes-or-no question but I think we can come up with an answer because here's the deal I'm not gonna do the whole well you know what about the guy who's a Catholic he got baptized in the church but then he doesn't really do anything with his faith he sins and he never goes to church and he falls away is that guy is that guy a Christian because he's a Catholic you know I'm just I'm gonna go there okay because we can do that with every Church we really could let's talk about the person for a second and let's just create this hypothetical person who actually believes everything that church teaches and does their best to live obediently according to the teaching of the church with humility and with ultimate supreme love of God is that person who follows the doctrines of the Catholic faith and lives out their faith in the best that they can do with obedience and humility are they a Christian absolutely absolutely and if you don't think so sorry I don't know what to tell you hey tune in next week for another episode of do slash are Catholics it's gonna be awesome thanks so much for watching you guys god bless [Music]

Channel: Keith Nester

Views: 11,244

Rating: 4.8857141 out of 5

Keywords: Roman Catholic, Catholicism, Are Catholics Christians?, Christianity, Keith Nester

Id: 8he87VsLJdQ

Length: 24min 44sec (1484 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 14 2020