[Sca-cooks] Catholic/Christian, was: The Fallwell/Robertson statements

[Tara]

> Now if someone could only explain to me why the Catholics are not considered
> Christains................................................

Catholics consider themselves to be Christians.  Some Protestant sects
consider them to be Christian, too.  But, some Protestant sects consider
Catholic worship of Saints and the elevation of the Pope to a status
above normal humans to be worshiping false idols.  Catholics consider an
awful lot of texts (i.e. the writings of Thomas Aquinas,) to be holy
writs, which is antithetical to Protestants who consider only the New
Testament to be the word of God.  Catholic rites such as the Host are
considered magical or otherwise un-holy in some views.  And, the fact
that many Catholic churches still forbid parishoners to read the Bible
for themselves is a big sticking point in many Protestant views.  Most
Protestants consider one's relationship with God to be of utmost
importance, not to be interfered with by any other person or opinion.
You are expected to read and understand the Bible and live by it.
Catholics are expected *not to* read the Bible, but to let their church
leaders explain it all to them.  So, those preachers theoretically could
(and historically, sometimes did) teach anything that fits their agenda.

Basically, it's the same sort of rift that long ago led certain Hebrews
to no longer be Jews.  The first Christians were born and raised Jewish,
and continued to follow Jewish ways of life and teach them to their
children.  Jews were busy waiting for the coming of God, and these
particular Jews considered Jesus to be that God.  As far as they were
concerned, the Jews who didn't accept this were too un-holy, too worldly
minded to notice an obvious fact.  Quickly the culture became so
seperated from it's source that it was no longer distinguisable as
Jewish, and they effectively became two different religions.
Protestants seperated from the Catholics, and quickly became so
different that they were obviously very different.  The difference is,
the Protestants and Catholics are still fighting over who holds title to
the word "Christian."

-Magdalena