It’s funny how US Americans? tend to separate Catholics from Christians as if the former aren’t part of the latter. Of maybe the man in the cross in every Catholic church is just a random guy.
Catholicism is distinct enough from Christianity to be a cause of disputes in relationships. The primary difference is that Catholics place great importance on the authority of the Church and the Saints. “Christians”, by and large, have little interest in either. Catholicism was co-opted by various political groups over the years as a tool of control, and it retains a lot of clagnuts that served that purpose.
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You do realize that one is a subset of the other?
Guy
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No, they’re really not. You can draw a Venn diagram and there is (obviously) considerable overlap. Some people consider Catholicism to be a subset of Christianity … or indeed vice versa (some will argue that “The Catholic Church” was the earliest formalisation of Christianity). If you’re neither a Christian nor a Catholic this may not be obvious. But if you stick with the Venn diagram you’ll always be correct. In any case, my point was, for the purposes of making friends, there’s a definite distinction that may or may not end up as a source of discord, so people often mention them separately just to be clear where they stand.
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There are plenty of Catholics in the US
I know. It’s just that I don’t think Europeans see Catholicism as an outsider of Christianity. So I was wondering if this comes from USA, where apparently Christian churches have no interest in power and politics.
Anyway, off topic.
I’ve only heard the “Catholics aren’t Christians” thing in taiwan.”
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That’s because Protestant churches are referred to as 基督教 (Christianity) and people not in the know failed to realize the Catholic church’s 天主教 refers to the same God. I believe that’s the Tritheism heresy.
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Catholics believe in the holy trinity of choirboys, altar boys and chill.
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I thought similarly too, but I now feel that even people in the know don’t know;
Recently I passed by that CKS church in Sun Moon Lake ( 日月潭耶穌堂 ) because my catholic mother wanted to visit a (random) church in Taiwan to light a candle if possible (we failed to do that in the end).
There was a Taiwanese man speaking English to us inside talking about the goods of CKS and about his faith and whatnot, and I asked him what kind of Protestant denomination this church was.
He corrected me that this was a Christian church.
I affirmed him, but asked if it was also Protestant.
He reaffirmed it’s just Christian, not Catholic.
So I now assume most people in Taiwan use the USA’s cultural-influence erasural naming conventions:
America means USA
Christian means Protestant
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Chill? I don’t remember hearing anything about that.
Yeah, very likely.
Although I’ve gotten more in the know by watching every single video by Ryan Reeves. Most Taiwanese probably didn’t do that.
Some of them have even been US Presidents.
Guy
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Christian means Christian. Protestants are a type of Christian. Catholicism gets a union operator rather than a subset because of this:
“Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.”
Catholicism has added enough stuff to Christianity that it’s trending in the same direction as Mormonism or JW’s: specificially, prayer to the Saints, veneration of a man (the Pope), and submission to “expert” authority (the Church). Mormons and JWs subscribe to the core beliefs of Christianity but have fiddled around with it so much that they’ve ended up with something qualitatively different.
All demoninations do this to a certain extent, but typically in trivial ways that do not contradict the gospels. Standard-issue US-style Christianity is a mashup of Catholic, Puritan, and Jewish beliefs, as you would expect given the cultural context.
I couldn’t make it scan. I’ll keep working on it.
So the use of “Christianity” excluding Catholicism is intentional, and used to provoke Catholics into questioning their own church’s values.
Also, this use might cause the understanding that Catholics don’t believe in Christ, because they don’t do it properly.
So it’s a way to appropriate the name of Christ away from those who don’t follow Christ the correct way.
Very judgemental, not very practical, and not how most of the world seems to sub-categorize Christianity.
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nvm lol
No, that’s your interpretation of what I said.
My point was that the distinction is real and can become an issue in relationships. Somebody asked for the “why” and I provided the “why”. Whether you think that’s “judgemental” or whatever is irrelevant. In any case Christians don’t start holy wars over this (anymore). Drawing the distinction doesn’t imply rejection - that’s a liberal-secular thing.
I disagree that “Protestantism” is equivalent to “real Christianity”, although I accept that that may be a mainstream US view.
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I asked the RCIA teacher why it’s called 天主教 when clearly “catholic” doesn’t mean that. She said that it’s because in the early days of missionary movements in China, Chinese does worship the sky as one of their gods, and so the name was chosen to get Chinese people to associate God with the highest gods that Chinese usually worship.
Catholic is supposed to mean “universal”.
I also found out that catholics in Taiwan is a minority among Christians in Taiwan (which is already a minority).
Compared to all the crazy cults out there (and no way to sort them out too), I’d take catholics any day.
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I was raised Catholic, in the US, and I had never heard that Catholics were different from Christians until coming to Taiwan. Christian = follower of Christ. Catholics believe that Jesus died on the cross just like the rest of the followers of Christ out there. Outside of Taiwan, I’ve never heard anything different.
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