Are Roman Catholics Christians?

The Gospel, Justification, and Roman Catholicism

Same, our Seventh-day Adventist Christians, you know, our Mormons Christians, you know, our Hindus Christians, our Buddhists Christians, like, I mean, we're very comfortable doing this in certain areas.

So, you know, with Roman Catholics, just because they're in agreement with us on social issues doesn't mean that you're not like able to make basic generalizations. Like, the idea is, do they have the gospel?

No, they don't have the gospel justification by grace alone, through faith alone. They don't believe in an imputed righteousness, an alien righteousness, the righteousness of Christ attributed to us as a free gift.

They think that justification is a legal fiction, like the idea of God declaring a sinner to be not guilty on the basis of faith in Jesus. They.

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The issue is that humanity is in sin and the wrath.

Of almighty God is hanging over our head. They will hear his words, they will not act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment, when the fires of wrath come, they will be consumed and they will perish.

God wrapped himself in flesh, condescended and became a man, died on the cross for sin, was resurrected on the third day, has ascended to the right hand of the Father where he sits now to make intercession for us.

Jesus is saying there is a group of people who will hear his words, they will act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment come in that.

Final day, their house will stand. Welcome to Bible Bash where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask. We're your host Harrison Kerrigan, Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we'll answer the age-old question, are Roman Catholics Christians?

Galatians 1:8 and the Gospel of Grace

Now, Tim, as we kick this episode off, what Bible verse do you have for us?

Tim Mullett. Yeah, Galatians 1 .8 says, But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we've said before, so now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you've received, let him be accursed.

So, there you go. Darrell Bock.

I'm surprised you didn't read the verse about Jesus telling Peter that he was the first Pope.

Tim Mullett Well, I guess that settles it.

Darrell Bock. That settles it. They're Christians. Okay, so what is the, explain the relevance between the verse that you've read and the topic question, are Roman Catholics Christians? Tim Mullett.

Yeah, so this is one of those questions where if you ask that question as a generality, you basically have individuals who don't know how to process generalities at this point. But if you think about verses like this, so there's verses like this in the Bible, and then you have a whole section in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount that talks about how to identify false teachers and tells you, you'll know them by their fruits.

So, if you look at, I mean, there's any number of religions in the world, there's any number of Christian sex denomination cults, whatever, there's any number of these things. And one of the primary questions you should be asking of any of these groups is the question, do they have the gospel?

So, the text says, if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we have preached from you, let him be accursed. So, in that kind of situation, accursed means anathema, it means going to hell, basically, right?

So, basically, you look at a situation like Roman Catholics, and you basically are asking just basic fundamental questions at that point, do they have the gospel? Does the Roman Catholic Church at that point, do they have the gospel?

Are they preaching a different gospel? Are they preaching a gospel contrary to the one we have? So, what is it that people are believing, being a part of that, and making general statements at that point?

But then, people are obviously not really capable of making general statements anymore, which is not surprising.

Harrison Butker, Catholic Social Witness, and the Question of Salvation

Petey. So, help us figure out what the general answer is to the question then. Do they, do Roman Catholics have the gospel right, or do they have it wrong?

Jared. Yeah, we have a very different, you think about the Council of Trent, the Council of Trent has declared us to be heretics, right? So, they've already decided that we, you know, we have a different gospel, a different structure.

So, they've determined that Protestants at that point are heretics, and I think turnaround there is fair play. I mean, do they have the gospel? Do they believe that salvation is by grace through faith, not of works, lest any man should boast?

I mean, so, they're praying to the saints at that point, they have deified Mary, they're engaging in gross idolatry, but then we have a fundamental discussion, like a fundamental disagreement over the nature of what justification is, even.

So, within Catholicism, you have purgatory, you have the treasury of merits, we just have a totally different soteriology at that point. So, yeah, I think looking at the church itself, it really is not that complicated to say that they don't have the gospel.

They're preaching a gospel contrary to the one that we received, and the longer you're engaged in that project, I mean, the more questionable all of it is, for sure.

Petey. Right. Yeah, and that makes sense. And really, a large part of why we're doing this episode is because in the last week or two weeks, a video was going, I mean, just like everywhere, all over the internet of Harrison Butker, the place kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs.

He was giving a commencement speech at Benedictine College, and in the speech, he says a lot of really good things. I mean, he basically says, hey, everything that happened in 2020 was just, it was really bad.

He tells everyone that, I mean, keep in mind, this is a guy that's won, I think, at least two Super Bowls, maybe three. I don't know exactly how many he's won, but he's won more than one, which is most people don't even win one in the NFL.

And so, he's very successful, and he comes up, and he gives a speech, and he explains that, hey, all that stuff's great, and he's really proud of those accomplishments, but they don't mean anything compared to his family.

He tells everyone that he values his family more than any of his professional accomplishments, and I mean, he almost tears up because he's so thankful talking about it. He talks about how abortion is evil, IVF is evil.

He explains to the women in the room at this college that they need to prioritize getting married and having children because it's going to be the most fulfilling thing that they do in their life, and that pursuing success in the business world or in whatever career they're pursuing, it's eventually going to fade away, and it's not going to be any sort of long-lasting joy in and of itself for them.

And so, he's saying all these really good things that we would both agree with wholeheartedly, but then the problem that comes up is, well, he's Roman Catholic, right? And so, you have everyone just kind of fawning all over what he's saying, and what he's saying is right in that speech.

At least the things that I heard, they were right, but then you don't seem to have any sort of like, hang on, let's pump the brakes a little bit here and consider the fact that we're talking about a non-Christian at this point who's saying these things.

He doesn't believe the same gospel. Assuming he is following the Roman Catholic doctrine, then we believe in different gospels, and so he is not the same. It's not like John MacArthur going somewhere and saying all the same exact things, but then I guess, Tim, a question does come up, and the question is, how can someone, if they don't align with us in the gospel, if they're not truly Christians, Roman Catholics, how can someone who is in that church get so many things right?

Common Grace, Natural Law, and Gender Roles

Jared. Yeah, I mean, sure. A lot of that is just common grace and God's moral law is written on our hearts, and I mean, you can look at the world, and some of these things are just baked into the very fabric of creation.

Meaning, I mean, if you consider what the ultimate telos of a woman is, it's obviously to make children, okay? Pete. Right. Jared I mean, she has a monthly cycle that every month is reminding her of these basic realities.

So, if you think about the nature of what her body is telling her, her bodily cycle is telling her every month that she has been created as a distinct creature of God that's designed to bear offspring.

I mean, you exist because there is a woman who gave birth to you. So, a lot of these discussions are pretty comical when you the nature of people really believe that childbearing is optional. They believe that childbearing is optional, they believe that marriage is optional, family is optional, and everything else, but then they exist.

You exist because some woman had you, right? So, you think about that, you think about women's desires, they baby everything, they turn everything into a baby. I mean, my daughter going to the grocery store asking her to hold a two-liter or something like that, she holds it like a baby and pretends it's a baby.

That's the way that the world works, right? So, the pet phenomenon that you're observing right now happening is a bunch of women who know that they are designed for children who are basically turning everything into a baby so you can suppress it hard.

I mean, it just is what it is. Women love babies, they're drawn to babies, that's what they're made to do. So, you think about a lot of this stuff is just natural, obvious, observable. I mean, I talked about monthly cycle, but I mean, you have a monthly cycle that affects women in different ways, like in terms of even their hormones and you can draw inferences from all those kinds of things as it relates to leadership and who God's designed to lead.

You think about the nature of men's interest, men have very different interests. My boys grow up, they fight, right? They like to fight, they like to wrestle, why? Why do they like to fight and wrestle as one of their favorite things to do, but then their sister has very different interests and it's because they've been given a lot more muscles than their sister and they're filled with a different hormone, right?

That's governing them testosterone, which shapes the nature of what they do. So, I mean, a lot of these things are just natural, observable. We talk about atheists, there's no shortage of atheists out there who are talking about science and the great proclamations of science and how Christians are science deniers, but I mean, these realities are baked into the fabric of the universe and you can look at them and Christians understand the world better than anyone understands the world because we're not suppressing the truth that we see in unrighteousness.

And so, I mean, a lot of these things are just obvious, they're there, you understand them. And you can look at just past generations and see that understood this and you can look at where we're at right now and it really doesn't take a genius to say, hey, we seem to be degrading society right now.

So, I mean, you just imagine the transgender confusion, like the madness of that. I mean, you're literally chopping off healthy reproductive organs in kids and destroying any chance they have of having a heritage.

I mean, they're going to end up alone without any kids and the only way they're ever going to have kids is just to buy them from someone at some point. And so, I mean, it's just like these things, they don't really, they don't take special revelation to understand, but then special revelation does speak authoritatively on these issues, but these moral kind of issues are baked into the fabric of society, they're written on man's heart, for sure.

Handmaid's Tale, Motherhood, and the Created Order

Petey Yeah, and just kind of going off topic here for a second, right before we started the episode, Tim and I were watching one of the videos of Harrison Butker giving his speech, and the video that I happened to find, it was from someone who obviously didn't agree with Harrison, because he spliced in imagery from The Handmaid's Tale in the video as Harrison Butker is talking about his wife and how she found the most, so he found the most satisfaction in, or his wife found the most satisfaction in having a family, having children, getting married, and he's talking about how happy she is, and he's talking about how happy he is, and how highly he views his family, and all of this, and so people who just light their hair on fire the moment that anyone suggests that women should prioritize families and having children, they just immediately equate whatever you're saying as misogyny and assume that you want The Handmaid's Tale to become reality, so all these people who are basically, basically all they can ever hear you say is, oh, all you want women to be are breeders, and that's it, and it's like, okay, you like, okay, so you just didn't listen at all, I guess, you know, like, it just makes, well, it does make sense to me why they can't seem to understand what's being said, but they should, you know, it's not hard to understand, but they just immediately, it's always Handmaid's Tale, anytime you have this kind of conversation, it's just, it's Handmaid's.

Tale, no matter what. I mean, but they say it, yeah, the funny thing about that is they say it as if it's such a bad, like, you know, it's one of those, yeah, like, so all you think women are are breeders, like, well, no, I don't think that's all they are, but I mean, they're not animals, but I mean, certainly, they're not less than that, I mean, they're more than that, you know, but that certainly is a big feature of why they exist, to sort of create new people, which is why you're here, you know?

So, I think you're right.

Petey Yeah, they're not breeders in the sense of you put them in a pen and, you know, you rent them out to someone, but then they were designed.

To have children, and you were not, you know? Jared. Yeah, so that's where, you know, conservative self, they'll, like, say, yeah, no, I don't, that's not the only reason why they're here, you know, but they'll also, they'll treat that as if it's completely optional.

It's like, no, I mean, like, nature tells you, the Bible tells you that is why God made women, you know? So, and they will be saved through childbearing if they continue it. It's there.

Petey. Right, yeah, it's pretty obvious.

Jared. This is a major, you know, read through 1 Timothy, Titus, you know, what are the young women encouraged to do? Well, they're certainly encouraged to have children and manage a household and, you know, be kind and submissive to a husband and they're created for their husbands.

So, all those things are true. You know, I know that you hate all of them, but they're all there, you know?

Protestant Generalizations, Catholicism, and Justification

Petey. Right. So, going back to the original topic, are Roman Catholics Christians? You know, it's funny that you mentioned the fact that, you know,.

Like, the Council of Trent…. Jared. As anathematized Protestants.

Petey. Yeah, they, yeah, pretty much. So, the question there is basically, you know, it seems like, just from my personal experience and from the way that I've seen Catholics interact with Protestants, it seems, at least in America, it seems like they act almost as if that didn't happen.

Like, that's not real anymore. And what I mean is, it seems like Catholics are more than willing to interact cordially with Protestants and even partner together in a lot of ways. And so, I guess the question that I had in my mind when you mentioned that is, what is the actual significance of that?

I mean, have they retracted that at any point? Because in my experience, it just seems like your average Roman Catholic does not view Protestants as, you know, damned.

And going to hell for heresy. Jared. Yeah, I mean, it's a real weird thing when you think about, like, the Popes and Councils and everything else. I mean, the Protestants believe that Popes and Councils can err, but then, you know, so you have on the other side a system that's set up to where, you know, you have these infallible declarations and all that to where, I think right now, Catholic Answer Man has basically said that, you know, we're not anathematized anymore or stuff like that, but it's all very convoluted in that way.

I mean, meaning, like, you have a system set up where you have Popes who speak infallibly, who disagree with the ones in the past who have spoken infallibly, and, you know, it's just a mess, man. So I think you take them on the basis of their….

I mean, the issue is there is a fundamental disagreement between Catholics and Protestants over the nature of justification, and we can't pretend like these things are just minor differences. So these are major….

Who is the blessed man? Do you believe in the doctrine of justification by grace through faith do you receive an imputed righteousness attributed to your account as a free gift? You know, Catholics don't believe in an imputed righteousness at that point.

So, Nick, we're on different planets as it relates to these kind of subject matters. These are at the very heart of the Gospel. So I think a lot of Catholics at this point are willing to link arms with us in cultural issues, you know, but a good, faithful Roman Catholic will see the problem.

I mean, we're not worshiping Mary, we're not praying to the Saints, you know, we're not accepting the infallible dictates of their current Pope and those which are contradicting former ones, so you just have a system set up.

I mean, the whole idea of Catholic churches, there's no salvation outside of Rome anyways, you know? So you think about the whole system is set up in such a way as they really, they're laying claim to the fact that, you know, Peter was the first Bishop of Rome and, you know, there's a long line of succession from there and there's no salvation apart from that and that's what Catholic means.

It means universal, you know? So that's what they've taught. They've taught that for years. They've determined all of us to be heretics, they burned us all at the stakes, so we remember. We remember what's going on.

Yes.

Poll Results, Generalizations, and the Protestant/Catholic Divide

Yeah. So, on the Protestant side, though, I feel like I've seen the same thing where, you know, so if they don't have the same gospel as us, then we ought to treat them like heretics, we ought to treat them like people who have not surrendered to Christ, who are not pursuing obedience to Christ, who are incapable of even doing these things because they don't have the gift of the Holy Spirit dwelling inside them even, but then Protestant, it seems like most Protestants or at least like a lot of Protestants really don't have any issues whatsoever with Catholicism and in fact, we even ran a poll where we asked people, I can't remember exactly how you worded it.

How did you word that poll, Tim? Do you remember? It was either like, are they Christians or do they share the same gospel? It was something like that. What was it?

Yeah. So, the first one that I did was, the second one was, are Roman Catholics born again? And the first one was, are Roman Catholics Christians? So, on the poll, are Roman Catholics Christians, 41 said yes, 42 said no, and then 16 copped out with their unable to generalize, which was kind of funny.

But then in the other one, are Roman….

That's a pretty high number for the unable to generalize.

Yeah. So, people explain what they meant by that and that's pretty funny too. That's a whole another discussion, but I did, are Roman Catholics born again? And you got 27 yes, 55 said no on that one.

So, there was more of a distinction. So, you had, I mean, in other words, you had, it seems like a significant number of people who were saying they weren't born again, but they're Christians. And a lot of that is probably due to Douglas Wilson's influence and maybe just Presbyterianism in general that is filtering into answers along those lines.

But yeah, so either way you cut it though, are they born again? 27 are saying yes, probably. So, yeah, it's hard to know what to make of this. I mean, a lot of people really do struggle with the idea of generalizations.

So, I mean, some guy put it in a pretty crass way, which I think is representative of a lot of people. But I mean, he's basically saying, because it's really funny how this works, but the idea is because he can't say with absolute confidence that all Roman Catholics are lost, he's unable to generalize.

So, the presence of one or two outliers makes it so that he's unable to generalize. And I was trying to explain to him that that isn't really how generalizations work. But in the business world, you could have a generalization that, or even in the medical world, you can have a generalization that's true 70 to 80 of the time, and it's still a useful generalization because it tells you something about the way the world works.

I mean, you think about those odds, 70 to 80 of the time, that's pretty good in most areas of life. So, in order to live and make decisions, most of us are not operating under 100 certainty in order to make a decision.

If you're trying to do that, I mean, you literally are going to hide in your house and you're not even going to be safe doing that. So, if you had demand 100 certainty for every decision you make, I mean, you would never get a car, right?

So, what you're doing is you're making generalizations about the way the world works. The way the world generally works, when I drive in my car, the ground doesn't open up and swallow me whole, you know, or something like that.

The bridges don't It doesn't happen to me very often. The bridges don't generally give out, you know. Could they give out? Yes. But then, does that mean you never drive, you know, because of the chance?

So, a lot of us are willing to accept a significant amount of variation in those kind of things. But, you know, the way the Bible works, the Bible speaks to us in the language of wisdom. So, you know, spare the rod, spoil the child.

That isn't like a 100 guarantee that if you spank your kid, like, if you don't spank your kid, they're always going to turn out wrong. You know, turning up a child in the way they should go when they're older, they won't depart.

That isn't a 100 guarantee that if you were a good parent, your kids will be saved and, you know, walk and know the Lord, you know, their whole life or something like that. But that's the way the world generally works.

A slack hand leads to poverty, right? Well, sometimes there are situations where a person is lazy and inherits a bunch of money, and he's still rich, you know. That doesn't overturn it, but this is the way the world works.

But you look at the Bible, the Bible is more than happy to make those kind of generalizations. So, you know, Paul will talk about the Cretans, says a prophet of your own says that Cretans are always lazy, gluttons, evil beast, and liars, and then he says this testimony is true.

You know, so I mean, like, if Cretans have a reputation, they have a reputation, you know, in certain ways. And so, when you're asking about Roman Catholics, you should be able to make a general statement about the nature of where they're at, right?

So, I mean, and we do this in every era of life. I mean, if you ask our Nazis Christians, it's like, oh, no. You know? Our KKK members Christians, no, you know? I mean, could there be a saved one in there, you know, who didn't participate in the burnings and, you know, like the undercover brother or whatever?

There's…. Pete. The undercover brother. Jared. That kind of thing can happen, you know, but think about on whole, you know, do the calculations on whole, you know, as generality, can you make these general statements?

Our Seventh-day Adventist Christians, you know, our Mormons Christians, you know, our Hindus Christians, our Buddhists Christians, like, I mean, we're very comfortable doing this in certain areas. So, you know, with Roman Catholics, just because they're in agreement with us on social issues doesn't mean that you're not, like, able to make basic generalizations.

Like, the idea is, do they have the gospel? No, they don't have the gospel of justification by grace alone, through faith alone. They don't believe in an imputed righteousness, an alien righteousness, the righteousness of Christ attributed to us as a free gift.

They think that justification is a legal fiction, like the idea of God declaring a sinner to be not guilty on the basis of faith in Jesus. They believe that's a legal fiction, that's not real. So they believe that justification gives an imparted righteousness, right, which is not complete in this life, that you're going to unless you're, like, declared a saint or whatever, you're going to go to purgatory and have to work off your remaining sin because you still have remaining sins to purge off.

Like, we have a totally different religion here, man, a totally different structure, so you should be able to make general statements about it. Now, what most people do at this point is they'll point to the rank and file Catholic who, you know, has a simple faith in Jesus and maybe disagrees with the doctrine, or maybe isn't aware of the doctrine.

It's like, yeah, I'm not confident about nominal, the state of nominal Christian salvation, and you want me to be confident about nominal Catholics? You know? So if you're in the Catholic church for any amount of time, eventually you're going to figure out what they're teaching and what they're doing, and they're praying to Mary and the blasphemy of the Eucharist and everything else.

So you're telling me the most uninformed people who are part of this church are going to be in this church long-term and we need to have a high degree of confidence of salvation because somehow, like, some hypothetical person might not even know all the blasphemous things they actually believe?

You know, it's like, those are the people I'm least confident about, right? You know? So, I mean, I've had family, like, extended family members who have pursued Catholicism because they were ignorant about it, but then they took an interest in trying to learn about it and then they got out of it, you know?

So, like, yes, is it possible that some person can, you know, call themselves a Catholic for a brief period of time until they find out what these people actually teach and then get out of their shirt?

Like, that kind of thing can happen, but as a church, thinking about what you actually have to believe if you're committed and assuming that someone is committed to the core things that they're teaching at that point, it's like, no, they're not saved, man.

If you are committed to this in any degree, at some point, you're going to have to find out what you've committed to, right? So, there is no, like, nominal Christian, like, nominal Catholic out there who just, you know, really has a vibrant faith in God but, like, has no idea what he's being taught week in and week out and has so little commitment level to the point where, like, he is, it's all over his head and flying, he's, you know, doesn't even know what he's, but he's just there reading his Bible.

It's like, if you read your Bible to any length of time, you're going to look at what's happening and ask basic questions, you know, and you're going to be getting out, you know? So, yeah, no, as a generality and the way.

Closing Exhortation and Episode Sign-Off

Generalities work, no, they're not saved, man. Petey. Okay, well, I think that's a good place for us to wrap up the conversation on then and so, thank you, Tim, for answering all of my questions there and hopefully this has been helpful for all of you out there listening, you know, and like I said at the beginning, this was brought on because of the Harrison Butker stuff and I think too, yeah, like you were saying, Tim, like, hey, we can align on social issues and it's not impossible for someone who is unsaved to be able to look at what's going on in society right now and say, hey, there's obviously some problems going on, but then not be saved at the same time, right?

And so, those two things are not mutually exclusive, lacking salvation, but still recognizing there's a problem going on in the world, just not necessarily knowing how to fix it exactly. And so, hopefully, you know, moving forward as hopefully part of the issue is I think there's just probably not enough Protestant leaders out there willing to say all the same things and willing to risk their career in the same way that Harrison Butker has and so, a lot of people are probably just desperate for that kind of boldness and so, they're really clinging on to the Harrison Butker situation, but then in general, I just, you know, it makes me a little uncomfortable sometimes when we just almost borderline venerate these kinds of guys because I think it will be confusing for a lot of Christians and they will start to think, well, maybe they are just the same as us when they're not and they're sharing a different gospel and we should hate that they're sharing a different gospel.

That should, I mean, Paul said, you know, like in the verse that you read, Paul said that even the angels, if they're preaching to you a different gospel, may they be anathema, right? Maybe they'd be damned to hell.

And so, that's how we should also view it. And so, I think there's a way to be, you know, grateful when people call out the stupidity that our society is pursuing everywhere while also recognizing that they are not Christian and we need to, like, we need to pray for their repentance or that God pours out His wrath on them, whatever He sees fit, and not necessarily treat them as if they're the same as us.

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