I always thought, and I know I could be wrong, that the Catholic church does not consider some/all protestants to be Christians.
My response would be simple. Tell them to walk into any Catholic Church. Go to the altar.Look at and identify who is hanging over the altar. If they still can't figure it out they are a fool!! And no further discussion is needed or indicated. Or as someone greater than me said "cast not your pearls before swine" It's a common folly of youth to spend hours talking to fools trying help them understand. As you get older you will find with fools it is better to just give them once a simple answer and let them take the responsibility for their own lives. Time is short and life is precious.
So Westboro baptist are Christians by virtue if their trapoings on the altar despite the fact te go against every tenet in the bible? It is about the content not the covering hence the question
Blasphemer! The FSM (bless his noodly appendages) is sauceless! He does not come to comfort us in our time of need dripping greasy sauces and smelling of olive oil and vile cheeses. He appears naked in all his radiant beauty.
I would say yes. WBC are godawful Christians but still "Christian" by any objective test such as the Nicene Creed test. Just like how al-Qaeda are still Muslims (under the Shahada test and such) even though they're godawful Muslims. I really hate the "they're not Christians because they're not good people" and "they're not Muslims because they're not good people" arguments because they deprive the labels of any meaningful, objective meanings. There are bad people in every community, and saying someone who meets all the objective standards of your community isn't a real member because they're also a godawful person is a bit of a No True Scotsman fallacy.
Stop picking on the Scotsmen. It's not our fault! Besides, Christianity of all flavours is dying out in Scotland. There were more humanist weddings in Scotland last year than Catholic weddings and they're not far behind the Church of Scotland. Christianity is a dead horse people really need to stop flogging. No matter how it is reinvented it still manages to turn people into bitter, closed minded, sectarian numpties. I mean seriously, the day it became clear Christians didn't get the concept of monotheism is the day they should have called it quits.
See I disagree (but its ok because it's only a discussion) If you do not follow his teachings - and they don't - then you can't call yourself a Christian.
What is the definition of "Christian"? Who started that definition, and when, and by what authority? [The historical definition is the Nicene Creed, which was written by Catholics.] Who started your denomination, and when, and by what authority? Who was teaching "the truth" before your denomination started? For Southern Baptists, remind them that they are "Southern" because in the era of slavery and the American Civil War, they used the Bible to prove that slavery was okay. They don't do that anymore. Did the Bible change? Or did they change? If the Bible did not change, then how come they changed? And how are we to now trust them? They were certain they were right in the 1800's, but, but, they were wrong. Today they are certain that they are right, but, but -- maybe they are wrong. Who said the trinity is the right answer? [The historical answer is that the Catholics did, but your classmates either won't know that or won't want to talk about it.] There's a website somewhere by Jehovah's Witnesses with more than 100 Bible verses that individually and collectively (more than 100 of them!!!!!) prove that the Bible does not teach the trinity. Why, then, do you believe it? Why is your opinion more correct, or why does it weigh more, than that of the JW's? Who authorized you declare what the Bible does or does not say? And who authorized you to say that other people are wrong? Seventh-Day Adventists read the Bible to say that church should be on Saturday. So do "Hebraic Christians" of various stripes, and they add differing amounts of Torah observation on top of that. Are they right? By what authority can you even discern that? Were you alive in the first century? Did you talk to any of the Apostles? Martin Luther agreed with Catholics that Jesus is physically, bodily present during "communion." Calvin and the Anabaptists denied that. Who are you to judge either Luther or Calvin as wrong on the question of whether Jesus is physically in the building or not? And on and on -- pick apart the material disagreements that the thousands of bickering denominations have. They CANNOT agree amongst themselves on even the test for truth, let alone the substance of what is true.
They claim to be 5-point Calvinists adhering to standard Baptist creeds, which would, if true, make them Christian. Like you, though, I have huge doubts based upon their decidedly improper public conduct.
Yes they are. In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis points out the danger of deciding that we can define the word "Christian" according to our understanding of how Christians are supposed to act. Since no two people have exactly the same idea of how Christians are supposed to act, defining "Christian" this way robs the word of meaning altogether. The Westboro Baptist Church are a homophobic wackjob cult consisting of a disbarred lawyer (not an ordained minister) and his family, but since they read the Christian Bible, believe in the Christian God, and believe in salvation through Jesus Christ, they are Christians. Lewis' solution for Christians that do not meet our standards of how Christians ought to live is simply to call them bad Christians. And that is exactly what I call the WBC: bad Christians, misguided Christians, but Christians nonetheless.
