‍Catholics aren’t really Christians

  Gary Hoge  ·  October 19, 2026

‍Some Protestants believe that Catholics aren't really Christians. They may acknowledge that Catholics believe in Jesus Christ, read the Bible, and attend church, but they maintain that Catholicism teaches a false gospel. Consequently, they regard Catholicism not as another form of Christianity, but as a different religion altogether.

‍For example, the influential evangelical pastor John MacArthur, in an article titled Is Roman Catholicism Biblical?, argued that Catholicism's rejection of sola Scriptura and its understanding of justification place it outside authentic Christianity. He concluded:

‍It is a false and deceptive form of Christianity.¹

‍The evangelical apologetics website GotQuestions.org expresses a similar view in an article titled I am a Catholic. Why should I consider becoming a Christian?

‍The article identifies two principal objections to Catholicism: its understanding of biblical authority and its teaching about salvation. According to the authors, Catholics give Church tradition an authority that belongs to Scripture alone, and they teach a form of salvation that depends on religious works and sacraments rather than faith in Christ alone.²

‍There are actually two different claims here. One is that Catholicism is not an authentic form of Christianity. The other is that individual Catholics cannot be genuine Christians. Some Protestant critics make the first claim while acknowledging that at least some Catholics are Christians, usually because they reject certain Catholic teachings.

‍Notice how these critics define authentic Christianity. They regard certain Protestant doctrines, particularly sola Scriptura and justification by faith alone, as essential to the Christian faith. Since Catholicism rejects those doctrines, they conclude that it isn't authentically Christian. But that assumes the very thing that needs to be demonstrated: that accepting those doctrines is necessary to being a Christian in the first place.

‍So, what makes someone a Christian?

‍What is a Christian?

‍The word Christian first appears in the Bible in Acts 11:26, where Luke tells us that “the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.”

‍The word means a follower of Christ. But Christianity is more than simply professing admiration for Jesus. From its earliest centuries, the Church has identified certain beliefs as fundamental to the Christian faith, including the Trinity, the Incarnation, the divinity of Christ, his death for our sins, and his bodily resurrection.

‍The Catholic Church professes every one of these doctrines.

‍Catholics believe that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God, the second Person of the Holy Trinity, who became man for our salvation. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered and died on the cross for our sins, rose bodily from the dead on the third day, ascended into heaven, and will return to judge the living and the dead. They believe that he is the only Savior of the world and that no one can be saved apart from him.

‍In fact, Catholics profess these beliefs every Sunday at Mass when they recite the Nicene Creed, a profession of Christian faith that has been recognized by Christians for more than sixteen centuries.

‍Interestingly, GotQuestions.org, the same evangelical website that asks Catholics why they should consider becoming Christians, defines a true Christian as someone who has been born again by God, saved by grace through faith, and placed their trust in Jesus Christ and his saving death and resurrection. It also identifies love for others and obedience to God's Word as marks of a genuine Christian. Catholics affirm all these things. Yet in explaining what makes someone a Christian, GotQuestions never identifies acceptance of sola Scriptura or the Protestant understanding of justification as a requirement.³

‍But what about the objections raised by MacArthur and others?

‍But Catholics believe in a false gospel!

‍The most serious objection concerns salvation. MacArthur and other evangelical critics argue that Catholicism teaches salvation through faith plus works, whereas the Bible teaches justification by faith alone.

‍But what does the Catholic Church actually teach?

‍The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

‍Our justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life. (CCC 1996)

‍And again:

‍Since the initiative belongs to God in the order of grace, no one can merit the initial grace of forgiveness and justification, at the beginning of conversion. (CCC 2010)

‍This is not some modern attempt to make Catholicism sound more Protestant. The Council of Trent explicitly rejected the idea that human beings can be justified by their own works without God's grace through Jesus Christ.⁴

‍The Catholic Church does not teach that we can earn our way into heaven independently of Christ. It teaches that salvation is entirely dependent on God's grace and the saving work of Jesus Christ.

‍Catholics and Protestants certainly disagree about justification. Catholics believe that justification includes an inward transformation by God's grace, while Protestants in the Reformation tradition generally distinguish justification from sanctification.

‍But disagreement about how Christ saves us is not the same thing as disagreement about whether Christ saves us.

‍MacArthur believes that the Protestant understanding of justification is essential to the gospel. Catholics disagree. But that raises the question of whether accepting that particular Protestant doctrine is necessary to being a Christian.

‍Lutherans, Reformed Christians, Methodists, and other Protestant groups have significant disagreements among themselves about salvation, grace, free will, and the relationship between faith and works. Yet they generally recognize one another as Christians.

‍Why, then, should disagreement with Catholic theology automatically place Catholics outside Christianity altogether?

‍But Catholics reject the authority of Scripture!

‍Another objection concerns the relationship between Scripture and Church authority.

‍Many Protestants believe in sola Scriptura, the doctrine that Scripture is the sole infallible rule of Christian faith. Because Catholics also recognize Sacred Tradition and the teaching authority of the Church, critics sometimes conclude that Catholics have rejected the authority of the Bible.

‍But rejecting sola Scriptura is not the same thing as rejecting Scripture.

‍The Catholic Church teaches that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and that everything asserted by its inspired authors is asserted by the Holy Spirit. It regards Scripture as authoritative and without error in what God intended to communicate through it.

‍The disagreement is not over whether Scripture is authoritative. It is over whether Scripture is the Church's only infallible authority.

‍Catholics believe that Christ entrusted his teachings to the apostles, who transmitted them both orally and in writing, and that the Church has a responsibility to preserve and faithfully interpret that apostolic teaching.

‍Christians existed for centuries before the biblical canon was definitively established. And throughout Christian history, many Christians have recognized the authority of apostolic Tradition and the Church alongside Scripture.

‍Whatever one thinks of that understanding of authority, it would be extraordinary to conclude that those Christians weren't really Christians because they didn't accept sola Scriptura.

‍What about all those unbiblical Catholic doctrines?

‍Some critics point to Catholic beliefs about Mary, the saints, purgatory, the papacy, or the Eucharist as further evidence that Catholicism is not authentic Christianity.

‍But this raises the same fundamental question: Does a Christian have to hold the correct position on every disputed doctrine in order to be a Christian?

‍Consider baptism. Some Christians believe that baptism actually brings about the forgiveness of sins and spiritual regeneration. Others believe it is merely an outward symbol of a salvation already received.

‍Both cannot be entirely correct. But does that mean one group isn't Christian?

‍Or consider the Lord's Supper. Some Christians believe that Christ is truly present in the Eucharist. Others regard the bread and wine merely as symbols commemorating his death.

‍A Protestant may believe that praying for the intercession of the saints is wrong, that the papacy is unbiblical, or that Catholic teaching about purgatory is mistaken. Those objections deserve serious consideration, and Catholics should be prepared to answer them.

‍But even if the Protestant critic were correct about every one of them, it would not follow that Catholics do not believe in Jesus Christ and shouldn't be called Christians.

‍A Christian can be mistaken about a Christian doctrine without ceasing to be a Christian.

‍Otherwise, Christianity would consist exclusively of those who have managed to get every theological question right, and that might reduce the Church to twelve again.

‍Were there no Christians before the Reformation?

‍There's another difficulty with the claim that Catholicism is not Christianity.

‍The Catholic Church did not suddenly appear in the sixteenth century as a rival to Christianity. Its history extends back through the medieval Church to the early centuries of Christianity, long before the Protestant Reformation.

‍Throughout those centuries, Christians worshiped Jesus Christ, proclaimed his death and resurrection, baptized converts, celebrated the Eucharist, studied the Scriptures, and spread the gospel throughout the world.

‍Many beliefs that Protestants today regard as distinctively Catholic were held by Christians long before the Reformation, including baptismal regeneration, the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the authority of bishops, and the importance of apostolic succession. Christians also invoked the intercession of the saints centuries before Martin Luther was born.

‍And some of the beliefs that certain Protestants now regard as essential to authentic Christianity were not articulated in their distinctively Protestant form until the Reformation.

‍Protestants may argue that some of these beliefs were mistaken developments. But the historical question remains.

‍If holding such beliefs means that someone is not a Christian, what are we to make of the Christians who held them during the first fifteen centuries of Christian history?

‍Were Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome, and Thomas Aquinas not Christians?

‍Were the countless men and women who worshiped Christ, suffered persecution, evangelized nations, and devoted their lives to following him not Christians?

‍If your definition of a Christian excludes Catholics, then your definition is so narrow that it excludes most of the Christians who have ever lived. That should give us reason to question the definition, rather than the Christianity of those it excludes.

‍Even prominent Protestants recognize Catholics as Christians

‍Not all Protestants accept the argument that Catholicism is a false form of Christianity. In fact, some of the most influential evangelical Protestants have explicitly rejected the idea that Catholics cannot be genuine Christians.

‍Billy Graham, the renowned Baptist evangelist, said:

‍I have found many people in the Roman Catholic Church, both clergy and laity, who I believe are born-again Christians.⁵

‍The influential Anglican evangelical theologian John Stott likewise acknowledged Catholics as Christians. Referring to Catholics and others outside evangelical Protestantism, he wrote:

‍Insofar as they profess Jesus Christ as God, Lord and Saviour, we certainly do not deny them the Christian name.⁶

‍But perhaps the most interesting example is J. I. Packer, a prominent Reformed theologian and defender of justification by faith alone.

‍Packer strongly disagreed with Catholic teaching about justification, the Mass, Mary, the saints, purgatory, and papal authority. Nevertheless, in a 1994 article explaining his support for cooperation between evangelicals and Catholics, he asked:

‍Do we recognize that good evangelical Protestants and good Roman Catholics ... are Christians together?

‍And answered:

‍We ought to recognize this, for it is true.⁷

‍Packer went on to criticize Protestants who denied that Catholics could be Christians without leaving the Catholic Church.

‍Conclusion

‍Catholics profess the historic Christian faith, worship Jesus Christ as God, and acknowledge him as their Lord and Savior.

‍Protestants may disagree with Catholic teaching about the Church, the sacraments, Mary, or justification. They may even believe that some Catholic doctrines seriously misrepresent the gospel.

‍But those disagreements do not change the fact that Catholicism is a Christian religion.

‍__________

^‍1 John MacArthur, “Is Roman Catholicism Biblical?” Grace to You. https://www.gty.org/library/Print/Articles/A190

^‍2 GotQuestions.org, “I Am a Catholic. Why Should I Consider Becoming a Christian?” https://www.gotquestions.org/Catholic-Christian.html

^‍3 GotQuestions.org, “What Is a Christian?” https://www.gotquestions.org/what-is-a-Christian.html

^‍4 Council of Trent, Session VI (January 13, 1547), Decree on Justification, canon 1. The canon condemns the proposition that human beings can be justified before God by their own works, without divine grace through Jesus Christ.

^‍5 Billy Graham, “Interview with Billy Graham: Preachers, Politics and Temptation,” Time (1990). https://time.com/archive/6714982/interview-with-billy-graham-preachers-politics-and-temptation/

^‍6 John Stott, “What Is the Evangelical Faith?” Reprinted in The Reformation: Best of Lausanne. https://lausanne.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Reformation-Best-of-Lausanne.pdf

^‍7 J. I. Packer, “Why I Signed ‘Evangelicals and Catholics Together,’” Christianity Today, December 12, 1994. https://www.christianitytoday.com/1994/12/j-i-packer-why-i-signed-evangelical-and-catholics-together/