In this episode of A Reasonable Response, Robert Bosley takes on a controversial and often emotionally charged question: Are Roman Catholics truly Christians?

While many within evangelical circles are quick to affirm Roman Catholics as brothers and sisters in Christ, Bosley pushes back—explaining why, according to Scripture and a biblical understanding of the gospel, this claim deserves serious scrutiny. Walking through core doctrinal differences, including justification, authority, and the nature of the gospel itself, he makes the case that Rome’s teaching fundamentally distorts the message of salvation.

This episode is not a harsh polemic but a sober call to clarity, conviction, and love rooted in biblical truth. If the gospel is at stake, we must get the answer right.

Are Roman Catholics Christians? My answer to that is yes. And since that is a source of concern for some of my Protestant friends, I would like to offer an explanation for why I say that in Three Points. Welcome to A Reasonable Response. My name is Robert Bosley, and the purpose of this podcast is to give a reasoned response to issues related to the Christian faith from a Reformed Baptist perspective.

Each episode contains what we call the breakdown, where I respond to a video related to the topic at hand. And today, that issue is the question, are Catholics Christians? But before we get into that, let's talk a little bit about some church history. Where did the Catholic-Prostate divide come from? Well, traditionally, the Reformation is dated as beginning in the 1500s, particularly in 1517 when an Augustinian monk, Martin Luther, nailed a list of 95 propositions to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg, Germany on October 31st.

But before we go further, we really need to understand how we got to this point. Despite being educated to become a lawyer, Luther entered the Augustinian order in 1505, just days after vowing to become a monk if God spared his life in a thunderstorm. He became deeply depressed and introspective during this time and questioned the goodness and mercy of God. Despite this, he was ordained a priest in 1507. In 1508, he was sent to teach theology at the University of Wittenberg.

In 1516, two major events occurred that led to what we call the Reformation. First, Desiderius Erasmus published his Greek New Testament, and upon studying it, Luther began to see the doctrinal problems that had developed within the church particularly around the doctrine of justification. Second, Johann Tetzel, a Dominican friar arrived in Germany in 1516 to sell indulgences, and he was there to sell them in order to pay for the repair of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, and also to repay his own debts to the Archbishop of Mons. In response to what Luther saw as absolutely indefensible abuse of the people, he wrote and published his 95 Theses that we mentioned earlier.

In 1520, Pope Leo X sent a papal bull threatening excommunication, and Luther responded by burning it in public. Luther is then excommunicated in January 1521. In April 1521, Luther appeared before Emperor Charles V and Johann Eck at the Deity of Worms, where Luther is given another chance to recant and famously responds, My conscience is captive to the word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. Here I stand, I can do no other.

God help me. Amen. From this beginning, with Luther and those helping him, both in the church and the local government, the Reformation spreads across Europe, especially taking root in Northern Europe. A second generation of reformers arose, men such as Calvin, Bullinger, Knox, and these men continued the Reformation, though often at odds with one another. In 1545, the Catholic Counter-Reformation begins with the Council of Trent.

In the end, Trent formalized the split and anathematized the Reformation and the Protestant understanding of salvation, the Bible, and what the Church should be. And while there have been attempts to undo the split since then, this is essentially where we still stand today. We are divided, Protestants and Roman Catholics, by differing understandings of the Church, the Scriptures, and the Gospel itself. Today we're going to look at a video, Can Protestants See Catholics as Fellow Christians, by Gavin Ortland. Now, I appreciate and I respect Dr.

Ortland. He's one of my favorite apologists to listen to, actually. But This issue of the relationship of Protestants and Catholics is one area where I strongly disagree with him. And I think it's worth responding to this video. In my opinion, as Protestants, when we look at the issues that divide us, When we come to the Roman Catholic Church, we have to say, on the one hand, it is a false apostate church that has formally rejected the gospel of grace.

At the same time, there is a possibility, and in fact, I believe there are, true Christians among the church, but it would be a small minority, and this would be a group of Christians who are there in spite of what they're taught, not because of it. So with that out of the way, let's jump into clip one. First, this is a historic Protestant view. On the one hand, the reformers had harsh polemics for the abuses occurring in their day. They used words like antichrist and ravenous wolves to describe the Catholic hierarchy and the things that they were doing at that time.

On the other hand, they maintained that the Church of Rome was still Christian and with Christian people within her. Luther said, there is much that is Christian and good under the papacy. He also said, in the papacy there is true Christianity, even the right kind of Christianity, and many great and devoted saints. The Christendom that is now under the papacy is truly the body of Christ and a member of it." Yes, Luther said these things, but we have to understand what he meant by it. Luther distinguished between the common people, or the communion of the saints, as the church on one hand, and the magisterium or the bishops and the papacy as the institutional church on the other.

The former, he admits, are the church in that they have the sacraments, they have the scriptures, they have Christian doctrine, so on and so forth. The latter, those defending the Roman system and her doctrines, those who are persecuting him and his fellow Protestants, he labeled Antichrists, apostates, heretics, and said that they're in danger of hell. In volume 41 of Luther's works, the next volume after what Dr. Ortland quotes there, we read, Now if a baptized child lives and then dies in his seventh or eighth year, before he understands the whore-like church of the pope, he has in truth been saved and will be saved, of that we have no doubt. But when he grows up and hears, believes, and obeys your preaching, your preaching referring to the preaching of the Magisterium, with its lies and devilish innovations, Then he becomes a whore of the devil like you and falls away from his baptism and bridegroom.

As happened to me and others, you are building your own new apostate church, the devil's brothel with limitless whoredom, idolatry, and innovation, by which you corrupt those who have been baptized and redeemed along with yourselves and you swallow them down through the jaws of hell into the abyss of hell itself with a countless multitude along with the terrible wailing and deep sorrow of those who see this with spiritual eyes and recognize it. So suffice to say, Luther did not believe that the Roman church was the true church in any sense, even though there may be Christians among them. In the Institutes, John Calvin bewailed the rampant idolatry, superstition, the error in the Church of Rome. He's going on quite some space about this, but then he qualifies by saying, when we categorically deny to the papists the title of the church, we do not for this reason impugn the existence of churches among them." Calvin's able to say that because he's making the same distinction that Luther made. The church, as in the people or the local congregations, compared to the Church as the whole Church authority system under the governance of Rome.

He's explicitly denying that the Roman Church system is the Church, and he isn't even agreeing that every local Church under Rome is a true Church, or that every member of every local church is a Christian. He's simply pointing out that among local churches under the authority of Rome, there may be and are true churches. He isn't giving blanket approval that everyone under that system is a Christian. Rather, that the church was never fully extinguished, even under the corruption of Rome and the Pope. But clearly, he understands this to be a small group, if there are true Christians, it's a small group within this larger body, because he goes on in the same paragraph to say, hence it appears that we by no means deny that churches may exist even under his tyranny, but he, the pope, has profaned them by sacrilegious impiety, afflicted them by cruel despotism, corrupted and almost terminated their existence by false and pernicious doctrines like poisonous potions.

In such churches Christ lies half-buried, the gospel is suppressed, piety exterminated, and the worship of God almost abolished. I affirm that they are churches inasmuch as God has wonderfully preserved among them a remnant of his people, though miserably dispersed and dejected." So Calvin, like Luther, said that yes, there are some true churches in the mass of corruption, but as a whole, it's a false apostate church that does not have the gospel. In the Anglican tradition, Richard Hooker critiqued what he called Rome's gross and grievous abominations, but he also said, touching on the main parts of Christian truth, we gladly acknowledge them to be of the family of Jesus Christ. Francis Turriton took a more qualified view. He basically said There's a sense in which Rome is a church.

She has Christian people, she has Christian sacraments, and she has Christian doctrines, therefore she's a church in some sense. But there's a sense in which she isn't a true church because she's intermingled so much error with the truth. Now, I'm more on Turriton's side than the Anglicans in this clip, and I wish he had given a reference for Turretin's view, but as he said it, and as I understand Turretin, I don't think Turretin is really saying anything different than what Luther or Calvin said. It sounds the same, especially when you put Luther and Calvin into their context. As a whole, he's saying Rome is not a true church, though there are some true churches under her, and thus some true Christians among them.

But that necessarily means that many, if not most, of its members, and especially the leaders, are not true believers. They're not real Christians. This question of people now wonder, well, wait a second, if that's what the reformers said, then what were they protesting? And I'll have people who ask me, why do you advocate for Protestant theology if you think that people can be Christians and can be saved outside of Protestantism? And the response that I would give to this can be stated simply, not all error is damnable error.

He's right, not every error is equally bad. For example, we can easily say that Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons are not part of the church. They're outside the church as they deny the revealed nature of who God is. They deny the triune God and that Jesus is the incarnate Word of God, the second person of the Trinity in human flesh. And this is where we get to the issue of theological triage.

This is a concept of evaluating doctrines on how essential they are to the Christian faith and assigning them a designation of primary or secondary and often tertiary status. The primary issues in theological triage are the ones that separate Christianity from every falsehood. Secondary issues are the ones where if we disagree, we'll probably not go to church together, but we can say that each other are Christians. I would put baptism in this category. And Tertiary issues are those areas where we disagree and will still be able to fellowship and even have formal membership together in the same local congregation.

This is where I would put eschatology, for example. This is where dealing with Rome becomes difficult. Rome affirms core Christian doctrines, particularly when it comes to the nature of God. In many cases, frankly and sadly, they defend these essentials better than many Protestants. But the doctrine of God is not the only primary doctrine.

I would put the issue of justification in the essential category as well. It's more than a mere second-level doctrine that prevents us from going to the same local church. This is the question of how a sinner is made right with God. What could be more essential than that? And as a whole, the Roman Church has anathematized the Protestant, and I would say the biblical view, of justification.

And so it seems to me that we must assert that Rome as a church, as a whole, has lost the gospel and so is not a true church. And if they are honest, they'll say the same about us. It's a serious issue, the most serious issue, and we'll deal more with the issue of justification in particular in response to Dr. Ortland's third point. At the same time and at the end of the day, they can look across the table and say, you're a Christian.

That is the view that seems correct and good to me. And honestly, it gives me joy because I respect a lot of these people. Who wants to restrict salvation more than we absolutely have to, right? Well, no one wants to. I certainly don't.

I wish we could say that it doesn't matter and give full assent to Rome as a true church and all her members as true Christians. That'd be great. I don't know of anyone who takes pleasure in saying, you're not a Christian to any person or to any church. What other conclusion can we come to when we look at the full weight of the evidence? It's not a judgment made lightly, but it seems to me to be the inescapable conclusion.

People say, well, yeah, there can be Christians in the Catholic Church, but only if they don't really understand Catholic theology or really believe in Catholic theology. And that is where I would disagree. The people that I meet and respect as Christians understand Catholic theology. I think GK Chesterton knew Catholic theology when he converted to Catholicism. Ironically, it seems that now Dr.

Ortland is the one rejecting the position of Luther and Calvin and the Reformers. There's a pretty consistent theme in their writings that the people in authority, those who were in the know about Roman Catholic doctrine, who defended that doctrine were lost. The average member of the Catholic Church at that time did not understand the complexities of the teaching or the rationale for its practices, and they're often described as ignorant, though not through their fault, but through the fault of the Church, and oppressed, and possibly, therefore, saved in spite of their ignorance. But it's these who are knowledgeable, those who know the doctrine and defend it that the reformers consistently call apostate and lost. In other words, it's these knowledgeable Catholics, primarily the apologists and scholars that are in Dr.

Ortland's circles, who would be the first that Luther and Calvin would condemn as heretics who do not have the gospel. The nature of the disagreements, though they are important, don't concern the entirety of the gospel or the entirety of justification as such, such that one side versus the other is now no longer within Christianity. And the reason is our traditions use the term justification with different meanings. So I'll have friends who say, well-meaning, wonderful friends who say, Catholics reject justification by faith alone, therefore they reject the gospel, therefore they are not Christians. Let me explain why I don't agree with that, and I think we need to be willing to look underneath the surface vocabulary and ask about the meaning of these words as a metaphor.

If an American and a Brit are arguing about whether football is the greatest sport, they are going to need to be careful to define terms because they come from contexts in which the term is used differently. This is where we really disagree. The debate is about justification itself, and it's more than a mere misunderstanding about what word we use or what it refers to. According to Rome, sinners are justified by a lifelong process of transformation through your cooperation with God's grace, initiated by faith, perfected by your good works. Justification begins with baptism, which cleanses you from original sin and infuses sanctifying grace into you, enabling you to grow in holiness.

The sacraments are central to this as they sustain and restore this grace when you mar it or lose it entirely. And this state of justification can be lost through mortal sin. And even venial sins still demand a temporal punishment even though they're forgiven. For those who die in God's grace but with less merit than sin in their account, these still need to be cleansed of their sin by temporal punishment and purgatory, which purifies and cleanses them and preparing them for heaven. In contrast, the Reformers, following Scripture, understood justification as a legal declaration based on faith where God no longer imputes sin to the sinner's account and credits to them the full righteousness of Jesus Christ and grants them the forgiveness of sins on His account.

And then through the work of sanctification, they are conformed to the image of Christ. These are two entirely different systems of how a sinner is saved. This is not mere quibbling about words. For example, the anathemas at the Council of Trent are using their own terminology. Much of what is being targeted is a caricature that Protestants can and should condemn, just like the book of James condemns.

I'm sorry, but I just can't agree with the idea that the Council of Trent and the response to it is essentially just one big misunderstanding. Were there misunderstandings and misrepresentations? Of course. But these were some of the most well-educated and most brilliant men on both sides of their day and even all of history, arguably. They weren't simply talking past one another.

What should we do if you out there watching this are my brother or sister in Christ and you still disagree with me, you've heard my explanation and you still disagree. Well, my appeal would be let's conduct our disagreement going forward in a way that honors Christ, where we contend for the truth but we do so with love. One of the things I'm seeing right now increasing online is this mentality of let's tear them to shreds. This is not good. This is not healthy for the body of Christ.

I fully agree with him here. I hope that's what we've done today. I like Dr. Ortland. I appreciate his ministry.

But this is one area where I do think he's very wrong. If there are Christians in Rome, and I believe there are because justification by faith is true, it's in spite of what they're taught by the formal authority structure and doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. And as Protestants, as reformed Protestants, we have to be ready to say, your gospel is not the true gospel. Here, let me tell you about the real gospel of grace that can really save you. In summary, as much as I appreciate and enjoy Dr.

Ortland's ministry and his resources, I have to say he's off the mark here. At the end, when we look at everything, as Protestants we have to look at Rome and see that this is not a true church and therefore her people are not hearing the true gospel. Well, that's all the time we have for today. If you would like to contact me directly, you can do so on X at R. Bosley 1689.

And if you'd like to find out more information about church and family life, you can do so at church and family life.com Thanks. See you next time