Who is a “bad” Protestant?

Who is a “bad” Protestant? I know, it sounds silly or perhaps disingenuous, but it’s a serious question.

By Deacon Frederick Bartels
16 September 2024

Who is a “bad” Protestant?

I know, it sounds silly or perhaps disingenuous, but it’s a serious question.

Here’s what I’m getting at: As Catholics, we know that a Catholic who dissents from the Church’s teaching on faith might be called “bad” in the sense that he rejects some aspect of what the Church proposes for belief.

For example, let’s look at a doctrine of Christian faith: If a Catholic were to reject the Church’s teaching on baptism and, instead, hold that it is merely a celebration of the faith a person holds and does NOT regenerate a person in the Holy Spirit, we would call that “bad” in the sense that it is wrong. It’s contrary to what the Church teaches and believes.

But what about Protestants?

Many Protestants believe that baptism is a sacrament of regeneration through which the Holy Spirit is conferred on a person and is thus necessary for eternal life. Others, however, will disagree with this position and even go so far as to say that baptism is unnecessary.

As another example, some baptize infants, others say only adults can be baptized.

One final example: Lutherans generally believe that Christ is really present alongside the bread and wine received in their liturgies (which is not what Catholics believe about the Eucharist), whereas many other Protestants insist that their celebration of the Lord’s Supper is purely symbolic (which is also not what Catholics believe about the Eucharist). The bread they eat is nothing but bread. The wine they consume is nothing but wine.

Is a Protestant who believes baptism to be a sacrament through which the grace of the Holy Spirit is conferred a “good” Protestant or a “bad” one in terms of whether their view is correct or not? Is the Lutheran “bad” or is the Evangelical “bad” in terms of their beliefs about celebrating the Last Supper?

Who is right? These are unsolvable questions for Protestants. Why? Because Protestants have no central, infallible authority to which they can appeal to definitively answer them.

But wait…

“We have the infallible scriptures as our authority,” they will say. However, that does not solve the problem because there are sincere, knowledgeable, reasonable Protestants who all rely on scripture yet argue for opposing positions. So, we’re back to my point: In the Protestant world, there’s no way to definitively settle these arguments.

Catholics (praise be to Christ!) can solve these questions. We believe that Christ instituted the Catholic Church as a Spirit-guided institution, the “pillar and bulwark of the truth” (1 Tim 3:15) whose magisterium (teaching office) can rule definitively on doctrines of faith and morals.

That’s a beautiful thing. It makes all the difference.