Evangelical and Catholic: What Do They Believe Differently?

Many Evangelicals have been taught to ask a decisive question:

Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?

Catholic Christianity does not ask you to stop asking it.

It adds another:

What Church did Jesus intend His disciples to become?

A Note About This Page

This page is an invitation to investigate, not an accusation against Christians who inherited this tradition. Catholic teaching recognizes baptized Christians who believe in Christ as Christians and acknowledges real gifts of Scripture, faith, grace and Christian life outside full Catholic communion.

The question here is narrower:

If we trace this tradition backward through Christian history, what came before it --- and what might that history ask us to reconsider?

What Catholics Can Appreciate in Evangelical Christianity

Evangelical communities often cultivate:

• love of Scripture;
• personal prayer;
• conversion;
• evangelization;
• missionary zeal;
• serious discipleship;
• confidence in Christ;
• desire to bring others to Jesus.

Those are not things a person must discard when investigating Catholicism.

Where the Questions Begin

Evangelicalism is broad, but recurring differences include:

• Bible alone versus Scripture, Tradition and teaching authority;
• symbolic/ordinance views of Baptism and Communion versus sacraments;
• invisible/universal Church emphasis versus visible Apostolic Church;
• faith alone and assurance;
• ordained priesthood;
• confession;
• Mary and saints;
• papacy.

How Old Is Evangelicalism?

Modern Evangelicalism has roots in the Protestant Reformation, later revival movements, Pietism, Methodism, the Great Awakenings and subsequent renewal movements.

But Christianity is much older.

Keep going backward.

What did Christians believe when there were no Evangelicals, Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans or Reformed churches?

Read the Earliest Christians

Do not begin with a Catholic apologist.

Begin with Christians close to the Apostolic period.

Read Ignatius.

Read Justin Martyr.

Read Irenaeus.

Then compare their Church with yours.

Meet the Early Christians →

The Bible Question

If you love Scripture, investigate where the New Testament canon came from.

Who Decided Which Books Belong in the Bible? →

Did Christianity Exist Before the New Testament Was Complete? →

The Invitation

You do not need to begin with:

"I think Catholicism is true."

Begin with:

"Jesus, show me the whole truth, even if it changes what I inherited."

Begin the LOOK BACKWARD Journey →