Jess Calarco: This Fox News list of "America's Top Christian Colleges and Universities" is fascinating for many reasons, but maybe especially for the fact that it erases Catholicism from Christianity. i.e., schools like Georgetown and Notre Dame aren't mentioned at all.

This Fox News list of "America's Top Christian Colleges and Universities" is fascinating for many reasons, but maybe especially for the fact that it erases Catholicism from Christianity. i.e., schools like Georgetown and Notre Dame aren't mentioned at all.

Here's the link to the full story/list: www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/am...

America's top Christian colleges and universitieswww.foxnews.com The U.S. features many institutions of higher learning in which education is centered on religious faith: Wheaton College, Gordon College and Taylor University are just a few.

The founded-by-Christians Ivy League schools are also missing, but that's less surprising, given that they've dropped their religious affiliations over time. Catholic universities, by contrast, still require students to take theology classes. And yet, they aren't included here.

The comments and QTs here make me wonder how many US Catholics are aware that a lot of conservative Protestants/Evangelicals don't see them as Christian. And it makes me wonder if knowing that might make Catholics less willing to align themselves with Evangelicals politically.

As a religion professor, I’ve come to realize I have to emphasize that Catholics are Christians b/c so many students don’t know or accept that.

This is absolutely fascinating (and troubling) to me.

It took me a while to figure it out. But then, the colleges I teach for are in the south. I’ve had some really interesting discussions with some fundamentalist students. Not sure they always appreciate Christian history or theology pre-Reformation.

Their minds explode when you say that Abrahamic religions all worship the same god, and that "Allah" is in fact the same as the Christian God.

tbf there are Jews that don't feel it's the same God

You could ask them how Arabic CHRISTIANS call God. Allah, of course.

Evangelical churches are teaching that anyone who adds books to the Bible has lost the narrative. That’s Catholics, Mormons, and others. They’re also mixing politics, in the vein of Falwell and Roberts. It’s been going on so long, the people doing or viewing sermons don’t remember anything else.

I’m sure a lot of folks have seen this term before - it’s the baseline to exclude entire denominations as not Christian.

Sola scriptura - Wikipediaen.m.wikipedia.org

Um… are they aware “their” bible was compiled BY Catholics and is itself an “addition” to the original Jewish text? It’s in the effing name! Why the eff do they think it’s called the NEW testament?

Some people still remember. And they've compiled the history.

"Christians in the Hand of an Angry God", Parts 1-5, as well as "Cost of Preaching Jesus' Gospel: $3,000,000" and "The Democratic Party is for Losers - Literally." By J. Brad Hicks drive.google.com/file/d/1x9GQ... Please reskeet!

What do you teach them about LDS?

This was something I learned from childhood friends.

How does it go with Mormonism?

pretty sure even fewer people consider mormons christians

The Catholics making common cause with the fundies really don't understand recent history. most of us don't. you have to dig to find the vitriol which was aimed at JFK

grew up Catholic in suburban Texas with lots of white evangelicals, so it was definitely salient from a relatively early age; I will never trust the US Catholic episcopate because of its decision to get in bed with the spiritual children of the White Citizens Councils over fucking abortion politics

Yes, this. The USCCB is as anti-Catholic as you can get.

growing up Filipino American and Catholic, there’s a reverse form of this where referring to someone as “Christian” implicitly means “non-Catholic” / “Protestant”. me and my vent-diagram-thought, i would always wonder “doesn’t Catholic also mean Christian?” sigh lol

venn-diagram*

OK, but vent-diagram is a great coinage. Haven’t we all made a sarcastic one just to vent at least once in our lives?

it's funny how many catholics are republicans. you know they're going to get Long Knifed as soon as the protestants can make it happen.

Fewer than you’d think, actually and most of those are single issue voters anyway. I was raised Catholic by staunchly dem parents. My super Catholic mother was fine with abortion and a dedicated Bella Abzug feminist.

I think nowadays that's not how most catholics are anymore. they're very anti-abortion.

Growing up in the South I was definitely told that, as a Catholic, I was not Christian and going to hell.

I remember getting that when I moved to the south. Someone told me Catholics weren’t Christians and they were *not* prepared for the sarcastic response.

I was raised Catholic and my church was protested by Protestants who screamed at us about how we worshipped the virgin and Protestant kids at school often made it clear that they didn’t think we were Christian through their questions and phrasing.

And I did in fact understand this at the time to be related to why conservative Catholics I knew were all Democrats. They knew that evangelicals didn’t see them as Christian and wouldn’t support their rights.

Same with the Jewish side of the family. Regardless of conservatism, you couldn’t be in a tent with evangelicals, because they saw your religion as inherently invalid.

As to the political question, my guess is it's doubtful. Faced with dwindling numbers, theological purity is not as important to conservative Christians as political power. Take this episode from the fight over Prop 8 in California:

agree on political expediency. also, it’s possible that west coast folks and theology may not be as strict as other regions (NE and South)—feels like this for growing up Catholic in the Oakland/SF Bay Area. maybe similar for other Christians?

The funny thing is, it's not just a US thing either. When I was on my Mormon mission in Brazil in the early 2010s, when we asked people if they were Catholic (our default assumption), many people would respond with, "no I'm Christian."

It mystifies logic, but yes, I have finally accepted that White Protestant Americas do not consider - or even regard - Catholics as Christians of consequence.

I remember first time I went for field work to Argentina & was on a flight with a Christian youth group going there to missionize -- I was very confused (until a friend explained this quirk of US protestantism)

I went to a Catholic (Jesuit) university and knew a group of Evangelical kids *who were also students there* and who were steadfast in their belief that Catholics aren't Christian. As a religiously unaffiliated person, it was baffling to me.

I always question why Republicans fight against migrants who are mostly conservative Christians with partial European ancestry. One of the reasons seems to be Republicans don't like that brand of Christianity.

I have been hearing “Catholics aren’t real Christians” since elementary school

I went to Catholic school and a sizable chunk of my former classmates are all in on Trump and the Republican Party.

It could be a great start for a small change

The Vatican returns the favor. www.cbc.ca/news/world/c...

My grandfather went to an Ivy in the 40s, converted to Catholicism to marry my Irish-Catholic grandmother and when my father was visiting schools in the 60s before they’d transitioned to meritocracy from prep school+ he was told to skip the Ivies and look at ND/BC/Georgetown. Catholic quota all full

My husband and I were both raised in heavily Catholic communities in the Northeast, and neither of us can remember any priests, CCD teachers, or family members mentioning that other groups might question Catholicism's Christianity.

Post