I agree. If that is your views, them's the views. I can at least respect a firm conviction. At the same time, I realize that there are multiple distinctions in the Protestant domain, but for us Catholics (I include Orthodox) they are minor and we cannot be expected to keep track of them.
Since you mention damnation, let me clarify. The Catholic view is that declarative faith alone does not save. If a Muslim or an Atheist imitates Christ in his works, then he can be saved, no matter what theories he has in his head. Certainly a Protestant can even more so be sanctified through his works and through the love of the Holy Scripture. It's the heart not the label that matters to Christ, Who in His sovereign will can save anyone. People should convert to the Catholic or Eastern Orthodox Church not because it automatically would give them salvation, but because they will be in more frequent company of Christ and that will shape their soul for the better, and prepare them better for their eventual judgment.
The spiritual danger of Protestantism is that it is based in many parts on denial of Christ. He comes across in the Protestant teaching as someone Who does not mean what He says, always evasively allegorical, failing to build up His Church till 1500 years after the Descent of the Holy Ghost on the disciples. The denial of the historical continuity of the Catholic and Orthodox churches is denial of the productive work of the Holy Spirit, a serious blasphemy. It is not the opinions, it is the spirit of opposition to the authentic Churches of antiquity that is wicked. Not all Protestants suffer from it, but many do.
I believe in an “acceptive faith.” It’s the only kind that makes sense.
Now, sooner or later this is going to produce a declaration. Either this side of glory or the next one. But I don’t put the cart before the horse and say that the declaration produces the faith. And actually, neither do serious Protestant reformers. Please avoid strawmen here.
Your thesis is interesting because I’ve been inching up on the gospel to a group of Hindus, who are actually more spiritually aware than a lot of nominal Christians I have met. My plan, inasmuch as there is one, is to show the blessings of God and then reveal Jesus Christ as the source. They sure do not refuse the blessings, and have seemed to show interest in my account of the origin.
Oh, also it is on account of my Protestant beliefs that I can accept that people in Catholic and Orthodox congregations can be believers.
But we don’t soft pedal it when we say a lot of them are just believing in men, not in Christ. And we aren’t being hypocrites here because that’s a big problem in the evangelical segment of Christendom too. Baptists, Methodists, etc. will freely tell you there are going to be congregants who miss heaven because of failing to put their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
I believe in going where the Lord has sent me, not based on worries about the pontifications of Orthodox or Catholic. I have no problems accepting any bible based congregation as authentic, even if you don’t, because this is the personal message of the Founder of the faith.
This is probably the most heretical thing I've seen posted here. How can you globally castigate Protestants for rejecting what you call Jesus' teachings on the Eucharist or denying he means what he says, when you reject the very thing he came to do and pretend he didn't say that HE is the way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father but through him? An atheist can be saved if he lives a good life? Are you serious? Who is the true enemy of the cross here?