Writing About Protestants
A conservative Protestant, I am kept well-supplied by a Catholic friend with the literature of Catholic protest against the modernists who now infect his church in all its parts. Despite temptations to Schadenfreude against triumphal converts, I regard the plight of traditionalist Catholics sympathetically, for I have been where they are, and believe that in their part of Christendom they uphold the fundamental doctrines of the faith and the ethical imperatives that accompany it.
Unlike Protestants who see Catholicism as without remainder an anti-church and Catholics as false Christians, I believe a Catholic might be as much a Christian as a non-Catholic, just as a Catholic might think of a Protestant, although one must grant there are many of both tribes for which Dante could find a warm place. My attitude comes less from the liberality that accompanies “mere Christian” conviction than from what I have found from early youth, before I read C. S. Lewis, to be inescapable evidence of living faith among serious Catholics, so that if Catholics cannot be believers, neither can I. Lewis simply reinforced intuitions I had before I read him.
Roomism & Its Antithesis
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
S. M. Hutchens is a Touchstone senior editor.
• Not a subscriber or wish to renew your subscription? Subscribe to Touchstone today for full online access. Over 30 years of publishing!
personal subscriptions
Purchase Print &
Online Subscription
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives including pdf downloads for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
gift subscriptions
GIVE Print &
Online Subscription
Give six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for the reduced rate of $29.95. That's only $2.50 per month!
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
kindle subscription
OR get a subscription to Touchstone to read on your Kindle for only $1.99 per month! (This option is KINDLE ONLY and does not include either print or online.)
Your subscription goes a long way to ensure that Touchstone is able to continue its mission of publishing quality Christian articles and commentary.
more on Ecumenism from the online archives
31.4—July/August 2018
Labels & the Ecumenism of Discipleship by James M. Kushiner
more from the online archives
27.3—May/June 2014
Facts versus Stereotypes About Love & Marriage in the Land of the Free by Allan C. Carlson
31.5—September/October 2018
on the Congregation as a Wilderness by Paul Gregory Alms
30.5—Sept/Oct 2017
The Critical History Before, During & After Martin Luther by James Hitchcock
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
