It Is Baptism that Makes You a Christian

From a Catholic point of view, a person becomes a Christian when he is baptized. Those who are not baptized are not Christians.

From the point of view of many Protestants, a person becomes a Christian when he chooses to become a disciple of Jesus. While the Catholic Church does maintain the necessity of baptism as a theological doctrine of the Catholic Faith, there is no necessity for individual Catholics to antagonize believing, unbaptized Protestants by refusing to acknowledge their professed Christian faith. You can gently challenge your friend’s understanding of the necessity of baptism without making the matter personal by refusing to call him a Christian.