Am I Considered Christian?

"You basically have the Christians, the Catholics, and the Jews."

That's my friend Warren, answering a recent question regarding religious observance in the United States. He'd said something along these lines a time or two before, so I piped up, being born and raised Catholic myself.

"Catholicism was the first Christian church," I protested. 

Warren stuck by his division and was not going to talk about it. He didn't "know what the f--k" we Catholics were.

Henry VIII established the Church of England¹ essentially so he could remarry after divorcing — he did not invent Christianity by so doing. Neither did Martin Luther when he nailed his 95 Theses² to the door of the Wittenberg Castle church, thereby kicking off the Reformation and Protestantism.

I would not allow us Catholics to be eradicated by the "protest-ants", the "schismatics", the "break-offs".³

When it's stated that 75% of Americans consider themselves to be "Christian", that number certainly includes Catholics. We make up 25% or so of the American population, after all. But many Christians in the U.S. do not believe Catholics should be counted with them.⁴

This may be a definitional thing. What means "Christian" in their minds? It could be the result of ignorance. Or was it historical?

Mayflower

In Europe, everyone knows the Roman Catholic church first spread Christianity, at least in the Western sphere. Martin Luther and Henry VIII came along later. But in the U.S., the English Protestants⁵ came first, at least in the Northeast. Catholic Spaniards stayed far to the south. 

The big Catholic waves came later — 1840s for the Irish, 1880s for the Italians. 

Warren, being from Massachusetts, home of the original landing of Puritans at the legendary Plymouth Rock, might very well see us Catholics as the bedraggled stowaways on ships manned by Protestants — as invaders not founders, upstarts not originals.

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1. which, apart from breaking off from Rome and the matter of remarrying, did not substantially alter Catholic doctrine.
2. issues which have all been resolved since, save one.
3. I have also called them "splinter groups".
4. something I've observed most particularly in the South.
5. technically not "Protestant"?