Define Protestant

[Richard King]

The more I read the more it seems there are many different interpretations of the word protestant.
While I guess I thought of it as anything that rejects Roman Catholicism, it seems different countries mean different things when they say protestant and in the US some people use it interchangebly with Evangelical and some people think it is synonymous with reformed and then I know Baptist who do not embrace the term at all. How might the people on this board define PROTESTANT... or do you find it too diverse a term to use to really describe anything specific or distinctive?

 

[yeutter]

protestant

Any western church that says it adheres to the 5 solas should be considered protestant.

 

[No Longer A Libertine]

Any western church that says it adheres to the 5 solas should be considered protestant.

As a Reformed believer this is the answer but i am prepared to count those who place trust in Christ and no other as protestant believers in the making.

Papists, work based doctrine, synergists that don't fully trust Christ for salvation but place their own perseverance or Wesley-like perfectionism in the equation are not believers.

 

[Calvibaptist]

Any western church that says it adheres to the 5 solas should be considered protestant.

Agree, except that most western churches have no idea what is really meant by the 5 solas, even if they say they adhere to them. BTW, a lot of Baptists trace their roots to the Anabaptists (which may be a spurious claim!) who were persecuted by the Protestants, which is why they don't claim to be Protestant themselves.

 

[Scott Bushey]

One who protests. The reformation was in regards to a protest against Roman principles in light of scripture.

 

[Davidius]

The term Protestant was originally used in a more specific sense than anything listed so far.

At the 1526 session of the Diet of Speyer, it had been agreed that Luther's teachings would be tolerated until a General Council could be held to make a final ruling on how things would be dealt with. The freedom for Lutherans to worship was (officially at least) considered a "to each his own" issue. However, at another session of the Diet in 1529, this decision was reversed and the Edict of Worms, which had forbidden Lutheran teaching within the Holy Roman Empire in 1521, was enforced (note: this was not the decision of a General Council, to which the 1526 session had said it would defer). People in imperial cities who protested this were called "Protestants."

Now Protestant usually means anything tracing its descent to the split from Rome.

 

[elnwood]

Now Protestant usually means anything tracing its descent to the split from Rome.

Going along with this, theologically, the split with Rome was primarily over sola scriptura, or the bible as the sole authority. The other solas are based off of that premise.

So in modern use, that would include not only groups like Lutherans, Presbyterians, Anglicans, Methodists and Baptists that have direct traceable roots to the Protestant Reformation, but also Anabaptist groups that preceded the Reformation and Pentecostal groups that came much after the Reformation.

 

[MrMerlin777]

Nowadays in the military. (Though they've gotten a bit more "descriptive" of late when asking ones religion ie: noting differences between denoms.) Protestant is still pretty much used to decribe any denom that's not Catholic.