A European Informational Website
learn more
Protestantism encompasses the forms of Christian faith and practice that originated with the doctrines of the Reformation. The term is derived from the ''Protestatio'' delivered by a minority of delegates against the (1529) Diet of Speyer, which passed legislation opposed by the Lutherans. Since that time, the term has been used in many different senses, but not as the official title of any church until it was assumed (1783) by the Protestant Episcopal Church (since 1967 simply the Episcopal Church) in the United States, the American branch of the Anglican Communion.
The doctrines of the Reformation can be summarized as a) the rejection of papal authority, b) rejection of some fundamental Roman Catholic doctrines, c) the priesthood of all believers, d) the primacy of the Bible as the only source of revealed truth, and e) the belief in justification by faith alone.[1][2]
Protestantism generally refers to the faiths and churches born directly or indirectly of the Protestant Reformation in which many Roman Catholics split from the larger body and formed their own communions.[3] In common Western usage, the term is often used in contradistinction to Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy[4]. This usage, however, is regarded by many groups as improper since, among other things, there are many non-Roman-Catholic, non-Eastern-Orthodox communions that long predate the Reformation (notably Oriental Orthodoxy). The case of the Anglicans can be argued to be different as well in that, although born during the Reformation era, the Anglican doctrine is substantially different from the Reformation principles of most of the other Protestants of the time and is sometimes referred to as a middle path - a via media - between Roman Catholic and Protestant doctrines. Yet some other groups, such as the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses, reject Protestantism as having deviated from true Christianity and see themselves as Restorationists.
The churches most commonly associated with Protestantism can be divided along four fairly definitive lines[5]:
The Reformation came about through a number of factors, both political and theological. The Holy Roman Empire was by the 1500s, made up of approximately 300 states and imperial cities, each to some degree self-governing, most under a feudal lord - a prince, duke, margrave, etc. The 1521 Edict of Worms originally forbade Lutheran teachings, the status of which within the Catholic Church was still unclear, within the Holy Roman Empire. However, the 1526 session of the Diet, the imperial parliament, gave each ruler within the empire the power to decide the religion of his subjects according to the principle of Cuius regio, eius religio, allowing a local lord to forbid Lutheranism and enforce Catholicism, or forbid Catholicism and enforce Lutheranism.
In 1529, Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Speyer revised this policy again and declared that until there was clarification of the Catholic Church's position from another council all further new religious developments in the empire would remain forbidden:
<blockquote>"Those that until now have followed the Edict of Worms should continue to do so [ i.e., where Lutheranism has been forbidden, it remains forbidden]. In the areas where this has been deviated from, there shall be no further new developments and no-one shall be refused Mass [i.e., where Lutheranism has been permitted, Catholicism must be at least permitted]. Finally, the sects which contradict the sacrament of the true body and blood, shall absolutely not be tolerated, no more than the Anabaptists [i.e., anything beyond Lutheranism or Catholicism is outlawed everywhere]."</blockquote>
The term Protestant was initially applied to a group of princes and imperial cities within the Holy Roman Empire who "protested" against this decision, and therefore originally referred only to those who wished to forbid Catholicism and enforce Lutheranism within their territories.
Later, Protestant came to be used as the collective name for those who opposed Roman Catholic practice in general and whose followers separated from it. Earlier "reformers" such as John Wycliff and Jan Hus did not advocate such a separation but rather sought to purge what they saw as impurities within the Catholic Church. Anachronistically, they can be seen as reformers as their work heavily influenced the thinking of those who did formally separate, such as Martin Luther, John Calvin, Huldrych Zwingli, Thomas Cranmer, and John Knox. In England, before the Oxford movement of the 19th century,the word "Protestant" later came to be used to refer to the established Church of England. Protestants who were not members of the Church of England are further delineated as non-conformists.
In German-speaking and Scandinavian countries, the word "Protestant" still refers specifically to national Lutheran churches (in contrast to Reformed churches), while the common historical designation (evangelical) for all churches originating from the Reformation is a term that, in the United States, is used to refer to specifically conservative Protestant churches. Some Western, non-Catholic, groups are labelled as Protestant (such as the Religious Society of Friends), despite the reality that they recognize no historical connection to Luther, Calvin, or the Catholic Church.
As an intellectual movement, Protestantism grew out of the Renaissance and West European universities, attracting some learned intellectuals, as well as politicians, professionals, skilled tradesmen, and artisans. The new technology of the printing press allowed Protestant ideas to spread rapidly, as well as aiding in the dissemination of translations of the Christian Bible in native tongues. Nascent Protestant social ideals of liberty of conscience and individual freedom were formed through continuous confrontation with the authority of the Papacy, and the hierarchy of the Catholic priesthood. The Protestant movement away from the constraints of tradition, toward greater emphasis on individual conscience, anticipated later developments of democratization, and the so-called "Enlightenment" of later centuries.
The Five Solas are five Latin phrases (or slogans) that emerged during the Protestant Reformation and summarize the Reformers' basic theological beliefs in contradistinction to the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church of the day. The Latin word sola means "alone," "only," or "single" in English. The five solas were what the Reformers believed to be the only things needed in their respective functions in Christian salvation. Listing them as such was also done with a view to excluding other things that hindered salvation. This formulation was intended to distinguish between what were viewed as deviations in the Christian church and the essentials of Christian life and practice.
On the theological front, the Protestant movement began to coalesce into several distinct branches in the mid-to-late sixteenth century. One of the central points of divergence was controversy over the Lord's Supper.
Although early Protestants generally rejected the Roman Catholic dogma of transubstantiation, which teaches that the bread and wine used in the sacrificial rite of the Mass lose their natural substance by being transformed into the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ (see Eucharist), they disagreed with one another concerning the manner in which Christ is present in Holy Communion.
In Protestant theology, as the bread shares identity with Christ (which he calls "my body"), in an analogous way, the Church shares identity with Him (and also is called "the Body of Christ"). Thus, controversies over the Lord's Supper seem to be only about the nature of the bread and wine, but are ultimately about the nature of salvation and the Church; and indirectly about the nature of Christ.
Contrary to how the Protestant reformers were often characterized, the concept of a catholic, or universal, Church was not brushed aside during the Protestant Reformation. To the contrary, the visible unity of the catholic Church was an important and essential doctrine of the Reformation. The Magisterial Reformers, such as Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Ulrich Zwingli, believed that they were reforming a corrupt and heretical Catholic Church. Each of them took very seriously the charges of schism and innovation, denying these charges and maintaining that it was the medieval Roman Catholic Church that had left them. Because of this the fundamental Unity of the Catholic Church remained a very important doctrine in the churches of the Reformation. Dr. James Walker wrote in "The Theology of Theologians of Scotland":
The visible church, in the idea of the Scottish theologians, is catholic. You have not an indefinite number of Parochial, or Congregational, or National churches, constituting, as it were, so many ecclesiastical individualities, but one great spiritual republic, of which these various organizations form a part. The visible church is not a genus, so to speak, with so many species under it. It is thus you may think of the State, but the visible church is a totum integrale, it is an empire. The churches of the various nationalities constitute the provinces of this empire; and though they are so far independent of each other, yet they are so one, that membership in one is membership in all, and separation from one is separation from all... This conception of the church, of which, in at least some aspects, we have practically so much lost sight, had a firm hold of the Scottish theologians of the seventeenth century.[6]
Wherever the Magisterial Reformation, which received support from the ruling authorities, took place, the result was a reformed national church envisioned to be a part of the whole visible Holy Catholic Church described in the creeds, but disagreeing, in certain important points of doctrine and doctrine-linked practice, with what had until then been considered the normative reference point on such matters, namely the See of Rome. The Reformed Churches thus believed in a form of Catholicity, founded on their doctrines of the five solas and a visible ecclesiastical organization based on the 14th and 15th century Conciliar movement, rejecting the Papacy and Papal Infallibility in favor of Ecumenical councils, but rejecting the Council of Trent.
Today there is a growing movement of Protestants, especially of the Reformed tradition, that reject the designation "Protestant" because of its negative "anti-catholic" connotations, preferring the designation "Reformed," "Evangelical" or even "Reformed Catholic" expressive of what they call a "Reformed Catholicity" [2] and defending their arguments from the traditional Protestant Confessions. [7]
Unlike mainstream Evangelical (Lutheran), Reformed (Zwinglian and Calvinist) Protestant movements, the Radical Reformation, which had no state sponsorship, generally abandoned the idea of the "Church Visible" as distinct from the "Church Invisible." For them, the Church only consisted of the tiny community of believers, who accepted Jesus Christ by adult baptism, called "believer's baptism". Others believed that the Church could not be defined as anything more than a single congregation meeting together for worship at one time in a single place. The Radical Reformation thus did not believe that the Magisterial Reformation had gone far enough. For example, radical reformer Andreas von Bodenstein Karlstadt referred to the Lutheran theologians at Wittenberg as the 'new papists.'[8] It was exactly because the Reformation still strongly defended the visible unity of the Catholic Church that they were criticized by the Radical Reformers and vice versa.
See the articles Lay, Ordained and Priesthood of all believers
Whereas Catholics look to the Church for authority, Protestants look to the Bible for authority.
Many Protestant churches practice similar rituals to Catholicism—chiefly baptism, communion, and matrimony—frequently varying or de-formalizing the rites (although this is not the case in some Lutheran and Anglican parishes).
Protestants can be differentiated according to how they have been influenced by important movements since the magisterial Reformation and the Puritan Reformation in England. Some of these movements have a common lineage, sometimes directly spawning later movements in the same groups.
The German Pietist movement, together with the influence of the Puritan Reformation in England in the seventeenth century, were important influences upon John Wesley and Methodism, as well as through smaller, new groups such as the Religious Society of Friends ("Quakers") and the Moravian Brethren from Herrnhut, Saxony, Germany.
The practice of a spiritual life, typically combined with social engagement, predominates in classical Pietism, which was a protest against the doctrine-centeredness Protestant Orthodoxy of the times, in favor of depth of religious experience. Many of the more conservative Methodists went on to form the Holiness movement, which emphasized a rigorous experience of holiness in practical, daily life.
Beginning at the end of eighteenth century, several international revivals of Pietism (such as the Great Awakening and the Second Great Awakening) took place across denominational lines, which are referred to generally as the Evangelical movement. The chief emphases of this movement were individual conversion, personal piety and Bible study, public morality often including Temperance and Abolitionism, de-emphasis of formalism in worship and in doctrine, a broadened role for laity (including women) in worship, evangelism and teaching, and cooperation in evangelism across denominational lines.
Pentecostalism, as a movement, began in the United States early in the twentieth century, starting especially within the Holiness movement. Seeking a return to the operation of New Testament gifts of the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues as evidence of the "baptism of the Holy Ghost" or to make the unbeliever believe became the leading feature. Divine healing and miracles were also emphasized. Pentecostalism swept through much of the Holiness movement, and eventually spawned hundreds of new denominations in the United States. A later "charismatic" movement also stressed the gifts of the Spirit, but often operated within existing denominations, rather than by coming out of them.
Modernism, or Liberalism, does not constitute a rigorous and well-defined school of theology, but is rather an inclination by some writers and teachers to integrate Christian thought into the spirit of the Age of Enlightenment. New understandings of history and the natural sciences of the day led directly to new approaches to theology. Though, the Protestants refer more to the newer bible.
In reaction to liberal Bible critique, Fundamentalism arose in the twentieth century, primarily in the United States and Canada, among those denominations most affected by Evangelicalism. Fundamentalism placed primary emphasis on the authority and sufficiency of the Bible, and typically advised separation from error and cultural conservatism as an important aspect of the Christian life.
A non-fundamentalist rejection of liberal Christianity, associated primarily with Karl Barth, neo-orthodoxy sought to counter-act the tendency of liberal theology to make theological accommodations to modern scientific perspectives. Sometimes called "Crisis theology", according to the influence of philosophical existentialism on some important segments of the movement; also, somewhat confusingly, sometimes called neo-evangelicalism.
Neo-evangelicalism is a movement from the middle of the twentieth century, that reacted to perceived excesses of Fundamentalism, adding to concern for biblical authority, an emphasis on liberal arts, cooperation among churches, Christian Apologetics, and non-denominational evangelization.
Paleo-orthodoxy is a movement similar in some respects to Neo-evangelicalism but emphasising the ancient Christian consensus of the undivided Church of the first millennium AD, including in particular the early Creeds and councils of the church as a means of properly understanding the Scriptures. This movement is cross-denominational and the theological giant of the movement is United Methodist theologian Thomas Oden.
The ecumenical movement has had an influence on mainline churches, beginning at least in 1910 with the Edinburgh Missionary Conference. Its origins lay in the recognition of the need for cooperation on the mission field in Africa, Asia and Oceania. Since 1948, the World Council of Churches has been influential. There are also ecumenical bodies at regional, national and local levels across the globe. One, but not the only expression of the ecumenical movement, has been the move to form united churches, such as the Church of South India, the Church of North India, The US-based United Church of Christ, The United Church of Canada and the Uniting Church in Australia. There has been a strong engagement of Orthodox churches in the ecumenical movement.
In 1999, the representatives of Lutheran World Federation and Roman Catholic Church signed The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, apparently resolving the conflict over the nature of Justification which was at the root of the Protestant Reformation, although some conservative Lutherans did not agree to this resolution. On July 18, 2006 Delegates to the World Methodist Conference voted unanimously to adopt the Joint Declaration. [3] [4]
Protestants often refer to specific Protestant churches and groups as denominations to imply that they are differently named parts of the whole church. This "invisible unity" is assumed to be imperfectly displayed, visibly: some denominations are less accepting of others, and the basic orthodoxy of some is questioned by most of the others. Individual denominations also have formed over very subtle theological differences. Other denominations are simply regional or ethnic expressions of the same beliefs. The actual number of distinct denominations is hard to calculate, but has been estimated to be over thirty thousand. Various ecumenical movements have attempted cooperation or reorganization of Protestant churches, according to various models of union, but divisions continue to outpace unions. Most denominations share common beliefs in the major aspects of the Christian faith, while differing in many secondary doctrines. There are "over 33,000 denominations in 238 countries" and every year there is a net increase of around 270 to 300 denominations.[9] According to David Barrett's study (1970), there are 8,196 denominations within Protestantism.
Only general families are listed here (due to the above-stated mulititude of denominations); some of these groups do not consider themselves as part of the Protestant movement, but are generally viewed as such by scholars and the public at large:
There are about 590 million Protestants worldwide. These include 170 million in North America, 160 million in Africa, 120 million in Europe, 70 million in Latin America, 60 million in Asia, and 10 million in Oceania. Nearly 27% of all Christians (2.1 billion) today are Protestants.
(in alphabetical order by century.)
Contents