Protestantism

Something that has irked me for years is the idea of the definition of Protestantism. Now, raised as I was (a Scots-Presbyterian home, attending a Lutheran church) I was exposed to both sides of Protestantism. When I moved to New Jersey, I found more of my friends coming from the Baptist sphere of Christianity. While I love them to death, and one of them is my best friend (she's a pentecostal, never let it be said I don't give :P) it always annoyed me when they demanded recognition as "Protestants." True enough, to the world at large, there are really only two types of Christians-Catholics and Non-Catholics. However, we, inside Christianity, define ourselves by denomination. I'm not someone who thinks that denominations necessarily detract from church Unity. After all, there is such thing as unity in the freedom of ideas. I think denominations are a very necessary evil in a world where there are hundreds of thousands of beliefs, and while denominations may cause problems, the problems that would arise without them are worse. Hence we have them for the sake of identification. Protestantism works the same way. To be a Protestant, one must be more than just not a Catholic. This is not for the sake of "Dividing Christianity," but rather for the sake of definition and identification. And as any debater or advocate will tell you; definitions matter.

So first up; what are Protestants? Simply put, Protestants are those who hold to the beliefs of the Protestant reformers. Seemingly easy enough. There is significant diversity within the reformers, from Zwingli, to Luther, to Calvin, all of whom held quite different beliefs yet all were reformers. Now, the reformers disagreed on many things; the real presence in communion, systems of church government, forms of worship, etc. But what they DID agree on were the five Solas; Sola Sciptora, Sola Fide, Sola Gratia, Solo Christo, and Soli Deo Gloria. Scripture alone, Faith alone, Grace alone, Through Christ alone, and all Glory to God alone. The other principle that all the reformers held in common was the idea of infant baptism. I'm not going to get into the defense of infant baptism, save to say that it has been the historic position of the church since the apostolic age. The reformers did not believe in Professor's Baptism (I refuse to call it Believer's Baptism, you have no idea if the recipient is REALLY saved or not) and out of this refusal to accept the idea of Professor's baptism came the Radical Reformation of the Anabaptists. I will not condemn the Anabaptists (though I admit, some of the "brutal torture'' that they received was deserved, see John of Leiden as an example of an 'anabaptist' who got what was coming to him) it cannot be denied that they were a quite different movement to the Reformation. Was there common ground between the two movements? Of course there was; both were Christian. However, they were separate and distinct movements, and remained so for hundreds of years.

Now, we arrive in the present day. Today, the Anabaptist movement is larger than that of the Protestant movement (of course, might does not make right, nor does size prove a movement's orthodoxy or non-orthodoxy) with the largest non-Catholic denomination being the Pentecostal (IE, radical Anabaptist) Assemblies of God. Protestants, on the other hand, are restricted to the Presbyterian, Episcopalian, and Lutheran denominations, all of which have only a few non-liberal denominations (and even then, the "non-liberals" such as the PCA are pretty darned liberal.) Both movements have significantly departed from many of the beliefs of their founeders. Luther and Knox would start cracking skulls if they saw the state of the modern Lutheran and Presbyterian churches today. I know that if Calvin saw the state of any church I've attended, he'd have a conniption. Similarly, most Anabaptist movements have moved on beyond the beliefs of the original radical reformers. However, the two main criteria for each movement still hold true. Now, there is overlap between each movement; I have met Calvinistic baptists (although a true Calvinist will hold to infant baptism) and I have met "Presbyterians" who would be more at home as baptists. The issue, however, is that of definition, and it is important to realize that Baptists are.not.protestants. They follow the teachings of a related, but still separate movement, and thus they fall under a different banner. This does not make them ANY less Christian, or somehow inferior to Protestants (the most evil man I've met is a conservative Presbyterian pastor), it is simply a matter of definition. Definition does not lead to division. Division is a separate force entirely. It doesn't matter if someone considers themself protestant or not. I may consider myself black, but trust me, I'm still white (actually, technically not, because I'm half-Jewish, but you get the point.)

As a matter of definition, then it is important that Christians realize their differences. Only through recognizing where we differ can we truly reach unity by finding common ground. Pretending we're all the same is not going to lead to unity. We must realize differences and work past them, and the way we do that is through definition. Also, we must all remember three very important things: The Church Invisible encompasses men and women of many different beliefs (within Christianity. Muslims and followers of Judaism still get to go to hell, despite what C.S. Lewis believed.) We must also remember that while the instruction in the Bible to seek unity applies to the WHOLE church, IE, the Church Invisible, unity doesn't mean just all shutting up and pretending we're the same. Finally, we should all rejoice because of one very important thing: We're not Catholic!! :P