Definition of a protestant

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puzzledtoo

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I’m curious about who is an actual protestant or what defines one as being protestant. Are cafeteria catholics really protestants? Are they protesting Catholicism by picking and choosing what to follow which is in essence what “protestant” traditions do isn’t it?
Am I a protestant? I left or fell away or drifted away from the catholic tradition 4 decades ago due to poor catechism(my fault not the priest’s) and being reared in a family that is pretty lukewarm on the subject of religion or spirituality. I’m not protesting anything in particular I just have no interest in following any particular tradition be it Christian or anything else.
The more I read on any tradition the less I feel compelled to be more than “spiritual” but again I’m not protesting anything. Is a protestant really only someone claiming to be Christian yet not catholic? Thank you for any help with understanding any distinction if there is one.
 
puzzledtoo said:
I’m curious about who is an actual protestant or what defines one as being protestant. Are cafeteria catholics really protestants? Are they protesting Catholicism by picking and choosing what to follow which is in essence what “protestant” traditions do isn’t it?
Am I a protestant? I left or fell away or drifted away from the catholic tradition 4 decades ago due to poor catechism(my fault not the priest’s) and being reared in a family that is pretty lukewarm on the subject of religion or spirituality. I’m not protesting anything in particular I just have no interest in following any particular tradition be it Christian or anything else.
The more I read on any tradition the less I feel compelled to be more than “spiritual” but again I’m not protesting anything. Is a protestant really only someone claiming to be Christian yet not catholic? Thank you for any help with understanding any distinction if there is one.
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Labels are for soup cans. And at least soup is nourishing and tasty.

I hereby QUIT reading stuff - not meaning you i Hasten to add - that disrespects others in that way… even using no capitals.

Just Jesus now… Blessings and be at peace. In prayer, in love.

Time out … sweet and holy…

I am I must admit, disappointed here. Thought there was more… well, more…

OK. am off…
 
Baptized Catholics, Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, are not Protestants. Protestants are those Christians of communities begun by the European Protestant reformers of the 16th Century. The Protestant communities continue to schism into new groups as they generally do not view schism as a sin.
 
From dictionary.com - I guess 1 and/or 2 would be applicable here. Of course Methodists (for example) descended from the Anglican Church, but I would consider them protestant so this isn’t 100% accurate.
  1. any Western Christian who is not an adherent of a Catholic, Anglican, or Eastern Church.
  2. an adherent of any of those Christian bodies that separated from the Church of Rome during the Reformation, or of any group descended from them.
  3. (originally) any of the German princes who protested against the decision of the Diet of Speyer in 1529, which had denounced the Reformation.
  4. (lowercase) a person who protests.
 
I’m sincerely sorry that I’ve offended you and anyone else by not capitalizing. The only intentional capitals I used were at the beginning of sentences, others were added by the computer. I meant and mean not disrespect in what or how I write. I apologize for any stress and suffering this post may have caused you and anyone else. Be well-stay safe.
 
puzzledtoo said:
I’m curious about who is an actual protestant or what defines one as being protestant. Are cafeteria catholics really protestants? Are they protesting Catholicism by picking and choosing what to follow which is in essence what “protestant” traditions do isn’t it?
Am I a protestant? I left or fell away or drifted away from the catholic tradition 4 decades ago due to poor catechism(my fault not the priest’s) and being reared in a family that is pretty lukewarm on the subject of religion or spirituality. I’m not protesting anything in particular I just have no interest in following any particular tradition be it Christian or anything else.
The more I read on any tradition the less I feel compelled to be more than “spiritual” but again I’m not protesting anything. Is a protestant really only someone claiming to be Christian yet not catholic? Thank you for any help with understanding any distinction if there is one.
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I have actually wondered abot this myself for some time. On here it seems that if you are not Catholic, then you are Protestant. Except the Orthodox, they are special in some way.
ajcstr said:
From dictionary.com - I guess 1 and/or 2 would be applicable here. Of course Methodists (for example) descended from the Anglican Church, but I would consider them protestant so this isn’t 100% accurate.
  1. any Western Christian who is not an adherent of a Catholic, Anglican, or Eastern Church.
  2. an adherent of any of those Christian bodies that separated from the Church of Rome during the Reformation, or of any group descended from them.
  3. (originally) any of the German princes who protested against the decision of the Diet of Speyer in 1529, which had denounced the Reformation.
  4. (lowercase) a person who protests.
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Point 2 (maybe) and point 3. It is even in the oath of the monarch of England being the SG of the CoE. So point one is out. Point 3 is actually where the term came into being.

Point 2 well that would possibly be the main Catholic view. And that relates back to my first post.
 
Oops that should read “no disrespect” not “not”.
Thank you PaulfromIowa and ajcstr for helping with the definition.
 
MichaelP3: What is SG? I see that you’ve listed Protestant as your religion. What is it that you are protesting or is it that the tradition you follow is or was protesting and this term has less meaning now than it did 500 years ago or so?
 
MichaelP3 said:
I have actually wondered about this myself for some time. On here it seems that if you are not Catholic, then you are Protestant. Except the Orthodox, they are special is some way…
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The groupings are rather different, depending whether one is looking from the Catholic, the Orthodox, or the Protestant point of view. Generally, Christians are divided into the Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox, with the Oriental Orthodox being grouped with the Orthodox.

From the Catholic point of view, the Orthodox are very different from Protestants, as they have valid Holy Orders and all seven sacraments. Many Protestants today resist being grouped together as their groups have widely divergent views. Many Eastern Orthodox believe that only the Orthodox Churches have valid sacraments, that Catholics and Protestants lack even valid baptisms.
 
puzzledtoo said:
MichaelP3: What is SG? I see that you’ve listed Protestant as your religion. What is it that you are protesting or is it that the tradition you follow is or was protesting and this term has less meaning now than it did 500 years ago or so?
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Supreme Governor. It is in the oath that the monarch will uphold the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law. Well some may say it means something different. Point is, they made it very clear and included the English word. And not even that long ago it was still the oath.

I don’t really think I am protesting against much.I am not the person saying anyone else is wrong. Just the person trying to understand why I am soooooooo wrong. I would much rather make my religion “Christian” but that is somehow frowned upon here. Or maybe Anti-Anti-Protestant. 🙂
 
Am I a protestant? I left or fell away or drifted away from the catholic tradition 4 decades ago due to poor catechism(my fault not the priest’s) and being reared in a family that is pretty lukewarm on the subject of religion or spirituality. I’m not protesting anything in particular I just have no interest in following any particular tradition be it Christian or anything else.
The more I read on any tradition the less I feel compelled to be more than “spiritual” but again I’m not protesting anything. Is a protestant really only someone claiming to be Christian yet not catholic? Thank you for any help with understanding any distinction if there is one
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You have not formally renounced the Church? You sound more like a fallen away Catholic.

Protestants are Catholic lite - they love the Catholic book but not interested in the rest of the buffett.

Pescetarianism or Vegan is still a diet, just a very limited one.
 
PaulfromIowa said:
The groupings are rather different, depending whether one is looking from the Catholic, the Orthodox, or the Protestant point of view. Generally, Christians are divided into the Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox, with the Oriental Orthodox being grouped with the Orthodox.

From the Catholic point of view, the Orthodox are very different from Protestants, as they have valid Holy Orders and all seven sacraments. Many Protestants today resist being grouped together as their groups have widely divergent views. Many Eastern Orthodox believe that only the Orthodox Churches have valid sacraments, that Catholics and Protestants lack even valid baptisms.
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Indeed. I take the view of the first definition per dictionary.com above.
  1. any Western Christian who is not an adherent of a Catholic, Anglican, or Eastern Church.
However I imagine the Catholic view is general definition 2.
 
ajcstr said:
From dictionary.com - I guess 1 and/or 2 would be applicable here. Of course Methodists (for example) descended from the Anglican Church, but I would consider them protestant so this isn’t 100% accurate.
  1. any Western Christian who is not an adherent of a Catholic, Anglican, or Eastern Church.
  2. an adherent of any of those Christian bodies that separated from the Church of Rome during the Reformation, or of any group descended from them.
  3. (originally) any of the German princes who protested against the decision of the Diet of Speyer in 1529, which had denounced the Reformation.
  4. (lowercase) a person who protests.
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RE #3. More than denouncing the Reformation, the civil authorities intended to restrict religious free exercise of Reformation groups in the area of Europe.
The formal protest was against government, not the Church directly
 
puzzledtoo said:
I’m curious about who is an actual protestant or what defines one as being protestant.
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The generally accepted definition in simple terms is any member of a Western Trinitarian Christian tradition that is not [Roman] Catholic or Orthodox Christian. Non-Trinitarian traditions, such as the Latter-day Saint churches, Unitarianism, and Christian Science, while they may share some similarities with some forms of Protestantism, would generally be placed outside of the Protestant category.

Protestantism encompasses both those churches emerging during the Reformation time period as well as denominations forming later on. For the Reformation era, there are two major groups. First, the Magisterial Reformation (so called because this led to the establishment of state churches supported by the civil magistrates) included the Lutheran Church, the continental Reformed/British Presbyterian churches, and the Church of England (Anglicanism). Second, was the Radical Reformation which gave birth to what we know today as the Anabaptist churches (Mennonites, Amish).

The Protestant label includes any and all churches that split or evolved out of these churches as well. Therefore, Baptists, Methodists, Church of Christ/Disciples of Christ, Congregationalists, Pentecostals, etc. are all considered Protestant.
puzzledtoo said:
Are cafeteria catholics really protestants? Are they protesting Catholicism by picking and choosing what to follow which is in essence what “protestant” traditions do isn’t it?
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Protestants aren’t protesting anything. As so often happens, the label “Protestant” was not something that Protestants themselves chose as much as it was a label applied to them and just “stuck” until it became normative. The first Protestants called themselves evangelicals to emphasize their devotion to the truth of the gospel.
 
All of the above, and one more thing.

Catholic means universal. The universe is defined by governance, sacrament, and creed.

In the history of the Reformation, any one of these matters (or any small part of these matters) could be “protested”, e.g. disapproved of, objected to, or declared in the face of stated or implied doubt. The quintessential moment was Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the door, at that time a form of debate. Whether the debate was won or not depended on the evidence presented. The debate resulted in the Edict of Worms, 1521, calling on Luther to renounce heresy. Some followed Luther, some didn’t. As more and more protests were lodged, the movement had a name coined for it. The name first appeared in the Diet of Speyer in 1629, or so my on-line sources suggest, when Charles V, a Catholic, rescinded a law from three years previous that allowed free cities and their rulers the right to choose to obey or defy the Edict of Worms. It was a political label, not a religious one. But it stuck.
 
venite_adoremus said:
All of the above, and one more thing.

Catholic means universal. The universe is defined by governance, sacrament, and creed.

In the history of the Reformation, any one of these matters (or any small part of these matters) could be “protested”, e.g. disapproved of, objected to, or declared in the face of stated or implied doubt. The quintessential moment was Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the door, at that time a form of debate. Whether the debate was won or not depended on the evidence presented. The debate resulted in the Edict of Worms, 1521, calling on Luther to renounce heresy. Some followed Luther, some didn’t. As more and more protests were lodged, the movement had a name coined for it. The name first appeared in the Diet of Speyer in 1629, or so my on-line sources suggest, when Charles V, a Catholic, rescinded a law from three years previous that allowed free cities and their rulers the right to choose to obey or defy the Edict of Worms. It was a political label, not a religious one. But it stuck.
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  1. But yes, this is about it. It was a political label because it was a political protest.
 
Lenten_ashes said:
Protestants are Catholic lite - they love the Catholic book but not interested in the rest of the buffett.
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I am not now nor have I ever been Protestant, but I disagree with that statement. Some Protestants, I would imagine just like Catholics, were “born that way”, others truly believe in the principles of the reformation. That is plainly obvious just from this thread.
 
ajcstr said:
I am not now nor have I ever been Protestant, but I disagree with that statement. Some Protestants, I would imagine just like Catholics, were “born that way”, others truly believe in the principles of the reformation. That is plainly obvious just from this thread.
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I was Protestant for 12 years in a few different denominaitons.

There are different levels of “Catholic Light”. Lutheran/Anglican obviously more so than Baptists, etc.

What makes them all Catholic lite is their love for a Catholic book, imo.

I’m sure some would be offended by that statement, but not my intent. I just think many aren’t aware that the Bible is a Catholic book.
 
A Protestant is one who is not Catholic or Eastern Orthodox.😛
 
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