How do you simply explain what protestantism is to someone who doesn't know and is a Protestant?

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Without sounding like you’re explaining a huge answer to a math question.

“So there was this guy named Martin Luther…” 😁
 
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That in the 15th-16th centuries, several folk in Europe (Luther, Calvin, Zwingli) denied Catholic teachings as well as (legitimately) pointed out Catholic abuses and decided to start churches of their own. That many in Europe followed them in protest against the Catholic Church, including some whole countries, and these became known as Protestants. That soon Protestantism splintered and splintered again into many, many different Protestant sects, each with their own set of doctrines or practices.
That time period was called the Reformation because Protestants wants to ‘reform’ the Catholic Church. Catholics mounted their own Counter-Reformation.
 
  1. In the great upheaval which began in the West toward the end of the Middle Ages, and in later times too, Churches and ecclesial Communities came to be separated from the Apostolic See of Rome. Yet they have retained a particularly close affinity with the Catholic Church as a result of the long centuries in which all Christendom lived together in ecclesiastical communion.
    However, since these Churches and ecclesial Communities, on account of their different origins, and different teachings in matters of doctrine on the spiritual life, vary considerably not only with us, but also among themselves, the task of describing them at all adequately is extremely difficult; and we have no intention of making such an attempt here.
    Although the ecumenical movement and the desire for peace with the Catholic Church have not yet taken hold everywhere, it is our hope that ecumenical feeling and mutual esteem may gradually increase among all men.
    It must however be admitted that in these Churches and ecclesial Communities there exist important differences from the Catholic Church, not only of a historical, sociological, psychological and cultural character, but especially in the interpretation of revealed truth.
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That is how the fathers at Vatican II explained it, a little dated but it has the basic points. The variety makes it hard to describe easily; our desire is that we become one; we need to learn to share our differences and learn from each other.
 
Guest1 said:
Without sounding like you’re explaining a huge answer to a math question.

“So there was this guy named Martin Luther…” 😁
Click to expand...
A simple sentence, that says a ton, and made popular by John Newman, while still a Protestant.

"To be deep in history is to cease being a Protestant"

He became a Catholic
 
A word of warning. One thing that any Protestant knows is that there no such religion as “Protestantism”. Read carefully this paragraph from the document that @Dovekin quotes:

However, since these Churches and ecclesial Communities, on account of their different origins, and different teachings in matters of doctrine on the spiritual life, vary considerably not only with us, but also among themselves, the task of describing them at all adequately is extremely difficult; and we have no intention of making such an attempt here.

The Lutheran church is one thing, the Southern Baptist Church is a different thing, the Assemblies of God are something else again, and so on. If you start off by suggesting that it’s possible to “explain what Protestantism is” in a few sentences, you’ll be running the risk that your Protestant friend—if he has studied his faith at all—will pull the rug out from under your feet with no great difficulty.
 
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In terms of doctrine, Protestants believe in ‘sola fide’ only the faith and ‘sola scriptura’ only the Bible, while Catholics do not. Those are the two fundamental differences. That is short and simple. Of course if more questions follow up, you need to dig into it more.
 
Protestantism started as a series of 16th-century protests against various problems within the Catholic Church at the time. Due to various political, religious, and personal matters, they officially separated themselves from the Church. Today, though, it’s less a protest and more a loosely-connected set of Christian sects where even the core doctrines are poorly established once you get into the finer details.
 
What is “Protestantism” anyway? Basically churches that aren’t Catholic but can trace their roots back to Europe, but remember this is of more interest to Catholics than anyone else. If you want to get into theology, that’s a wholly different thing. There are plenty of churches in the US alone that are home bred and whose theology is far evolved from the original theological breaks in Europe. Many times these theological evolution were breaks from even earlier protestant theology.
 
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