The World's Christians. Douglas Jacobsen

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3 The Protestant Tradition

      Protestantism is the most diverse of the four Christian traditions. Even a quick examination of global Protestantism reveals its astonishing variety. In settings ranging from small house churches in China, to huge megachurches in Nigeria, to ancient stone cathedrals in Great Britain, Protestants espouse an array of views regarding theology, ethics, styles of worship, and spirituality. Beneath all this diversity, however, Protestants share a common commitment to recovering and proclaiming what they see as the simple gospel of Jesus: by God’s grace, forgiveness and newness of life are available to everybody with nothing required but faith. Protestants believe that every person has direct access to God through Christ. This vision of faith marks Protestantism’s key difference from Orthodoxy and Catholicism. Its center of gravity lies in personal faith in God rooted in the Bible alone, rather than in the communal mediation of God’s grace to the individual through the church. With this switch of emphasis from the group to the individual, Protestantism brought Christianity into the modern world – or, perhaps more accurately, it helped to create the modern western world with its unique emphasis on the importance of the individual.

      Protestants have a different approach to worship than either Orthodox or Catholic Christians. Worship is central to religious life for Catholics and Orthodox Christians; for Protestants it is not. When asked if it is possible to be a good Christian and not go to church, many Protestants would say “yes.” For Protestants, faith is embedded as much in the family, the marketplace, and the classroom as it is in the church – and Protestants often feel compelled to talk openly about their faith in these non‐churchly contexts. The church building itself is simply a place to meet, not a sacred temple. The mundane character of the church building is reflected in the fact that most Protestant churches are locked between services, while most Catholic and Orthodox churches have traditionally been open all day and night so people can enter to pray. Originally Protestant churches were locked precisely for this reason: to undercut the notion that prayers said in a church building are somehow more effective than prayers said elsewhere. For Protestants, God is equally available to everyone everywhere.

Protestants do not generally call themselves Protestant in the same way that Catholics call themselves Catholic and that Orthodox Christians call themselves Orthodox. If asked to describe themselves religiously, most Protestants identify themselves either by the name of their particular Protestant sub‐tradition (such as Anglican, Baptist or Lutheran) or they simply say they are Christian. This is so much the case that in certain parts of the world – in both the United States and China, for example – saying you are a “Christian” implies that you are Protestant rather than Catholic. Nevertheless, the term “Protestant” is an apt description of the movement as a whole. On the one hand, it can mean “to protest,” and the name was applied to the original Protestant reformers partly because they protested certain Catholic attitudes and actions. But the word Protestant can also mean “to profess” or “to confess” what one believes to be true, a more positive definition that points toward the core emphasis of the movement. A common synonym for Protestant in many parts of the world is “evangelical,” meaning “of the gospel” or “good news.” Thus Protestants in Germany, the birthplace of the movement, go by the name Evangelische and in Latin America Protestants are known as evangelicos. (The term “evangelical” can sometimes be confusing, however, because in places like the United States and Great Britain calling oneself an “evangelical Christian” or “an evangelical” is meant to signal that you are a particular kind of conservative Protestant.)