# What does being a Protestant mean to you?



## dudley (Dec 26, 2009)

To be Protestant and a Reformed Protestant to me is very special and a grace of election by God. 

I believe the Protestant Reformation was absolutely necessary. I also believe being a Protestant in the 21st century takes courage and living by the doctrines of reformed Protestantism takes a great deal of courage and fortitude.


I believe strongly that Authority,and papal authority as well as our Protestant doctrine of Justification is what separates us from Roman Catholicism and makes us Protestants.

I left the Roman catholic church in January 2006. I expressed to friends who were Episcopalian that I was very disillusioned by Pope Benedict and I was no longer able to believe in the primacy of the pope or accept him as Christ's vicar on earth. They invited me to join them as guests at the Episcopal service the following Sunday. I liked the service, I was welcome to the Lords Supper at the service even though I was a Roman catholic and not yet an Episcopalian or a Protestant. I continued to go to the Episcopal church and officially joined and was received into the Episcopal church Easter week 2006. 

Once convinced that no man is above the Gospel. Anyone standing for the sovereignty of God as well as the sufficiency of Scripture cannot do other than to renounce the Roman pope and leave the Roman Catholic church.

I began an intensive study of Protestantism and the Protestant Reformation. I began to believe the Reformation was establishing and returning the Church and the Gospel to the way it was in the early church and before the corruption's done by the Roman church and the governmental system of the papacy. 

I discovered I believed in the doctrines of the Protestant Reformation i.e. the authority of the Bible alone in all matters of faith and practice and that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

I also began to understand Protestantism involves protesting against error, but also propagating the Truth. A Protestant, therefore, in the true sense, is one who not only protests against the corruption's, abuses and apostasy of Romanism, but also bears faithful witness to the fundamental principles of the Gospel as set forth in the Word of God. 

Once God removes the veil from the eyes of the Roman Catholic and gives him/her eyes to see and ears to hear and new heart of trust in the real grace of God there is no more Roman Catholicism left in the soul. Hence, to be born again by the Spirit puts an end forever to Roman Catholicism. I really did not leave the Roman catholic religion I was no longer a Roman catholic. One cannot believe in salvation through the Roman Catholic system of sacraments, etc., and salvation by grace through faith alone at the same time. It is one or the other. 

As time went on I began to research the Protestant doctrine of Justification and when I fully understood the doctrine and accepted it and salvation through Jesus Christ alone I knew I was born again and I joined an inquirers class at a Presbyterian congregation. I made a Public confession of faith as a Presbyterian in 2007 and have been a communing and Reformed Protestant since.


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## Reformed Thomist (Dec 27, 2009)

An unfortunate but necessary circumstance.


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## buggy (Dec 27, 2009)

To be a Protestant means to contend and stand in the beliefs and doctrines of the historic, Apostolic Christian faith (contrary to what the RCC claims about herself)


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## jambo (Dec 27, 2009)

A true Protestant is one who believes in the 4 solas. Grace alone, faith alone, scripture alone and Christ alone. Historically Protestants protested against the RC church but I think the scope needs to be widened. The RC church continues in its historical errors but within the Protestant denominations there are equally serious errors caused by liberalism, inclusivism, antinomianism etc


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## jrdnoland (Dec 27, 2009)

This is my understanding of the basics of what a protestant believes in:

Sola Scriptura (the Scripture alone is our absolute standard)
Soli Deo Gloria (God’s glory alone is salvation’s ultimate goal)
Solo Christo (Christ’s work alone saves sinners)
Sola Gratia (God’s grace alone brings salvation)
Sola Fide (faith alone is the instrument of salvation)


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## Herald (Dec 27, 2009)

jambo said:


> A true Protestant is one who believes in the 4 solas. Grace alone, faith alone, scripture alone and Christ alone. Historically Protestants protested against the RC church but I think the scope needs to be widened. The RC church continues in its historical errors but within the Protestant denominations there are equally serious errors caused by liberalism, inclusivism, antinomianism etc



4 solas? Me thinks you forgot Soli Deo Gloria.


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## Wayne (Dec 27, 2009)

Protestant: _Pro Testamentum_, i.e., For the Gospel.

NOT _protesting_, as in, or as if, _against_ something.


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## Scott1 (Dec 27, 2009)

The essence of being "Protestant" is and was, a reformer, one who would bring the church back to the Scriptural basis of the Apostolic Christianity of the first century.

It's about recovering the "evangel" (the gospel), and the authority of Scripture over Christian faith and practice.


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## jambo (Dec 27, 2009)

Herald said:


> jambo said:
> 
> 
> > A true Protestant is one who believes in the 4 solas. Grace alone, faith alone, scripture alone and Christ alone. Historically Protestants protested against the RC church but I think the scope needs to be widened. The RC church continues in its historical errors but within the Protestant denominations there are equally serious errors caused by liberalism, inclusivism, antinomianism etc
> ...



Sorry, 5 solas it should be.


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## johnbugay (Dec 28, 2009)

jambo said:


> Historically Protestants protested against the RC church but I think the scope needs to be widened. The RC church continues in its historical errors but within the Protestant denominations there are equally serious errors caused by liberalism, inclusivism, antinomianism etc



I think it's important to retain a separate focus on the RCC. That's not to say that things like "liberalism, inclusivism, antinomianism etc" aren't important. But Rome does represent a threat that is not like any other; unlike some of the others you mentioned, Rome actively seeks to devour, and it claims superiority over the Reformation churches in subtle and yet deceiving ways.


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## a mere housewife (Dec 28, 2009)

To me being a protestant means clinging to Christ alone for my salvation. All the other things translate into holding onto Him, and if I give them up, I lose sight of Him in a confusion of man's traditions and the insufficiency of my own efforts. I am not sure whether such a personal take is desirable in something that is a historical definition, but that is the heart of the issue to me after having fought through this several times in my mind.


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## Jimmy the Greek (Dec 28, 2009)

As mentioned above: To me, Protestant is adequately described by the Five Solas, especially in contradistinction to Romanism.


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## Pilgrim Standard (Dec 28, 2009)

Protesting that which is unscriptural. Conversely protecting all that which is scriptural.
In all spheres of ones life...


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## jambo (Dec 28, 2009)

johnbugay said:


> jambo said:
> 
> 
> > Historically Protestants protested against the RC church but I think the scope needs to be widened. The RC church continues in its historical errors but within the Protestant denominations there are equally serious errors caused by liberalism, inclusivism, antinomianism etc
> ...



I don't really see the RC church as any bigger threat than any other non-Christian grouping. Threats come to the church when people fail to see that the work of Jesus is not sufficient for them. Catholicism just waits to gobble such people up as do the cults and any other false system. 

Basically those who join the RC church are non-Christian wanderers that will jump on any bus that will take them anywhere except the place they need to go to.


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## Rich Koster (Dec 28, 2009)

Pilgrim Standard said:


> Protesting that which is unscriptural. Conversely protecting all that which is scriptural.
> In all spheres of ones life...



That's a good, quick and tidy summary !!!


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## johnbugay (Dec 29, 2009)

jambo said:


> I don't really see the RC church as any bigger threat than any other non-Christian grouping. Threats come to the church when people fail to see that the work of Jesus is not sufficient for them. Catholicism just waits to gobble such people up as do the cults and any other false system.
> 
> Basically those who join the RC church are non-Christian wanderers that will jump on any bus that will take them anywhere except the place they need to go to.



Well, it depends on what you mean by "bigger" and it depends on what you mean by "threat." In the United States, five of our nine Supreme Court justices are Roman Catholics. There are presently no Presbyterian or Reformed believers on the Supreme Court. No truly Reformed believers are in a position to have any such influence. Recent health care legislation has been strongly influenced by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (perhaps in a good way, we might think). Their role is to try to limit or eliminate public funding for abortions in any health care. 

From the "threat" side, look at the recent discussions about the "Manhattan Declaration." his document virtually equates the "gospel" that the RCC professes, with the true Gospel. (We do have Protestants like Timothy George and Chuck Colson making such concessions. But they are strongly influenced -- in what I'd say is a threatening kind of way -- by their Roman Catholic counterparts. And the concession of George and Colson is spreading like a leaven through Protestantism as a whole.) 

But this is just for starters. There is Catholic influence in major universities, major health care networks. Not all of it is of a "conservative" strain that would limit abortion, for example. Much of it, especially at the university level, is of a modernist, liberal variety that is almost precisely the opposite of everything you or I would believe in, both from a doctrinal perspective and from an ethical perspective. 

Yes, we should oppose error wherever we see it, but Roman Catholicism is of a type that requires some dedicated, focused attention from a lot of people.


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## buggy (Dec 29, 2009)

jambo said:


> johnbugay said:
> 
> 
> > jambo said:
> ...




I would say most who join the RCC are those who are awed by her traditions, who enjoys the external beauty of her cathedrals and rituals, and the charity of her soup kitchens, but reject the exclusivity of Biblical Protestantism or the materialism of the seeker-sensitive movement.


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## dudley (Dec 29, 2009)

*Thank you Wayne!*



Wayne said:


> Protestant: _Pro Testamentum_, i.e., For the Gospel.
> 
> NOT _protesting_, as in, or as if, _against_ something.



Wayne, thank you for that statement. I not only agree with you I point that out to all who I speak with about why I became a Protestant. I said in my own post "I also began to understand Protestantism involves protesting against error, but also propagating the Truth. A Protestant, therefore, in the true sense, is one who not only protests against the corruption's, abuses and apostasy of Romanism, but also bears faithful witness to the fundamental principles of the Gospel as set forth in the Word of God."

Many do not understand that point, not only Roman catholics but many Protestants.


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## Wayne (Dec 29, 2009)

Thank you, Dudley. It wasn't an original thought, but proper credit lacks an author's name at this point.


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