Matthew Stanley
By the numbers, Christianity has been a predominantly Catholic and European religion for over a millennium, but the future of Christianity has come to look increasingly Protestant and African.
The Center for the Study of Global Christianity estimates that the number of Protestant Christians today stands at a bit more than a billion globally.1 With many Protestant groups experiencing their highest rates of growth in Asia and the Global South, some are predicting that over 50 percent of Protestants in 2040 will live in Africa.2
With the church looking more Protestant by the day, what exactly is a Protestant? This article aims to answer that question in depth by introducing the history of the Protestant Reformation, what theological commitments define Protestant Christianity, and where all these Protestant denominations came from. (Hint: there aren’t really 33,000.)
Table of contents
The TL;DR on Protestantism
A Protestant is a Christian who traces their historical and doctrinal origins to the Protestant Reformation, which was a reform movement that emerged within the Roman Catholic Church during the early sixteenth century in Germany. This reform movement eventually grew into a diverse and global phenomenon which today rivals in size the membership of the Roman Catholic Church. Protestant means “one who protests,” a label which they were given by their opponents.3
Protestants emphasize salvation as a free gift of God which is received by faith alone, and they appeal to the authority of the Bible as the ultimate rule for Christian living, rather than deferring to tradition or the proclamations of a Pope. While each Protestant sect has developed its own distinctive set of beliefs and practices, they are united by a common commitment to the centrality of faith for salvation and a regard for Scripture as the supreme authority for the Christian faith.
Protestant Christianity does not have a central church or governing body. Instead, Protestants have organized themselves into various official denominations and decentralized movements. Organizations such as the Anglican Communion, World Communion of Reformed Churches, or World Assemblies of God Fellowship act as larger coordinating bodies for denominations spread across different countries. Protestants from different denominations have also found themselves cooperating in broader theological movements, such as evangelicalism or the charismatic movement, which cut across traditional dividing lines.
What was the Protestant Reformation?
The Protestant Reformation began on October 31, 1517, when a young German monk named Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of Wittenburg Church.4 Luther wrote his theses to propose a public debate about the moral and theological abuses he had witnessed with the Roman Catholic Church’s popular (and lucrative) practice of selling indulgences,5 which were certificates that released one from having to perform a certain amount of penitence for sin, including reducing time in purgatory.6
Although Luther was condemned as a heretic at the Diet of Worms in 1521, he and many other early Protestants saw themselves as reformers of the church, not separatists seeking to make a new church.7 They protested the Church’s deviation from the teachings of Scripture and the church fathers, and they decried what they saw as corruption in the Church hierarchy and rampant abuse of the lay people. Protestants argued that the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church placed excessive spiritual and financial burdens on ordinary Christians in order for them to receive forgiveness of their sins, to experience God’s grace, or even to enter heaven.
Reform movements like Luther’s were not new in the history of the Church, for similar individuals had appeared in previous centuries, such as John Wycliffe (1328–1384) in England who strove to put the Bible in the native tongue of the English, or Jan Hus (1370–1415) in Hungary who popularized Wycliffe’s writings by translating them into Czech, and also preached against moral abuses in the Church.8 The Roman Catholic Church burned Hus at the stake on July 6, 1415. Many Protestants looked to Jan Hus as the forerunner of the Reformation.9
The Roman Catholic Church responded to Luther’s unexpected reform movement and its growing number of political and ecclesiastical allies by convening the Council of Trent (1545–1563), an official church council which would, among other things, anathematize Luther’s teachings of justification by faith alone and define the Church as the authoritative interpreter of Scripture. The Council of Trent also explicitly endorsed many practices which had come to be decried by the Protestants at this time, such as the ongoing sale of indulgences and the veneration of the saints and Mary.
As the Roman Catholic Church was resisting the forces of reform, the core message of this Reformation ignited by Luther rapidly spread to other countries in Europe, especially Switzerland, but also France, the Netherlands, most of Scandinavia, and other parts of Eastern Europe. England under the leadership of King Henry XIII and Thomas Cranmer would also secede in subsequent decades from the Roman Catholic Church, giving birth to the Church of England.
Study events in church history, like the establishment of Lutheranism, using Logos’s Church History Themes. Don’t have the Logos app? Get it now.
What do Protestants believe?
Beyond a handful of key guiding theological commitments, it would be misleading to talk about what Protestants believe as a whole. As the Protestant Reformation grew and transformed, the beliefs of Protestant leaders and their respective groups also developed, often coming to be defined in relation to other Protestant groups’ changing beliefs, as well as against the new doctrinal definitions which were unfolding within the Roman Catholic Church in response to the Reformation.
While some Protestant denominations have rejected creeds and confessions entirely as “unbiblical” (“no creed but Christ”), many Protestant denominations embrace the earliest ecumenical creeds and adopt confessions to define their community’s theological beliefs. However, they view these confessions as expressing the truths contained in Scripture, and thus as open to revision or clarification on the basis of their subordination to the teachings of the Scriptures.10
Many Protestants have historically confessed the Apostles’ Creed as a helpful summary of the faith, along with the Nicene Creed (381), the Athanasian Creed, and the Formula of Chalcedon (451) regarding the nature of the Trinity and the person of Christ. However, Protestants reject the three ecumenical councils which came after Chalcedon, because later councils such as the Second Council of Nicaea (787) affirmed things like the veneration of icons, a practice which many Protestants have historically opposed.11
Many Protestants point to the five solae (often colloquially called the “five solas”) as a heuristic for teaching the commitments of the Protestant Reformation which continue to mark Protestant theology today. From the Latin solus, which means “alone or only,” the five solae are best understood as emphases, not doctrines per se, as different Protestant groups disagree on the particular ways these priorities should be expressed in their doctrinal formulations. Nonetheless, we can recognize Protestant groups as united around the animating theological commitments of the five solae, and thus they do offer a helpful picture for understanding Protestantism as a historical movement.
1. Sola Scriptura (Scripture alone)
The Protestant cry of sola Scriptura expresses a radical adherence to the words of the Bible as the ultimate rule for faith and practice, and has historically entailed a relativization of—or even in some instances, a rejection of—tradition and secular reasoning as methods for establishing the tenets of the Christian faith. For the Protestant Christian, the authority of Scripture supersedes all other possible sources of theological justification.12
Sola Scriptura expresses a radical adherence to the words of the Bible as the ultimate rule for faith and practice.
When Luther was questioned concerning his beliefs at the Diet of Worms, he rejected the voices of the Church’s councils and the Pope and made his appeal on the basis of Scripture and its reasonable interpretation, uttering his famous words, “Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise.”13
Sola Scriptura defines the heart of the Protestant theological method and marks a key battleground for Protestants up to the present day. Because it concerns the method of how to reason about or to establish the truth, the debate about sola Scriptura defines the very terms of the debate, and thus serves as the foundational presupposition of any Protestant theological discussion.
Protestant theology opened the question of whether or not the institution of the Church was the most authoritative and infallible interpreter of the Bible. The Protestant Reformers appealed to Scripture alone as the norm or standard by which Christians could judge the truth—even to correct or oppose the Church’s teachings, if necessary. This shift of theological authority from the Church to the Scriptures still constitutes the deepest and most enduring commitment of the Protestant traditions born from the Reformation.
Related Article:
What Do Catholics (Really) Believe about the Bible?
2. Solus Christus (Christ alone)
Solus Christus seeks to re-center Christ as the Christian’s only object of worship or devotion, and as the exclusive source of salvation. The Protestant Reformers’ early critiques reflected their worry that the Roman Catholic Church’s teachings and practices gave ordinary Christians the impression that God’s salvation in Jesus Christ needed to be supplemented by the good work of the saints or by penitential practices performed by the believer.14 Against this, Protestants insisted that salvation could not be found in anything or anyone other than Jesus Christ.
At the time of the Protestant Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church compelled Christians to confess to a priest in order to receive forgiveness of sins from God; an elaborate cult of veneration of the saints and their relics, especially of Mary, had developed; and parishioners were frightened with tales of the refining fires of purgatory they would have to endure before they could reach heaven.15 These doctrines and rituals ran the risk of obscuring what (or who!) Christianity was about—Jesus Christ.
Solus Christus expresses the Reformers’ desire to see the incarnate Son of God, Jesus Christ, serve as the sole foundation of the Christian’s hope and life.
Solus Christus thus expresses the Reformers’ desire to see the incarnate Son of God, Jesus Christ, serve as the sole foundation of the Christian’s hope and life. Protestant theology today continues to emphasize the all-sufficiency and supremacy of Christ in how one ought to understand the core message of forgiveness and salvation in Christianity.
3. Sola fide (faith alone)
Sola fide means that a Christian is saved by faith alone, not by their own good works: Salvation comes only through faith in the absolution from Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross and the power of Jesus’s resurrection life. The gospel message says that we cannot do good works to earn God’s forgiveness, but that God freely gives us his grace when we believe on his promise to save us in Jesus Christ.
The Protestant Reformers expressed a concern that the Roman Catholic Church had over the years added more and more things that a Christian had to do in order to be saved. In contrast to the fashion of the times, they pointed out that the apostle Paul had simply said in Scripture that “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom 10:9 ESV).
Many Protestants today see justification by faith alone as the primary dividing line between their views with the Roman Catholic Church. Luther saw it as the chief article of the Protestant faith.16
That said, the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation have made recent attempts to resolve this dispute, resulting in the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (1999), jointly drafted to find agreement on the question of justification. This document has subsequently been adopted or affirmed by the World Methodist Council, the World Communion of Reformed Churches, the Anglican Consultative Council, and many other prominent Protestant organizations. While the statement remains controversial, it also marks a genuine step towards mutual understanding.17
4. Sola gratia (grace alone)
Sola gratia extends and clarifies sola fide by teaching that even the faith by which the Christian receives salvation is itself not a work. This makes God the primary agent of salvation, not human initiative or contributions. This message dispensed with much of the theological trappings of the Roman Catholic Church at the time (e.g., receiving grace through sacramental acts like penance) which emphasized things a believer had to do in order to cooperate with God as they worked towards their salvation.
Protestant Reformers argued that even the faith by which we are saved is graciously given by God to the believer, and that we cannot muster up faith by our own powers apart from the working of God’s grace. The Protestant Reformers taught that God the Father creates faith through the power of the Holy Spirit in order to make dead sinners alive again in Christ.
5. Soli Deo gloria (glory to God alone)
Finally, soli Deo gloria defines the overall guiding thread of Protestant theology, which is that all glory flows back to God, not to any human being or their endeavors.
“What is the chief end of man?” asks the first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, and the answer comes back, “To glorify God and enjoy him forever.” Everything that happens in Scripture, the world, and the lives of individual Christians is aimed at bringing glory to God by displaying that he is good and that he’s done great things.
Soli Deo gloria serves as underlying motivation for the other five solae, animating them with the desire to attribute primacy to God at every step of the process of salvation. The principle also serves to temper humans and institutions which might try to arrogate to themselves more power or authority than they should. It thus aims to refocus all Christian theology and practice on the goal of bringing the glory and praise to God, not to ourselves.
Study the doctrines of the Reformation using Logos’s Theology Guide.
Why are there so many Protestant denominations?
Without a central ecclesial authority to provide a unified interpretation of Scripture, the Protestant Reformation gave birth to many different Christian communities which at times disagreed with one another about how to follow the teachings they believed were laid out in Scripture.
As the idea of “freedom of conscience” developed amongst both Catholic humanists and Protestant theologians, many people stressed that true belief could not be coerced by the sword, and that each person had a duty to God to believe the truth of which they were personally convinced. Even Martin Luther taught that “the conscience must not be bound by anything, except by the Word of God,”18 and argued that one should not use violence against Anabaptists because “there must needs be heresies,”19 although he would later reverse his position to take part in the persecution of other Protestant groups.
This guiding imperative and diversity of thinking produced two distinct “streams” to the Reformation:
- The Magisterial Reformation led by figures such as Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Ulrich Zwingli.
- The Anabaptist (“Radical”) Reformation pioneered by figures such as Menno Simons, Balthasar Hubmaier, Thomas Müntzer, and many others.20
Despite the various tributaries within the Magisterial and the Anabaptist streams, the claim that Protestantism today has fractured into 33,000 different denominations does not hold water. While it’s true that some Protestant traditions are divided into more individual denominations than others, the high number of Protestant denominations commonly cited is artificially inflated by counting as separate denominations those churches which share a common tradition across national borders. For instance, even though the Lutheran Church in Denmark and the Lutheran Church in Sri Lanka are technically separate administrative entities, it would be deceptive to count them as fundamentally different denominations, especially because they are united by the Lutheran World Federation.
1. The Magisterial Reformation
The Magisterial Reformation refers to those wings of the Protestant Reformation which sought to establish themselves through strategic alliances with political leaders in order to procure civil protections and influence the laws of the land. Typically the Lutheran, Reformed (Calvinist), and Anglican traditions are associated with the Magisterial stream of the Protestant Reformation.
The leaders of the Magisterial Reformation also often collaborated with state power to violently persecute the Anabaptists. While certainly wanting to gain a safe place to practice their form of Christianity, they also enlisted the government in controlling public behavior, censuring false doctrine, and inflicting corporal punishment on groups they branded as heretics.21 This brought them into direct conflict with the Anabaptists of the Radical Reformation.
Unlike the Anabaptists, the Magisterial Reformers saw value in attempting to recover or use church tradition where it was found to be in accordance with Scripture (or at least not explicitly contradicting it), and thus they tempered their reading of Scripture by using church tradition and human reason. This is partly why practices such as infant baptism or a high view of the Lord’s Supper were retained in Magisterial Protestantism, whereas Anabaptist groups rejected these historical practices as unbiblical.22
Lutheranism
Lutheranism began to grow from Martin Luther’s protest against the Roman Catholic Church. It spread rapidly, eventually becoming the established church of a unified Germany, as well as the primary Christian church in the Scandinavian countries.23 In its fragile early years, Lutheranism found support amongst some German clergy and princes, and Luther himself was even secretly protected by Frederick III, Elector of Saxony, in Wartburg Castle while he translated the New Testament into German.24 His cause grew in support, ultimately leading to a fracturing of the Holy Roman Empire along religious lines.
Upon Luther’s death, Philip Melanchthon (1497–1560) tried to take up his mantle of leadership, contributing his humanistic education and deep theological learning to the growing movement, although he was never fully accepted by the entire Lutheran community.25 After Melanchthon’s death, Lutheran theology became more tightly defined in documents like The Book of Concord (1580). The Lutheran World Fellowship today reports a membership of more than 75 million Lutherans in 150 Lutheran denominations around the world.26
Calvinism
The Reformed or Calvinist churches trace their genesis to John Calvin, a French lawyer-turned-pastor who led the Reformation in the Swiss town of Geneva.27 Calvinism spread to other areas in Germany and Switzerland, and also gave birth to an embattled Protestant minority: the Huguenots in France. After enduring persecution from Catholic Spain, the Reformed would also establish thriving churches in the Netherlands, even becoming the de facto state church from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries.28
Calvinism and the Reformed churches became historically identified with Presbyterianism, although the two are not exactly identical. Presbyterianism refers to a form of church government in which an individual church is ruled by a body of elders elected by the members, whereas Calvinism is a theological tradition which does not strictly entail a particular form of church government. Having a Presbyterian form of church government does not demand that one adhere to Calvinism.
Anglicanism
Anglicanism, or the Church of England, was born when the Roman Catholic Church in England seceded from the authority of the Pope during the first half of the sixteenth century. With Thomas Cranmer as Archbishop of Canterbury, the Act of Supremacy was passed to declare the English king as the head of the Church in England, rather than the Pope.29 Under the reign of his son, Edward VI, the Church of England was reformed away from Roman Catholic dogma, and the Book of Common Prayer (1549) was first promulgated, which remains the central liturgical and confessional document of the Church of England to the present.30
The Anglican Church today consists of an international communion between autonomous national churches whose leaders (archbishops) all recognize each other’s authority. Since the Anglican Church was originally the Roman Catholic Church in England, it retained the episcopal church government structure of bishops and priests, unlike some other Protestant denominations. Also, some Anglicans continue the practices of venerating the saints and Mary, the adoration of the Eucharist, and a real presence view of the Lord’s Supper, even though many Protestants have historically rejected these practices.
2. The Radical Reformation
The Anabaptist groups (ana-, “again”) differed from the Magisterial Reformers through their insistence on a total separation of the church from state powers.31 Anabaptists also argued that only adult believers who consciously confessed Jesus and had faith in him should be baptized. Thus, the Anabaptists became known for “re-baptizing” people who had already been baptized as infants (as infant baptism was the standard practice in all Christian churches at the time).32
The novel nature of each Anabaptist group makes it impossible to identify a single origin for the Anabaptist Reformation. The Radical Reformation was a diverse movement born from many differing motivations, ranging from those who thought the Magisterial Reformers did not adhere close enough to Scripture, all the way to leaders who claimed they had received personal revelations from God.
Many of the earliest Anabaptist groups no longer exist today, but an array of small Christian groups such as the Hutterites, the Bruderhof, Mennonites, various “Brethren” groups, and the Amish all have historical connections to the Anabaptist movements, their theology, and their practices. These groups place a strong emphasis on separation from the world, living according to a strict code of conduct, forming highly interdependent communities, practicing pacifism, and only performing believer’s baptism.
Anabaptists were heavily persecuted by both church and civil authorities during the Reformation. While Anabaptist groups were typically pacifist, some groups were not, and Anabaptist teachings did spark civil unrest in a few famous cases.33 Even if Anabaptist groups had no intention of inciting political violence, both Roman Catholics and Protestants would imprison or execute them on the grounds that they were spreading heresy.34
Baptists & Methodists
Some groups like Methodists (Wesleyans) and Baptists trace their historical lineage through the Magisterial Reformation. Yet some of their theology more closely resembles Anabaptism, such as the Baptist rejection of baptizing infants or the Wesleyan emphasis on attaining personal holiness in this life. Methodists and Baptists both emerged as distinct movements within the Church of England, but ultimately established their own churches when they went to America.35 Today, the Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Protestant denomination in the United States.36
Pentecostals
From a global perspective, Pentecostals are by far the largest group with a legitimate claim to being the true successors of the Anabaptist movement. There are more Pentecostals in the world than any Protestant denomination, with the number of Pentecostal/charismatic Christians estimated to rise to one billion by 2050.37 Pentecostals embody both streams of Anabaptist theology with their highly biblicist stance, a belief in the personal revelation of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer, and an emphasis on attempting to closely emulate the practices of the early church prior to the accretion of tradition and doctrine. Along with other key Protestant commitments like the preeminence of Scripture and salvation by faith alone, Pentecostalism emphasizes the necessity of the Christian being baptized in the Holy Spirit, an event in a believer’s life which they claim is evidenced by speaking in tongues.38
Start an in-depth study on topics like Protestantism in the Factbook inside Logos. Get the Logos app free, if you don’t already have it.
Are evangelicals Protestant?
In 2012, Wheaton College estimated that between 30 and 35 percent of the American population could be defined as “evangelical.”39 But what does the term “evangelical” mean, and what relation does evangelicalism have to Protestantism?
The word “evangelical” comes from the Greek εὐαγγέλιον, which means “good news.” Early in the Reformation, the term “evangelical” referred to Protestant churches because the name emphasized the spreading of the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ, but it later came to distinguish Lutheran churches from Calvinist ones.40 While the name evangelical has been retained in the name of some Lutheran denominations today, the contemporary movement called evangelicalism goes far beyond the bounds of any particular Protestant denomination.
To put it succinctly, all evangelicals are Protestants, but not all Protestants are evangelicals. Evangelicalism has become a broad theological and inter-denominational movement which emphasizes a personal conversion experience (being “born again”) and a strong commitment to the ultimate authority of the Bible in all matters of faith and life. Evangelicalism also emphasizes mass movements of spiritual revival as well as social and political activism.
David Bebbington’s quadrilateral famously summarizes the four core commitments of evangelicalism:
- Conversionism
- Biblicism
- Crucicentrism
- Activism
Because the evangelical movement is defined by these broad principles, it can draw Protestant Christians from many different denominations without needing to worry as much about finer doctrinal points. Instead, they can work across denominational lines to share a core gospel message upon which they all agree and form coalitions for pursuing the social and political implications of the message of Jesus.
Continue your study with resources on the Reformation and Protestant theology
Reformation Theology: A Reader of Primary Sources with Introductions
Regular price: $32.99
The Reformation as Renewal: Retrieving the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church
Regular price: $59.99
Reformation Commentary on Scripture | RCS: New Testament (13 vols.)
Regular price: $402.99
Calvin on the Christian Life: Glorifying and Enjoying God Forever (Theologians on the Christian Life)
Regular price: $15.99
Luther on the Christian Life: Cross and Freedom (Theologians on the Christian Life)
Regular price: $15.99
Consider a Logos package from the Protestant traditions
Related articles
- The Definitive Guide to Christian Denominations
- The First Best-Selling Bible: A Reformation Story
- What Do Catholics (Really) Believe about the Bible?
- The Center’s report distinguishes Protestants, independents, evangelicals, and Pentecostals/charismatics, although all of these groups are historically Protestant, and some are double-counted by these labels. The “over a billion” figure I’ve provided comes from merging Protestants and independents, and assuming that Pentecostals/charismatics may not be fully counted in that resulting total.
- See Todd M. Johnson, “Protestants around the World,” Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, July 22, 2020. https://www.gordonconwell.edu/blog/protestants-around-the-world.
- The term originated when German Reformers and their allied princes publicly protested the decision of the Second Council of Speyer in 1529. The princes were opposing the council’s decision to annul an edict from three years prior which had allowed each prince to determine which form of Christianity was acceptable in his own domain. See Phillip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. VII: Modern Christianity (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1992), 517–18. This edict had given princes the power to decide whether Protestants could live and practice peaceably in their lands, a move which also challenged the supremacy of the Pope’s authority over political leaders in Europe.
- Graham Tomlin, “Shapers of Protestantism: Martin Luther,” in The Blackwell Companion to Protestantism, eds. Alistair McGrath and Darren C. Marks (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 40–52, 40.
- Diarmaid MacCulloch, The Reformation (New York: Penguin, 2004), 123—24.
- Tomlin, “Shapers of Protestantism,” 47. See also the extended explanation in MacCulloch, Reformation, 120–23.
- Hans J. Hillebrand, ed., The Encyclopedia of Protestantism (New York: Routledge, 2004), 602.
- MacCulloch, Reformation, 36–39.
- See for example, Historia Ioannis Hussi et Hieronymi Pragensis: martyrum et confessorum Christi (Nuremberg: Katharina Gerlach, 1583), a8v.
- See for example Chris DeBoer, “On the Benefits and Limits of Creeds and Confessions,” Reformed Perspective, June 29, 2021. https://reformedperspective.ca/on-the-benefits-and-limits-of-creeds-and-confessions/.
- There are a few within the Anglican tradition who embrace all seven of the ecumenical councils, but that discussion is contentious even within Anglicanism. See for example: Ben Jefferies, “All That Is Not True about Nicaea II,” North American Anglican, January 23, 2020. https://northamanglican.com/all-that-is-not-true-about-nicea-ii.
- R. Kendall Soulen, “Protestantism and the Bible,” in Blackwell Companion of Protestantism, eds. Alister E. McGrath and Darren C. Marks (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 251–67, 254.
- Schaff, History of the Christian Church, 240.
- Carter Lindberg, The European Reformations (UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 70–71.
- Schaff, History of the Christian Church, 17–19.
- See selected passages from Martin Luther’s “Commentary on Galatians” (1538), translated in Herbert J. A. Bouman, “The Doctrine of Justification in the Lutheran Confessions,” Concordia Theological Monthly 26, no. 11 (Nov. 1955): 801.
- See the Methodist statement, the Reformed churches’ news, and Anglican Consultative Council resolutions. The statement remains controversial, with the Vatican even pointing out areas where work is still needed.
- Henry Kamen, The Rise of Toleration (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1972), 31.
- Kamen, Rise of Toleration, 32.
- Hillebrand, Encyclopedia of Protestantism, 1052. See further, Kamen, Rise of Toleration, 58–63, for the rise of Anabaptism and its main figures.
- Kamen, Rise of Toleration, 41. Also research life in John Calvin’s Geneva for a prominent example of using secular authority to control public morals.
- Read about the two streams’ attitudes towards tradition in Hillebrand, Encyclopedia of Protestantism, 540–43.
- Aasulv Lande, “Nordic Protestantism to the Present Day,” in Blackwell Companion to Protestantism, 130–46.
- Schaff, History of the Christian Church, 258–59.
- Harmut Lehmann, “Lutheranism in the Seventeenth Century,” in The Cambridge History of Christianity, Vol. 6: Reform and Expansion 1500–1660, ed. R. Po-Chia Hsia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 56–72, 56–57.
- Find official numbers at the “Who We Are” page of the Lutheran World Fellowship website.
- Alister McGrath, “Shapers of Protestantism: John Calvin,” in Blackwell Companion to Protestantism, 53–65, 53–55.
- Peter van Rooden, “Protestantism in the Netherlands to the Present Day,” in Blackwell Companion to Protestantism, 147–54, 148–49.
- Lindberg, European Reformations, 302–03.
- Lindberg, European Reformations, 304, 306–07.
- Hillebrand, Encyclopedia of Protestantism, 660.
- Hillebrand, Encyclopedia of Protestantism, 100.
- The most famous being the incident at Münster lead by John of Leiden (1534); see Kamen, Rise of Toleration, 71–72. Also, many Anabaptist practices were taken up by the masses during the German Peasants’ War (1524–1525); see Kamen, Rise of Toleration, 112–13.
- Kamen, Rise of Toleration, 60–62.
- MacCulloch, Reformation, 699–700, 525, 528, 535.
- Ryan Burge, “The Future of Christianity Is Non-denominational,” Graphs about Religion, July 24, 2024.
- See again the estimates in the Center for the Study of Global Christianity’s 2024 report.
- See for example A. Reuben Hartwick, “Speaking in Tongues: The Initial Physical Evidence of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit,” Assemblies of God.
- See Larry Eskridge, “How Many Evangelicals Are There?,” Wheaton College, 1996. https://web.archive.org/web/20160130062242/http://www.wheaton.edu/ISAE/Defining-Evangelicalism/How-Many-Are-There. Pew Research conducted during a similar period estimates more like 25 percent of the American population is evangelical.
- H. Escott, “Evangelicalism,” in The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, eds. F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 583.
Craig A. Evans
Steven Wedgeworth
Elyse Fitzpatrick
Wyatt Graham