What It Means to Be Protestant: The Case for an Always-Reforming Church

by Gavin Ortlund

What does all this ultimately yield? Simply put, if you are going to be a Christian of some kind or another, it makes the most sense to be a Protestant. This is the position that enables you to embrace the fullness of the church while simultaneously holding fast to the New Testament’s witness to the apostolic deposit. This is the position, in other words, that enables you to fulfill both the obligations of love and unity, on the one hand, and the obligations of conscience and truth, on the other. Protestantism is the most catholic and the most biblical of all the major streams of Christianity. For a Protestant need not believe in dogmas that seem obviously untruthful (like the assumption of Mary) or adhere to practices that seem obviously nonapostolic (like the veneration of icons)—but a Protestant also need not anathematize as unchristian those who inhabit traditions that do adhere to such beliefs and practices (the depth of Protestant concern about them notwithstanding).

To put it in gaming terms, Protestantism is like your basic class. You can then specialize in Reformed, Catholic or Orthodox. Jokes aside, Protestantism does seem to have its own accretions, namely, Perseverance of the Saints, Limited Atonement and Sola Fide.