Many critics of Protestantism will immediately dismiss the interpretation of the Reformation as a historical retrieval and a removal of accretions because of the general sense of historical shallowness in many contemporary Protestant churches. This brings up a point that represents a theme of this book: We must distinguish between particular contemporary expressions of Protestantism versus Protestantism as such. Too often a criticism of the former is construed as a necessary rejection of the latter.
Not even protestants know what the Reformation claims.
