Def: Protestantism

A tradition in Christianity which found its self-identity as “Protestant” in the sixteenth-century Reformation. Protestantism began when the church, according to Protestants, lost the Gospel during the middle to late middle ages and reformers began to “protest” this loss. Martin Luther, often seen as the father of Protestantism, rejected the Pope’s claims to infallible authority, believed that the Gospel was being lost to a system of works-based salvation, and confessed the Bible alone was the only infallible and ultimate source of authority for the Christian. Protestantism is not a church, but a tradition which claims to have restored or reformed the Gospel, and hence, the church. Protestantism is made up of thousands of denominations (various expressions of the Protestant faith) and claims nearly four hundred million members world-wide.

From: Theological Word of the Day