Can anyone honestly say that they came to faith in a complete vacuum with only a Bible in their hands? Didn’t you learn the faith from your parents, teachers, pastors, other Christians, etc. first, and only later read the Bible under the "patronage," so to speak, of those people? And, once again, if I am a Calvinist, will I not form my beliefs around the tenets of Calvinism, making John Calvin my magisterium? If you are now patting yourself on the back for avoiding "institutional Christianity" and going with the "pure wheat" of scripture, then you prove your likeness to Calvin, Luther, Zwingly, etc., all the more. Like them, you are setting off to be your own pope, building your own one-man "Christian institution."
Someone somewhere has to make decisions about public revelation that are definitive. Otherwise, we can never claim to know anything. We call those decisions infallible. We can use another word - certainty, assurance - but a rose by any other name smells the same. Protestants have this as well: Calvinists interpret Romans 9 to teach strict Calvinism. If I question that it does, I will be met with correction. If that isn’t an authoritative magisterium, what is it?
Sure. And sometimes I find that they were incorrect in what they taught. In a contest between the Bible & man-made teachings, I'll go with the Bible every time.
And, once again, if I am a Calvinist, will I not form my beliefs around the tenets of Calvinism, making John Calvin my magisterium?
I suppose so; since I condemn Calvinism, I don't really care.
If you are now patting yourself on the back for avoiding "institutional Christianity" and going with the "pure wheat" of scripture, then you prove your likeness to Calvin, Luther, Zwingly, etc., all the more. Like them, you are setting off to be your own pope, building your own one-man "Christian institution."
I'm not sure what you mean by "institutional Christianity" but if it consists of letting some organization do my scriptural interpretation for me, then yeah, I avoid it. Since the office of "pope" doesn't exist in the Bible, I suppose I am as qualified for it as anyone else.
Someone somewhere has to make decisions about public revelation that are definitive. Otherwise, we can never claim to know anything.
Why? I can.
We call those decisions infallible. We can use another word - certainty, assurance - but a rose by any other name smells the same.
I don't equate those -- assurance or certainty means high confidence; infallibility suggests supernatural perfection.
Protestants have this as well: Calvinists interpret Romans 9 to teach strict Calvinism. If I question that it does, I will be met with correction. If that isn’t an authoritative magisterium, what is it?
Setting aside that I'm neither Protestant nor Calvinist, let's assume that your point here is correct. You still have not shown why anyone should regard your "magisterium" as any more authoritative than the Calvinist one.
I prefer to let the Scriptures be their own "magisterium" to the extent possible, and beyond that I will work out my own salvation with fear & trembling before I hand it over to some religious bureaucracy.
As soon as it was night, the brothers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. -- Acts 17:10-11
On receiving a teaching from Paul, the Bereans did not swallow it uncritically, nor did they appeal to some supposedly authoritative religious organization -- they used their own brains, compared what Paul taught to the (Old Testament) scriptures they had, and judged him on that basis. For this, God calls them noble. You'd presumably say they were 'being their own popes.'