Fru, my experience in the military is that they wanted to view everything in Christianity that wasn’t catholic or orthodox as protestant.
Methodism came a couple hundred years after the reformation, so it’s ify whether one could agree with Wesley and include them in the reformation. The reformation churches, in my mind, should be the true definition of protestant.
It’s simply incorrect to view the Assembly of God or the Church of God, etc., as protestant. Some other label would be more appropriate: American Evangelical....something like that.
That is a common mistake repeated over and over again by so many people. They assume that because the Protestant Reformation marked a departure from the Roman Catholic Church that any church not Roman Catholic (or Orthodox) is therefore Protestant, even though they bear little if any doctrinal resemblence to the Reformed churches.
Methodism came a couple hundred years after the reformation, so it’s ify whether one could agree with Wesley and include them in the reformation. The reformation churches, in my mind, should be the true definition of protestant.
Wesleyan Methodists would be considered borderline at best. Obviously there is little question about Whitefield Methodists.
It’s simply incorrect to view the Assembly of God or the Church of God, etc., as protestant. Some other label would be more appropriate: American Evangelical....something like that.
Agreed. Those churches really are not Protestant in any true sense of the word.
It’s simply incorrect to view the Assembly of God or the Church of God, etc., as protestant. Some other label would be more appropriate: American Evangelical....something like that.
I agree. In my own mind, I tend to break down "Protestant" into categories of:
"Reformed/Protestant" (16th century, those that trace denominational and creedal roots back to the Reformation),
"Evangelical" (17th century, like xzins' Wesleyans/Methodists or the Baptists, largely anabaptist, that arose after the Reformed groups);
"Restorationist" (19th century, independent "first century style" churches / denominations that can be traced back to the Stone/Campbell movement in NY's Hudson River valley); and
"Charismatic" (20th century, any "Spirit-led" but anti-creedal church or denomination that followed or appeared alongside the Restorationists, but especially those that originated with the "baby boomer" generation i.e. the Calvary Chapel/Vineyard churches).
I'm honestly not sure where I'd place groups like the "emergent churches" or even the Warren / Osteen style megachurches. They lack the strong theological distinctives (Calvinism, creedalism) that characterizes the earlier groups, and the strong cultural distinctives (display of charismatic gifts, fierce cultural isolationism) that characterizes the later groups. I tend to think that they should get their own category, but I usually lump them under the "evangelical" label because they usually associate themselves with that group socially.