[Alex Murphy]

...When the word Protestant came into currency in England (in Elizabethan times), its accepted significance was not “objection” but “avowal” or “witness” or “confession” (as the Latin protestari meant also “to profess”)...

[Lilllabettt]

I guess this is an attempt to add "Protestant" to the reclaimed word list?

I once shared a living room with people who were trying to reclaim "hippie" and "feminist." Their rationale for making the attempt was the successful reclaiming of "queer."

[Petrosius]

You might find the follow post interesting from Fr. John Zuhlsdorf at What Does The Prayer Really Say? posted only yesterday:

Let’s get the famous quote right, please?

I am so tired of people misquoting this famous phrase from Hamlet.

When Hamlet asks his mother Queen Gertrude how she like his play, The Mousetrap, obviously tweeked, she says:

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.  – Hamlet III, ii, 230

Also, let’s try to use it correctly.  

Say it a few times outloud to yourself, to get it into your ears.

Also, that "protest," here, doesn’t mean "object to".  It means "make a strong claim" about something.  We still have that meaning in English "protestation".

What Gertrude means is not that the lady in Hamlet’s play within the play, is objecting to something or denying something.  Rather, that she is making far too enthusiastic positive statements.

And don’t add useless syllables like "protestest" or "methinketh" or other stupidities. 

[Uncle Chip]

We need to recover the positive sense of protestant. It denotes things that we stand for: the authority of Scripture, salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone. It’s a matter of principle. And because it is about standing for truth, Catholics can be protestants too.

Hmmmm -- I'll have to think about that last line.

[BaBaStooey]

It sounds like it is about dissent and disagreement.

That is because it is.

If they feel their protests have merit, then Protestants shouldn't feel bad to be labeled Protestants, just as liberals, if they are proud of the things they believe in, shouldn't feel bad to be labeled liberals.

Of course if Protestants don't feel like protesting any more, they can always come home.

[Between the Lines]

Bump