You mean like a group defining itself as "The One True Church?" Umm, I think that would be both Rome and the Eastern Orthodox bodies. Perhaps what you meant was Protestantism allows the INDIVIDUALS to define their churches, and that would be a product of Protestant culture, yes, in the form of freedom of religion, first fully seen here in America. Why else would most of the cults have formed in the USA? WE ALLOW(ED) THEM!
Want to throw out all of the councils or 2 or 3, fine. Want to develop a new theology of Baptism, fine. Want to support and teach the heresy of Arianism, fine. Want to bless same, sex unions fine. Its your church, go for it. Many Protestants will say you are wrong, many will condemn with sound theology your teachings. But they remain yours and as such do not speak for any kind of “universal” Protestant church. Heresy is not driven underground it is just driven to the next block over.
This concept is totally foreign to Catholics and Orthodox.
Yep, and for well over 1000 years in places where they were in power, neither Church held religious freedom/tolerance in very high regard (if at all).
What you are saying would be originally true for non-magisterial Protestants...that is those never in allegiance to the governments back in Europe. The radicals of the Reformation (then called Anabaptists, or "other") were the first to demand freedom to worship as they pleased, but both the Catholics and the Protestants (in the form of Lutherans, Reformed (Calvinists/Presbyterians), and Anglican (the mix on the table) opposed this hyper-individuality, as they saw it...it was bad for society.
Magisterial Protestants however put first put holy Scripture as their final and foremost authority, then very quickly wrote (very similar overlapping-in-ideas) confessions and creeds, according to how the best scholars among them--relying on traditional and fresh interpretation--understood the Bible. Hence early on the magisterial Protestants took a CONCILIAR approach (not an individualistic approach) to understanding the Bible--their final authority. Now it is true that part of that conciliar approach was that the Bible is clear enough for the average adult reader to understand it's basic doctrines--hence bible reading and printing was first practiced (and permitted) and encouraged widely amidst the laity.
This worked fairly well up into the late Enlightenment (the 1700s) and that doggone freedom of religion thing, spreading from America back into Europe, allowed for unbiblical ideas to take root and grow.
With the later Enlightenment period German scholarship (initially) spread to the rest of European culture, dropping the inerrant nature and hence the final authority of scripture, substituting for it the All Knowing Human Mind, known as Reason in those days. Magisterial denominations were quick to take on this latest fashionable theology, that seemed to make a form of Christianity accessible to the skeptic, according the the Zeitgeist of the age.
On the other end of the spectrum, almost in reaction to this religious scientism, came the Pietists--wonderful at first, but who later became legalistic and spiritistic, not sticking to sound doctrine, a religion of the heart rejecting the head. This along with increasing religious tolerance and freedom, eventually resulted in the religious belief chaos in the Western Churches today.
I include in that chaos the Church of Rome...as there are as many competing (and conflicting) religious beliefs within the umbrella of the organizational Roman church as there are without in the wild world of Protestantism.
Still, the odd thing is, amidst those who truly do hold to the final authority and hence inerrancy of Scripture, there is a huge amount of commonality of doctrine. Otherwise, there would be no evangelical movement, no charismatic coalitions, and not even a Christian music industry...and certainly no GAFCON in Jerusalem.
Personally, I'd like to see a return to a more creedal Christianity, as I think our hearts need our heads, or else we bleed out and die. Modern evangelicalism is much too amorphous in my opinion, and needs to go back to its source, namely God's Holy Word.
What defines us is not the day to day whim of one man or movement within the Church.
Unless of course that one man happens to be the current Pope...(or perhaps for EO, a majority of Patriarchs)
We do not attempt to domesticate heresy. Those who dissent and leave (please do) do not just become another branch of the Church. They set themselves outside of the Catholic/Orthodox Church. Because once they have decided to define for themselves right doctrine and what it means to be Church. They have become just another branch of Protestanism. Which is varied enough, that no doubt someone will take them in and celebrate their liberation from the Catholic or Orthodox Church.
So lets see now, just define everyone who departs from your many specific beliefs as "Protestant" and that solves everything? So I suppose the great majority of self-professed American Roman Catholics (who depart from official Roman teaching in many various ways) are actually Protestant? What about over 90% of (formerly Roman Catholic) parts of Western Europe? Are the French now "Protestant?" A very weak, slippery and inaccurate definition.
Protestantism can never stop dividing. (Darn that dasterdly freedom of religion thing...it was MUCH better during the Inquisition...) At least now the majority of divisions are caused by orthodox Christians leaving denominations which have gone off the rails. That is why it is so important that GAFCON define what they believe is the legitimate expression of Anglican Christianty. It lets those who are honest start getting their luggage packed. Even so, I know some day there will be a new set of protesters in the GAFCON churches. And it will be deja vu all over again.
Yep, religious freedom does have it's downside...but Christ is still head of His Church--a Spiritual Body, composed of all true Christians, whatever the denomination.
“Yep, and for well over 1000 years in places where they were in power, neither Church held religious freedom/tolerance in very high regard (if at all).”
AR, you know history better than that. Orthodoxy, even Russian Orthodoxy, has been remarkably tolerant of “ecclesial assemblies” outside The Church and always has been.
“What defines us is not the day to day whim of one man or movement within the Church.
Unless of course that one man happens to be the current Pope...(or perhaps for EO, a majority of Patriarchs)”
AR, 100% of the Orthodox Patriarchs in agreement cannot proclaim anything and make it stick without the OK of the Orthodox laity. The rest of your post is breathtaking in its Western ethnocentrism. Protestantism is NOT the child or problem of Orthodoxy and laying a Roman strawman veneer over the Orthodox Church does nothing whatsoever for your arguments. It never ceases to amaze me that so many Protestants insist on applying their bogeyman opinions of th Church of Rome on Orthodoxy which has nothing and never has had anything to do with the complaints, justified or otherwise, which Protestants have against Rome. Orthodoxy is no more Greek speaking Roman Catholicism than it is an early form of Protestantism.