Well spoken Mark. The problem is that for these folks, their entire identity is based on negativity. They are not Christian, that is how they identify themselves -- note that they will not tell you their beliefs, they will obfuscate.
A question like "Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of God, begotten not made" gets no answer
These people have no beliefs of their own, only negatives -- they will only deride Christianity while at the same time not revealing their non-Christian beliefs
Correct, my friend. Their very identity, indeed the label from Reformational times is Protestant - ones who protest. Protest against what? God and the Church. Are any of these folks any different than, say, Marion, or Nestorius, or even Origen? Well, they're a whole lot less educated, for one thing. Even those of them that profess doctorates in theology - let's compare them with the current Pope, for instance.
The Vatican says that:
From 1946 to 1951 he studied philosophy and theology in the Higher School of Philosophy and Theology of Freising and at the University of Munich. He received his priestly ordination on 29 June 1951. A year later he began teaching at the Higher School of Freising. In 1953 he obtained his doctorate in theology with a thesis entitled "People and House of God in St Augustine’s Doctrine of the Church". Four years later, under the direction of the renowned professor of fundamental theology Gottlieb Söhngen, he qualified for University teaching with a dissertation on: "The Theology of History in St Bonaventure". After lecturing on dogmatic and fundamental theology at the Higher School of Philosophy and Theology in Freising, he went on to teach at Bonn, from 1959 to 1963; at Münster from 1963 to 1966 and at Tübingen from 1966 to 1969. During this last year he held the Chair of dogmatics and history of dogma at the University of Regensburg, where he was also Vice-President of the University.
Doctorate in 1953. Full professorship in 1957. At real universities and not mail order diploma mills. Let us see the educational qualifications of his purported contemporaries on the Protestant side.
Oral Roberts was without education, so he founded his own degree mill, named, humbly, after himself. He awarded doctorates to Creflo Dollar and Kenneth Hagin, for instance. The list of real educational qualifications for televangelists and Protestant preachers is quite thin, once one wades into the swamp.
Regent University, Liberty University, Rochville University, Hamilton University, University of Newcastle, and so on, offer doctorates in theology for a few thousand dollars. Billy Blanks (of Tae Bo fame) has a doctorate in theology from Friendship International Christian University.
Ted Haggard is an Oral Roberts University grad. Jimmy Swaggart, with at most a diploma mill degree himself, founded the World Bible College. John Hagee, on the other hand has bachelor and master degrees in mechanical engineering. Ken Hagin is uneducated, and therefore founded his own college. Ken Copeland is another Oral Roberts alumnus - his qualifications were that he was a recording artist on the Imperial Records label and had a top 40 hit in 1957.
Okay, you see the difference. Friesing, Regensburg, Munich, Bonn, Munster, and Tubingen, versus Oral Roberts and Liberty Universities. The thing is, do any of our separated brethren see it?