who are Protestants

[Rhamiel]

I have heard many Lutherans and Anglicans say that they are not Protestants, they are catholic...
I have heard many evangelicals say they are not Protestants, they are "just Christians"...

So what is a protestant, like any ideological group, there must be a set of beliefs that go along with something to make it disstinct from everything else. what would these beliefs be for Protestant Christianity
( I think all religions or groups of religions/denominations would fall into the the catagory of "ideological group")

 

[MrJim]

wiki def:

Protestantism refers to the forms of Christian faith and practice that originated in the 16th century Protestant Reformation. Protestant doctrine, also known in continental European traditions as Evangelical doctrine, in opposition to that of Roman Catholicism. It typically holds that Scripture (rather than tradition or ecclesiastic interpretation of Scripture)[1] is the only source of revealed truth, and also that salvation is the result of Sola gratia God's grace alone.

Meaning and origin of the term

The word Protestant is derived from the Latin protestari[2][3] meaning publicly declare which refers to the letter of protestation by Lutheran princes against the decision of the Diet of Speyer in 1529, which reaffirmed the edict, at the Diet of Worms banning Luther's documents. Since that time, the term Protestantism has been used in many different senses, often as a general term merely to signify that they are not Roman Catholics.

While churches which historically emerged directly or indirectly from the Protestant Reformation generally constitute traditional Protestantism, in common usage the term is often used to refer to any Christian church which is in opposition to Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.[4] This usage is imprecise, however, as there are non-Roman Catholic and non-Eastern Orthodox churches which predate the Reformation (notably Oriental Orthodoxy). The Anglican tradition, although historically influenced by the Protestant Reformation in what is called the English Reformation, differs from many Reformation principles and understands itself to be a middle path—a via media—between Roman Catholic and Protestant doctrines. Other groups, such as the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses, reject traditional Protestantism as another deviation from Christianity, while perceiving themselves to be restorationists.

 

[MrJim]

From Theopedia

Protestantism is the movement within Christianity, representing a split from the Roman Catholic Church, which occurred during the 16th century in Europe in what is called the Protestant Reformation.

Commonly considered one of the three major branches of Christianity (along with Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy), Protestantism represents a diverse range of theological and social perspectives, denominations and related organizations.

Protestant families of denominations
Only the general families of Protestant denominations are given here since individual denominations may list in the thousands.

Anabaptist and Baptist
Anglican / Episcopalian
Calvinist / Reformed and Presbyterian
Lutheran
Methodist / Wesleyan and the Holiness movement
Pentecostal and Charismatic
Quakerism

 

[MrJim]

From New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia

Origin of the name

The Diet of the Holy Roman Empire, assembled at Speyer in April, 1529, resolved that, according to a decree promulgated at the Diet of Worms (1521), communities in which the new religion was so far established that it could not without great trouble be altered should be free to maintain it, but until the meeting of the council they should introduce no further innovations in religion, and should not forbid the Mass, or hinder Catholics from assisting thereat.

Against this decree, and especially against the last article, the adherents of the new Evangel — the Elector Frederick of Saxony, the Landgrave of Hesse, the Margrave Albert of Brandenburg, the Dukes of Lüneburg, the Prince of Anhalt, together with the deputies of fourteen of the free and imperial cities — entered a solemn protest as unjust and impious. The meaning of the protest was that the dissentients did not intend to tolerate Catholicism within their borders. On that account they were called Protestants.

In course of time the original connotation of "no toleration for Catholics" was lost sight of, and the term is now applied to, and accepted by, members of those Western Churches and sects which, in the sixteenth century, were set up by the Reformers in direct opposition to the Catholic Church. The same man may call himself Protestant or Reformed: the term Protestant lays more stress on antagonism to Rome; the term Reformed emphasizes adherence to any of the Reformers. Where religious indifference is prevalent, many will say they are Protestants, merely to signify that they are not Catholics. In some such vague, negative sense, the word stands in the new formula of the Declaration of Faith to be made by the King of England at his coronation; viz.: "I declare that I am a faithful Protestant". During the debates in Parliament it was observed that the proposed formula effectively debarred Catholics from the throne, whilst it committed the king to no particular creed, as no man knows what the creed of a faithful Protestant is or should be.

Characteristic Protestant principles

However vague and indefinite the creed of individual Protestants may be, it always rests on a few standard rules, or principles, bearing on the Sources of faith, the means of justification, and the constitution of the Church. An acknowledged Protestant authority, Philip Schaff (in "The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge", s.v. Reformation), sums up the principles of Protestantism in the following words:

The Protestant goes directly to the Word of God for instruction, and to the throne of grace in his devotions; whilst the pious Roman Catholic consults the teaching of his church, and prefers to offer his prayers through the medium of the Virgin Mary and the saints.

From this general principle of Evangelical freedom, and direct individual relationship of the believer to Christ, proceed the three fundamental doctrines of Protestantism — the absolute supremacy of (1) the Word, and of (2) the grace of Christ, and (3) the general priesthood of believers. . . .

Sola scriptura ("Bible alone")

The [first] objective [or formal] principle proclaims the canonical Scriptures, especially the New Testament, to be the only infallible source and rule of faith and practice, and asserts the right of private interpretation of the same, in distinction from the Roman Catholic view, which declares the Bible and tradition to be co-ordinate sources and rule of faith, and makes tradition, especially the decrees of popes and councils, the only legitimate and infallible interpreter of the Bible. In its extreme form Chillingworth expressed this principle of the Reformation in the well-known formula, "The Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible, is the religion of Protestants." Protestantism, however, by no means despises or rejects church authority as such, but only subordinates it to, and measures its value by, the Bible, and believes in a progressive interpretation of the Bible through the expanding and deepening consciousness of Christendom. Hence, besides having its own symbols or standards of public doctrine, it retained all the articles of the ancient creeds and a large amount of disciplinary and ritual tradition, and rejected only those doctrines and ceremonies for which no clear warrant was found in the Bible and which seemed to contradict its letter or spirit. The Calvinistic branches of Protestantism went farther in their antagonism to the received traditions than the Lutheran and the Anglican; but all united in rejecting the authority of the pope. [Melanchthon for a while was willing to concede this, but only jure humano, or a limited disciplinary superintendency of the Church], the meritoriousness of good works, indulgences, the worship of the Virgin, saints, and relics, the sacraments (other than baptism and the Eucharist), the dogma of transubstantiation and the Sacrifice of the Mass, purgatory, and prayers for the dead, auricular confession, celibacy of the clergy, the monastic system, and the use of the Latin tongue in public worship, for which the vernacular languages were substituted.

Sola fide ("faith alone")

The subjective principle of the Reformation is justification by faith alone, or, rather, by free grace through faith operative in good works. It has reference to the personal appropriation of the Christian salvation, and aims to give all glory to Christ, by declaring that the sinner is justified before God (i.e. is acquitted of guilt, and declared righteous) solely on the ground of the all-sufficient merits of Christ as apprehended by a living faith, in opposition to the theory — then prevalent, and substantially sanctioned by the Council of Trent — which makes faith and good works co-ordinate sources of justification, laying the chief stress upon works. Protestantism does not depreciate good works; but it denies their value as sources or conditions of justification, and insists on them as the necessary fruits of faith, and evidence of justification.

Priesthood of all believers

The universal priesthood of believers implies the right and duty of the Christian laity not only to read the Bible in the vernacular, but also to take part in the government and all the public affairs of the Church. It is opposed to the hierarchical system, which puts the essence and authority of the Church in an exclusive priesthood, and makes ordained priests the necessary mediators between God and the people". See also Schaff "The Principle of Protestantism, German and English" (1845).

 

[MrJim]

From Lutheran Church Missouri Synod site

Q. Does the Lutheran Church consider itself part of the "Protestant" church?

A. The answer to your question depends on how the term "Protestant" is understood, perceived or defined. From a purely historical perspective, it is hard to disassociate Lutheranism from the "Protestant" movement, since the term itself arose out of the "protests" of those who supported Luther's Reformation (against Roman Catholic political pressures) at the Diet of Speyer in 1529. Accordingly, many editions of Webster's Dictionary define the term "Protestant" as "any Christian not belonging to the Roman Catholic Church or Eastern Orthodox Church: in the 17th century the term was restricted to Lutherans and Anglicans." If, however (as is often the case today), the term "Protestantism" is loosely or simplistically associated with various Reformed, Anabaptist or "fundamentalist" theological views, many of which do not correspond to what Lutherans believe and teach, then (obviously) the term would not be appropriately or accurately applied to Lutherans.

 

[porterross]

Some of us don't want to be lumped in with those who deny real presence and the sacraments as those who proudly call themselves Protestant. Orthodox Lutherans (myself and some of my family) and Anglicans (the rest of my family) do indeed take Christ's words regarding the Sacrament of altar very literally. This idea of a the elements being symbolic baffles and, quite frankly, saddens us. If it's only symbolic, what good does it do?


Luther made his position very clear, based on Christ's words at the Last Supper.

It is enough for me that Christ’s blood is present; let it be with the wine as God wills. Before I would drink mere wine with the Enthusiasts, I would rather have pure blood with the Pope.

(Early 1520s; in Althaus, 376; LW, 37, 317)

The glory of our God is precisely that for our sakes he comes down to the very depths, into human flesh, into the bread, into our mouth, our heart, our body.

(in Althaus, 398; LW, 37, 71 ff.)

Remember, Luther's original intent wasn't to break away from the RCC, but to bring Scriptural truth back to its practices. He was attempting to apply Scriptural truth and was excommunicated.

Let us all not forget how horrifically the Roman Catholics and their places of worship were treated by the Enthusiasts. They quickly became the very monsters they accused the RCC of being and I see no such evil in a monastery or fellow Christian. Such is flawed human nature.

MTA, you can cut and paste all the Wiki data you want. That doesn't define my beliefs.

Keep in mind, too, that there is more than one group of faith calling themselves Lutheran.

 

[MrJim]

From the The Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online

Reformation, Protestant
The religious renewal movements of the 16th century took many forms; some remained within the traditional ecclesiastical structures, others broke away to form different religious communities. Gradually the term "Protestant" (from the "protesting" estates at the Diet [parliament] of the Holy Roman Empire in Speyer in 1529) came to be applied to most of the new religious bodies, although it was originally designed primarily for the followers of Martin Luther.

In the decades following Luther's protest against what he regarded as corrupted belief and practice in the traditional ecclesiastical system, reform movements gained a strong following in most of Europe. Often, they were successful in becoming the new "official" religion of a state or area, and so Lutheran, Reformed (Calvinist), and Anglican churches came to be the established religion in various countries, and continued the traditional close interaction of church and state. Loosely categorized as Protestant, they shared a large body of doctrine and traditional practice; all regarded themselves as bearers of the legacy of the early church. At the same time, each of the new movements developed its own distinctives. These differences proved strong enough to prevent the development of a united church body, although many Reformation leaders, such as Martin Bucer and Philipp Melanchthon, tried repeatedly to bring about closer cooperation.

 

[MrJim]

Some of us don't want to be lumped in with those who deny real presence and the sacraments as those who proudly call themselves Protestant. Orthodox Lutherans (myself and some of my family) and Anglicans (the rest of my family) do indeed take Christ's words regarding the Sacrament of altar very literally. This idea of a the elements being symbolic baffles and, quite frankly, saddens us. If it's only symbolic, what good does it do?


Luther made his position very clear, based on Christ's words at the Last Supper.


Remember, Luther's original intent wasn't to break away from the RCC, but to bring Scriptural truth back to its practices. He was attempting to apply Scriptural truth and was excommunicated.

Let us all not forget how horrifically the Roman Catholics and their places of worship were treated by the Enthusiasts. They quickly became the very monsters they accused the RCC of being and I see no such evil in a monastery or fellow Christian. Such is flawed human nature.

MTA, you can cut and paste all the Wiki data you want. That doesn't define my beliefs.

Keep in mind, too, that there is more than one group of faith calling themselves Lutheran.

I understand the Lutheran church has a myriad of divisions like all the other church bodies~I'm simply posting other historians definitions of "Protestant"...

 

[Rhamiel]

from the Calinism - Arminianism debate thread Z had this to say.

He[Luther] didn't object to everything Rome did the way Protestants typically do. The

I kinda resent this, Protestants do not object to everything we do. We go to church services on Sunday, as do most Protestant denominations, read from the Bible, believe the Apostles creed, have the same NT, have very similar views on social justice. As far as I know we have the same beliefs about the Trinity.

 

[Rhamiel]

"Protestantism" is loosely or simplistically associated with various Reformed, Anabaptist or "fundamentalist" theological views

but that would mean that Methodist are not Protestant either, I do not see anyone but Lutherians and Anglicans using the term "Protestant" only for Reformed Anabaptist and Fundamentalist

 

[porterross]

from the Calinism - Arminianism debate thread Z had this to say.

I kinda resent this, Protestants do not object to everything we do. We go to church services on Sunday, as do most Protestant denominations, read from the Bible, believe the Apostles creed, have the same NT, have very similar views on social justice. As far as I know we have the same beliefs about the Trinity.

I think you need to realize that many of them don't consider RCs to be Christian. It shocks me that so many people still buy into this, but I encountered it just the other day and was floored by the aggressiveness of the person's absolute acceptance that it was true. When I countered that it simply wasn't true, this other person claimed that all RCs were going to hell because they didn't pray to Christ. :o

There are a great many people who disdain every and anything that resembles the RCC, including a mass. I have heard people claim that Lutheran and Anglican liturgies are too Catholic, therefore an unacceptable form of worship.

Recently, a local Baptist church closed and needed to sell their building. The Episcopal church made them a more than fair offer on the property so they could expand their high school campus. The offer was rejected because according to those on the decision-making committee, they viewed the Episcopal church to be "too Catholic".

These prejudices are very real in some places and those denoms who haven't abandoned an orderly liturgy, or mass, or who don't turn their noses up at the RCC are guilty by association. Guilty of what, I have no idea, but it baffles me.

 

[Rhamiel]

Porterross

I think you need to realize that many of them don't consider RCs to be Christian.

oh I know that many people feel this way, the city I go to school in has many people of this mindset.

 

[desmalia]

Most people have sensitivities to certain labels, though it varies from person to person. I don't mind being called Protestant. It represents my views, so that's fine. Thought it's not a term I really use or even think about for the most part.
I don't mind being called "just Christian" either because that also represents my views. I am also a "Calvinist", "Reformed", and "Fundamentalist". All of those words are considered horrible by some, regardless of what they believe. One term I've never liked is "Jesus Freak" because it kinda sounds irreverent somehow, and also can imply that the believer has no sense of logic or intelligence, IMHO.

 

[Secundulus]

from the Calinism - Arminianism debate thread Z had this to say.

I kinda resent this, Protestants do not object to everything we do. We go to church services on Sunday, as do most Protestant denominations, read from the Bible, believe the Apostles creed, have the same NT, have very similar views on social justice. As far as I know we have the same beliefs about the Trinity.

On all of those I can cite a Protestant Denomination that damns you for believing it.

 

[Zecryphon]

from the Calinism - Arminianism debate thread Z had this to say.

I kinda resent this, Protestants do not object to everything we do. We go to church services on Sunday, as do most Protestant denominations, read from the Bible, believe the Apostles creed, have the same NT, have very similar views on social justice. As far as I know we have the same beliefs about the Trinity.

Welcome to the resentment club, Rhamiel. You resent my statement and I resent being lumped in with Protestants. LOL You've found a handful of similarities. Let's look at them, shall we? I stand by my statement because Protestants typically do not even know what the Apostle's Creed is. I was raised in Protestant churches my whole life and not once was that creed ever mentioned, recited or affirmed. I only found out about that creed when I found the Lutheran church. I found out about the Nicene Creed when I signed up for this site and I found out about the Athanasian Creed when I visited a WELS branch of the Lutheran church for the first time. Personal reading from the Bible is not something Catholics have always done. That's relatively new for you guys. Plus you can't really say that's something you share with Protestants because they take their reading of the Bible one step further than the RCC does. The Protestant also interprets what they read on their own, you guys are supposed to go along with the official interpretation of the church. Although, not all of you do. As far as social justice goes, I think you're painting with a very broad brush to say that all Protestants are in agreement with what the RCC deems acceptable in that area. There's no possible way you can know that.

 

[ReformedChapin]

Welcome to the resentment club, Rhamiel. You resent my statement and I resent being lumped in with Protestants. LOL You've found a handful of similarities. Let's look at them, shall we? I stand by my statement because Protestants typically do not even know what the Apostle's Creed is. I was raised in Protestant churches my whole life and not once was that creed ever mentioned, recited or affirmed. I only found out about that creed when I found the Lutheran church. I found out about the Nicene Creed when I signed up for this site and I found out about the Athanasian Creed when I visited a WELS branch of the Lutheran church for the first time. Personal reading from the Bible is not something Catholics have always done. That's relatively new for you guys. Plus you can't really say that's something you share with Protestants because they take their reading of the Bible one step further than the RCC does. The Protestant also interprets what they read on their own, you guys are supposed to go along with the official interpretation of the church. Although, not all of you do. As far as social justice goes, I think you're painting with a very broad brush to say that all Protestants are in agreement with what the RCC deems acceptable in that area. There's no possible way you can know that.

Interesting you resent generalizations about non-catholic groups and yet you apply your own. First of all, all the original protestants beginning from the reformation knew the importance of the historic christian creeds ranging from the apostles creed to the nicene creed.They also held extremely important the fact that having a confession or statement of belief such as us refomred have the westminster confession of faith. It's also important to note that early catholics didn't have personal reading of scripture because THEY DIDN'T have access to scriptures. We have to remember that just before the reformation the printing press was invented which allowed room for reading of the scriptures and understanding God's word.

While I certainly share your concerns with comtemporary popular Christianity and their overspiritualizing of scripture and poor hermenuetics ( I have been going to Calvary Chapel and still go for over 3 years). I can tell you that we all fit the branch of protestanism which pretty much means we are protesting agains Catholicism. The comtemporary denominations as I recognize them penecostal, assemblies fo God, Calvary Chapel..ect seem to want to copy the events of scripture and forget the human aspect which God words entails; you are still reading a book so context and genre, all of that still applies.

 

[Rhamiel]

Z

Welcome to the resentment club, Rhamiel. You resent my statement and I resent being lumped in with Protestants. LOL You've found a handful of similarities. Let's look at them, shall we? I stand by my statement because Protestants typically do not even know what the Apostle's Creed is. I was raised in Protestant churches my whole life and not once was that creed ever mentioned, recited or affirmed. I only found out about that creed when I found the Lutheran church. I found out about the Nicene Creed when I signed up for this site and I found out about the Athanasian Creed when I visited a WELS branch of the Lutheran church for the first time. Personal reading from the Bible is not something Catholics have always done. That's relatively new for you guys. Plus you can't really say that's something you share with Protestants because they take their reading of the Bible one step further than the RCC does. The Protestant also interprets what they read on their own, you guys are supposed to go along with the official interpretation of the church. Although, not all of you do. As far as social justice goes, I think you're painting with a very broad brush to say that all Protestants are in agreement with what the RCC deems acceptable in that area. There's no possible way you can know that.

Reading the Bible is more activly encouraged by Protestant denominations then by the Catholic Church, but I would not say that it is a relitivly new thing, it is just becomeing more popular.
Yes privet interpitation is something that seperates Protestants from Catholics, but all the groups I would call Protestant seem to support privet interpitation, including the C of E, the Methodist (side note, the united methodist do use the apostles creed) and Lutherans

 

[Rhamiel]

so how would you guys set up the groupings of christianity?
I see it as the basic Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant 3-way split with schism between the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox but those two sets of Churches being very similar. Within Protestantism split up in differant faith traditions, Mr.Jim posted some information from Theopedia that divided them up like this

Anabaptist and Baptist
Anglican / Episcopalian
Calvinist / Reformed and Presbyterian
Lutheran
Methodist / Wesleyan and the Holiness movement
Pentecostal and Charismatic
Quakerism

I think that looks about right, all of these groups are Protestant Christian, some have more things in common with eachother or with the Catholic Church but they are all relitivly distinct groups with small portions of overlaping (like High Church Methodist and Anglicans are close, but as a whole, the UMC in american is distinct)
If I could get your views of what a Protestant is and what the differant divides in Christianity are, it might help this conversation go smoother because we will better understand where the other people are comeing from.

 

[Zecryphon]

What's really interesting here is that you think I have multiple resentments. My post clearly shows I have only one resentment. Well two now, that you've misrepresented me. My post also shows that I was not commenting on the historical aspects of the Protestant churches, but limited my observation of their practices to my own lifetime. I don't care what they may have done or identified with in the past. It's the fact that they run from things like the creeds and real presence in the sacraments today that does separate them from Luther. Plus, what you have to remember is that just because the printing press was invented, that didn't automatically mean that the RCC was cool with people reading the scriptures for themselves. The RCC was of the mindset that only the Catholic Church had the Holy Spirit and therefore only they could correctly interpret the scriptures. Your claim that the RCC didn't have access to the scriptures is simply not true. Let's remember that the RCC to this day even, pats itself on the back for 'giving the Bible to the world.' When in reality they did no such thing. They had a little council in the 300's when they decided which books were scripture and which books weren't. 1200 years after that they still hadn't shared the scriptures with the common person. When guys like Luther and Tyndale and others, produced translations of the scriptures for the common man, I think we all know how the RCC responded. Tyndale was burned, wasn't he? Pope Leo X put a bounty out on Luther. So no, the invention of the printing press did not do anything to change the stance of the RCC on who should read the scriptures for themselves. It simply allowed translations of the Bible to get into the hands of non-clergy. But even then, only the rich could afford a personal translation as Bibles were very expensive back in those days. Plus just owning a Bible was enough to get you imprisoned or killed during the Inquisition.

 

[Simon_Templar]

This is how I see it.

All church groups that were formed by breaking away from the Roman Catholic Church are technically "protestant" because they were all formed on the basis of protesting against the teachings and practices of Rome.

Within protestantism there are a few different traditions some of which are more 'protestant' than others.

One broad group would be Lutheran. This would be all the Church groups descending from Luther and his views. Lutherans are protestant but often times still much more catholic than other protestants.

Luther protested against Rome specifically and did not really intend to leave the catholic Church in the small c sense. Unless I'm mistaken I believe Luther did try to communicate with the eastern Churches who were also in Schizm from Rome because of the fact that in his own understanding, his protest was against Rome, not against the catholic Church. (obviously Rome saw no difference between the two). Lutheranism intended to remain part of the catholic Church, but at the same time didn't have a great deal of direct contact with the other portions of the Church and thus its doctrine and theology maintained the basics of catholic faith but added kind of their own unique spin to it. (again this is my opinion )

Reformed tradition is generally those churches descending from Calvin and his followers. This group is what a lot of people would think of as classically protestant. While they maintain a basic level of orthodox teaching, there is a more significant break from the historic faith. They, to my knowledge, never intended to remain part of the historic, catholic Church, but intended to start their own new church community, and tended to see the entire catholic Church as having gone off base. Calvinism did make use of the Church Fathers, and of course of the bible, but essentially broke with the tradition of catholic faith and pretty much constructed their own new framework, based largely in the beginnings of modern age of reason philosophy.
Ironically, the Arminians, are actually a reactionary branch off of the reformed tradition. Armininianism was formed as the result of Arminius' disagreements with the teachings he received at a Reformed university. He proposed a series of alterations to reformed soteriology which eventually became Arminius' five points. In response to Arminius' five points, the Reformed offered up their own five points to refute Arminius. These five points became known as the five points of Calvinism and produced the famous T.U.L.I.P. acronym.

The Anabaptists were of all these groups the most radical (often referred to as part of the radical reformation). The modern groups which descend directly from the Anabaptists are the mennonites, the amish, and the hutterites. Although other later groups are not actually directly formed from the anabaptist movement, they are some times considered to be like 'spiritual descendants'. This could include groups like the Bretheren, the Seventh Day Adventists etc. I say the anabaptists were the most radical because they broke the most completely with the historic Church. They largely rejected everything catholic and unlike all of the other traditions relied not on scholarship or study, but primarily on personal revelation and personal interpetation.

The Anglican Church is a fairly interesting case. The English reformation was heavily influenced early on by Luther's writings, thus it began with a good deal of Lutheran influence. However, the initial reformation beginning under Henry the VIII (because of his divorce issue) was not actually a protest against Roman doctrine (as with the rest of the reformation). For the most part the English Church under Henry the VIII remained solidly Catholic in both doctrine and practice. The only difference was that Henry replaced the Pope as the final authority.

Thomas Cranmer was commissioned to write the book of Common Prayer which would become the Liturgy of the English Church. Cranmer himself had been influenced by Lutheran thought but for the most part was catholic. The Church in England initially remained very catholic, but there were already many who had strong reformed leaning as well. The result was that there was a constant tension between the catholic and the reformed traditions in England. Which side ruled was literally determined by who the King or Queen was. Mary I was the only ruler to return the Church to the Roman fold.. but some rulers leaned more catholic, while most tended to lean more reformed. Thus, there were times even when the prayer book itself (a protestant creation) was outlawed for being too catholic.

Through out this tension, the common people of the Church remained largely in the middle, not really leaning too far to either side. In the end, that won out and the Anglican Church became in its own terms the "via Media" the middle way.

In the 19th century Anglicanism also experienced something of a catholic revival sometimes known as the Oxford movement. This movement produced a whole section of the Church which is now referred to as "anglo-catholic". Or at least it brought that section of the Church to a prominant level.

The congregationalists, and baptists of the US are mostly descended from the puritans and seperatists who were all members of the Church of England. They largely reacted against what they perceived as the corruption and often the catholic nature of the Church of England.

Interestingly, the holiness movements and the charismatic movements also originated in the Anglican Church. The holiness and to some degree the birth of some of pentecostalism was through methodism introduced by John Wesley an Anglican Priest. The beginnings of the charismatic movement of the 60-70's was in an Anglican Church in California.

There are many of these groups that claim not to be protestant for various reasons. However, all of them fall under the technical definition in that they were formed by rejecting the teachings of the Roman Church. Of these groups, only the Lutheran and the Anglican tried to really maintain the historic faith in the sense of retaining catholic teaching and seeing themselves as members of the historic Church. Their disagreements were not really with the historic Church, but with what they perceived to be Roman innovations and abuses. Of those two, only the Anglican Church maintained apostolic succession (except for the swedish lutheran Church I think).

Now, it is admittedly confusing to say "the historic Church" because all of these groups without exception claim to be returning to the true original Church. What I am saying is that the Lutherans and the Anglicans are pretty much the only ones who believed that the historic, traditional Church WAS the original Church. The others largely believed that the historic traditional Church had gone off base and become false. So they had to abandon it in order to return to what they believed to be the original.

Thats my opinion

Now, me personally.. I'm Anglican and I admit that the Anglican Church is protestant technically speaking. However, while it is protestant, it is also catholic. There are some things I'm uncomfortable with about the Roman Church, but the reality is I don't protest against them, I don't have anything against Rome, I respect Rome and consider them brothers.

Sadly I must add the caveat that in the latter half of this century the Anglican Church has taken some big backwards steps and has allowed a great deal of false doctrine and false teachings to be accepted and entrenched in some of its branches.