Protestantism: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

struggling to lift the heavy weight of religious formalism.

became known as ‘Anabaptists’ (or ‘re-baptizers’) because they rejected the baptism of infants and insisted that individuals should be baptized only after making a personal profession of faith.

Common allegiance to Scripture and a general agreement on most elements in the historic creeds made it possible for many Protestants to cooperate fairly well with each other.

For Luther, Christ was truly present in the elements of bread and wine

For Protestantism as a whole, Luther’s example exalted the status of wives, mothers, and the domestic round.

Protestant worship practices are for the most part locally determined and continually negotiated, rather than being uniform and directed by central church authorities.

Protestantism is an all-inclusive term for religious movements descended directly or indirectly from the 16th-century Reformation in which Martin Luther and John Calvin played leading roles.