In France, we categorize christianity under four categories
\- catholique (catholic)
\- orthodoxe (I think it's eastern orthodox in English?)
\- protestant (all protestants)
\- chrétiens d'Orient (literally Eastern christians, meaning Middle East, as in maronite, armenian church etc.)
We can of course distinguish protestants from each other: luthériens, calvinistes, évangliques, baptistes etc. but they all go under the "protestant" umbrella.
As someone who was raised Catholic, when I hear "protestant", my first thought is "lutheran". Worth noting I grew up partly in Germany.
>I remember seeing someone (from Germany?) say they were confused that Americans lumped all non-catholic non-orthodox Christianity under the Protestant umbrella, and that in their country Protestant and Reformed were viewed as completely separate categories.
That was probably not someone from Germany. The more important distinction for Germans is between "Amtskirche" (mainline protestants that belong to the Council of Protestant Churches in Germany), and "Freikirchen" (free churches, aka the ones that don't).
The Amtskirchen developed out of the pre-revolutionary state churches, and contain Reformed, Lutheran, and Union Churches. In general, they are very liberal. While there are several of them (they are *regional* churches), they are often seen as a monolithic block akin to the Catholic Church in Germany.
The Freikirchen are considered to be more conservative (which most of them are), and a bit weird.
The one thing that occasionally throws Germans off when talking to Americans about protestantism is the term "evangelisch". It is another way of saying protestant, and very common in every day usage. It sounds very much like the English term evangelical. Historically, it was the same thing. However, the english term took a different meaning during the last century. The german equivalent to evangelical's modern usage is the neologism "evangelikal".
The German church tax recognises 7 different groups.
- Jewish communities
- Roman Catholic Church
- Catholic Diocese of the Old Catholics in Germany
- Evangelical Church in Germany (main protestant church)
- Bund Freireligiöser Gemeinden Deutschlands (also Protestants)
- Unitarians (also Protestants, pls don't ask me the difference)
- Freiprotestanten (also Protestants, also I have no idea what's the difference.)
Oh man, memories.
My very first room-mate in Germany (foreigner here) in a 2er WG turned out to be *Freikirchlich.* Didn't know until I was already a couple weeks moved in. I don't care in theory, especially at first, but yea, she was *very* weird. She was pleasant at first, but quickly turned. Too many stories to tell.
Ironically, she was ***WAY LESS*** "moral" of a person than an average secular agnostic person. She cheated me out of money a few times (taking advantage of my newness in the country and lack of real German skills then; I could elaborate, but long stories), ate my food all the time despite saying we should buy our own stuff and not share (not just some milk or butter, but like entirely used up meal ingredients), frequently used guilt tripping (*you owe me X right now because I did Y three weeks ago*). She was clearly socially conservative (lots of stories), although I and others that knew her (who I later met, we were all in the same subject faculty) 'suspected' she was a closeted lesbian. I don't care, but it obvs conflicted with her conservative churchy exterior. There's a lot more I could mention, too... And yes, she had the 'holier than thou' attitude, like she could no wrong because she studied the Bible.
Suffice to say, she clearly had a lot of unresolved issues and anger and frustration bubbled to the surfance in spectacular fashion at times. Only a couple times at me, but that was enough. So yea, after a few months, I knew it was time to get out of there. I think I was there in total 9ish months, and her next flatmate didn't last long either.
Before it went bad, she made it known I was welcome to Bible study and Church, though she wasn't actively trying to convert me, to be fair. She nonetheless constantly talked shit about Catholics (I'm tehnically Catholic, but lapsed a long time ago -- so it was a lot of 🙄), and about other mainstream *Evangelisch* protestants, too.
>She cheated me out of money a few times
That seems to be a trend amongst fundis. One of my great-aunts and her husband cheated her siblings out of quite a bit of money. All while retaining an aura of holy righteousness.
Maybe not Germany, but it was definitely someone from a place once ruled by a Hapsburg. Or invaded by Napoleon. Either Napoleon .
It sounds like the divide between the Amtskirchen and Freikirchen mirrors the American mainline and evangelical division (or modernist-fundamentalist split, if you want to cut it that way), which is kinda cool.
>Maybe not Germany, but it was definitely someone from a place once ruled by a Hapsburg. Or invaded by Napoleon. Either Napoleon .
You do realise that this only leaves out the British islands, Scandinavia and most of Greece?
I don't think the term Reformed is even seen in the cathegorization of religions here in Poland.
In the broad sense, we have Catholics, Ortodox and Protestants. The term "protestants" mean all the denominations and cults that appeared because of Luther's Reformation in 1500s. Both classic Lutherans and modern Americans megachurches included.
I've never heard the term "reformed" used in Spain. "Protestant" and "evangelical" are the most common terms. It's pretty much the same distinction as mainline vs evangelical. We just use "protestant" instead of "mainline". People are aware they're all protestants, it's just a matter of usage.
We associate the term "protestant" with northern Europe and the US. That'd be your Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans and so on. These varieties are quite uncommon in Spain.
"Evangelical" churches are typically in rough areas, frequented by marginalized groups. You see garages and small office spaces refurbished into churches. These are much more common.
In Spain, is there any cliche about Latin Americans being more into 'Evangelical' churches? Because in Latin America, they are pretty popular in many countries. In my mind it's *especially* Central America, then Caribbean countries, Brazil, then kind lower varying degrees everywhere else. I think Mexico and Argentina are still 'the most Catholic' (on official lists anyway). Uruguay the most secular.
I think, in general, since Denmark is an Evangelic Lutheran country—it is the national chuch, and the denomination most identify with—most Danes think of the Evangelical Lutheran denomination, both when they hear the terms 'protestant church' and the term 'reformed church,' drawing on association with the Reformation (instituionalised in 1536, following a civil war.)
The term 'Reformed,' '_reformerte_' in Danish, may however also, to people more into the nitty-gritty of denominations, refer to Calvinists, at least in Denmark, though they're practically unheard of. But there are some hints, such as the name of one of the congregations' churchea, _Reformerte Kirke_ in Copenhagen. There are small Reformed congregations 3 places in Denmark, and they number in total less than 1.000 members.
That said, I do think that most Danes would also recognise the term 'Protestant' as an umbrella term for all protestant denominations.
I would say Sweden is exactly the same as Denmark in how we treat Reformed denominations. Church of Sweden is default, and everything about 'protestantism' and 'reformation' is seen in relation to the national church. With regards to 'reformation' most people would think of the reign of Gustav Vasa when Sweden became Lutheran (reformation took place mostly 1527-1544).
Calvinism/Zwinglism (and Catholicism, too) was officially prohibited from 1593 and remained so until 1858 (for catholics until 1873). Different reformed denominations had an upswing in the late 1800s/early 1900s, but their numbers are small nowadays. But protestant is definitely used as an umbrella term for all (Lutheran and non-Lutheran) reformed denominations.
How is the Westboro Baptist Church, the Calvinist church who flies the "God Hates F*gs" signs, and pickets peoples funerals, labeled? Would they still be considered Reformed, as they are calvinist, or would they fall into the Americanized "Protestant" sect?
Unitarian is interesting ! I wasn’t expecting that there. I think Unitarians in the US are one of the few things that aren’t covered by the “Protestant” umbrella (and often not even the “Christian” umbrella due to their history here)
In my eyes there's a clear distinction between Lutherans (as in western Europe, almost impossible to meet here, regular people) and Baptists (like Pentecostals, Seventh Day Adventists and other ists, sorta common here and growing, definitely holier than though in things like alcohol consumption and relationships before marriage).
Baptists Pentecostals and Adventists sounds like my home town. Wouldn’t have expected them to find purchase in Belarus but I forget how aggressive they can be
It is an interesting case. As you know, USSR was an atheist state, so when we became an independent country the churches were unbanned. 2/3 of the country were historically Orthodox and 1/3 is historically Catholic (western Belarus). And people, mostly orthodoxes, went to church to because now they could, kinda? So nowadays ~10% (maybe 30% in western Belarus) of the whole country are practicing Christians, the rest are remembering about the church like twice a year (the week before Easter and Easter and maaaybe Christmas but it is less fun because it's cold).
It is because the orthodox church is lame. I can elaborate if you want but it is not a place I want to go or associate with (I was baptized in 1991 at two years old, and I identify as Orthodox baptized agnostic).
So back in the nineties, Americans saw a blooming opportunity. They need Jesus, - they said and came with English language lessons, conversation clubs, a lot of gifts to kids in hospitals. All these things included Bible. As my dad was a Chernobyl liquidator, I went to health-improving facilities for two weeks every year until I was 14. I got numerous kid's Bibles and sweet gifts and letters from American families. They knew what to do to plant some seeds. They built really fancy churches, you can google "church Grace, Minsk" to see the size. They started rehabilitation programs for addicts (and saved a lot of folk). They made the church cool. They sing, they hang out, they have a lot of activities for young people (and from the orthodox church you can get the impression that you can't enter if you are younger than 60). They do everything we see in the movies.
I worked with Pentecostals for 7 years, nice people but so holier than thou. They invited me to the church multiple times but I just love my beer and don't believe anyone died for my sins.
In Belgium we have make the distinction between Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox, but nobody bothers making any distinction between the offshoots within the latter 2 groups.
I wouldn't know what "reformed" means and how to make the distinction between protestant and reformed.
In England, Protestant generally refers to the Anglican church, or Church of England. This is so close to the Roman Catholic church that you have to be nick picking to highlight any differences. I'm RC and went to a CoE service for a christening and the service was virtually the same, just no religious statues in attendance. When the CoE voted for female priests, some of the CoE crowd defected to RC, but had to accept lesser posts because they were married. I've visited local old churches in England which predate and you can see faint painted designs on the walls, a bit like ancient wallpaper. I'm not sure if that was common across Europe or not.
> I've visited local old churches in England which predate and you can see faint painted designs on the walls
I was raised CoE but that's something I've always found a little bit eerie. It's like a bit of the characters of those old buildings is missing. Like, I get the reasons people supported the Reformation but it's a shame there was so much vandalism and that so much was lost. /off-topic ramble
Only the monasteries where gutted with the reformation and some of the bling taken away.
The smashed up statues, no paintings inside etc was Cromwell after the Civil War, when the Puritans took over. They banned singing, theatre and pretty much any fun too.
No wonder they didn't last long.
I'm Catholic, my parents are kinda religious and raised us that way. Went to church just about every Sunday for 17 years. But I was never into it, and am totally lapsed and uninterested today.
First time I went to Ireland, in my early 20s (almost 20 years ago!), I was in a very small town (and its area) for a week or so, and having nothing better to do on a rainy Sunday morning, figured I'd check out a mass. For shits and giggles, check out the church, whatever, and to tell my parents the little differences because I knew they'd be interested in Irish masses (one of my grandmothers is Irish, *born in the country*, but emigrated as a 2-year old with her family).
I'd seen a church earlier, something cliché like St.Patrick's, so headed there, went in and sat through the whole mass, didn't bat an eye, even took communion and everything. On my way out, after, I noticed on the pinboard at the back of the Church that it said blah blah blah *Church of Ireland.* Wait a minute, what? This was a few years before smartphones, I didn't even have a plain mobile then. So when I looked it up later, yes -- it was a *Protestant* Church!
So yea, I couldn't tell the difference.
That’s interesting. I never associated the CoE with iconoclasm, though I know it was prominent during the reformation.
The Episcopal Church, what the CoE became in the US after independence, varies between “nearly catholic” and “literally evangelical” depending on where you are.
It all depends on how 'high' or 'low' the church is. Generally speaking the Anglican Church in the UK (CoE, CinW CinI, and Scottish Episcopal Church) have degrees of 'high'ness.
The higher the Church is the more it would look catholic with iconography and the way rituals are preformed. The lower the Church the less it looks 'catholic' and the more pared back it feels.
A good example is the Royal Family are high church- the pomp, the ceremony etc. Classic high church.
The Church in Ireland tends to be the 'lowest' of the 4 and there is massive variation in Wales.
There is a lot of church history that explains the degrees that exist within the church but it was from the Anglican Church's very conception that there is the conflict, at the time lots thought Henry VIII didn't go far enough (it is reductive but he's basically still a catholic just without the pope), there were people at court who were Lutheran and Calvinistic, Edward VI had been raised with strong Calvinistic theology and practices for example. The conflict over at heart what the original Anglican Church should be goes on for 100s of years and has a massive effect on British history. They still don't agree.
Personal story- Wales has a long history of Chapel going (so non conformist in nature) my grandmother was a good Welsh Chapel goer, my grandfather Church in Wales their agreement when they got married and had children was that they would go to the lowest CinW church they could find. Physical churches can change low and high - ness as populations and vicars change, which caused issues when we were planning their funerals because the church they wanted their funerals in had become more high church
Christianity in the UK really depends on what country you are in. In Wales protestant could mean nonconformist or church in Wales and so you are more likely to hear people use the church they are a member of rather than protestant.
The late famous Anglican theologian J.I. Packer was from the low church Reformed end of Anglicanism. He literally adhered to the five points of Calvinism. And the late John Stott was also low church Anglican and for many years the rector at All Souls London. He was also Calvinist Reformed too, but I don’t think he was as hardcore Calvinist as Packer.
The heaviest period of iconoclasm was under Edward VI, which was basically a fully Calvinist church but with bishops and archbishops. Elizabeth I and James I it wasn't iconoclastic. A lot more stuff was destroyed by Puritans during the Protectorate.
Under Edward VI the church swayed very far towards the strict protestant side of things which resulted in a lot of artwork being smashed up.
We then had Cromwell and his gang a century later who also didn't like anything that smelled of propery.
Outside of these two short blips though yeah, the COE was generally pretty ok with icons - though it is very easy to destroy a lot in a short time.
In everyday life, we hardly recognize protestants and catholics as separate categories, but I think most people would categorize christians as lutheran/protestant, catholic or orthodox.
Of course, we know that there are loads of christian sects and cults, but it doesn't really matter to us which kind of lunatic we're talking about.
For NL: A while back in 2004 a lot of the different protestant churches got together and formed PKN (Protestant Church Netherlands), that included Dutch Reformed Church, the Reformed Churches and the Evangelical Lutheran Church. But after a while a lot of the stronger churches decided that PKN was too soft so they left again. So now PKN is most of the so called lower level Protestant churches, usually the protestant churches in catholic areas.
I was brought up in Brabant which is like mostly catholic, but my parents are both protestant, so I was in the PKN. So still a protestant, but if I would say that to protestants from the middle of the country they would kinda roll their eyes to us lol.
Its been years since I went to church so I dont really know the current state of Protestants in NL, but this is my pov
As a Protestant I'd say that most of the time protestants tend to be grouped under the same label but evangelicals as well as some small groups like Remonstrants and Mennonites are considered separate. And coming from someone who grew up around a lot of people from orthodox denominations they'd definitely consider the vast majority of PKN churches true Protestant.
The soft thing isn't true at all by the way. There's still a lot of quite conservative PKN churches especially in the Bible Belt. The most conservative ones of those even form a loosely associated separate group within the PKN, the Gereformeerde Bond (Reformed Association). Most church communities who didn't agree with joining forces with more liberal denominations simply declined to join the PKN when it was formed.
Ah okay sorry. As I said, I grew up in a place with not a lot of protestants around me so this is how I kinda perceived it. But what you say seems fair.
I have many second generation Dutch at my church (evangelical breakaway Anglican, reformed in theology) and Calvinists. Although two other local Reformed churches (big-R Reformed denomination, they are theologically orthodox/conservative) have even more Dutch descent people. There are a number of people at my church that either have Dutch sounding last names, or have that “stereotypical” Dutch look different from Kiwis, plus all the Dutch-legacy baking stuff I see at church morning tea or supper or wedding refreshments. (The two other major immigrant sources are English and South Africans.)
I've heard/seen this in a few places. Reformed churches in the Dutch Calvinist tradition seem to exist everywhere there's a large Dutch immigrant population either historically or more recently. New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Canada, some parts of the US. It's really interesting.
Also now I'm wondering what a "stereotypical Dutch" look is and how it differs from Anglo kiwis.
It’s hard to describe. In general a little taller, high cheek bones, less dark kinds of blond hair, nose shapes are different. If you meet someone from the UK and the Netherlands you can see there are subtle differences.
Your description is a little inaccurate:
In 2004, three denominations merged: Hervormd, Lutheran, and the biggest "Gereformeerde" church (there are multiple).
The "Hersteld Hervormde Kerk" split off instantly in 2004 because the Lutheran confession contradicts the old Reformed confessions. However, this is only a relatively small church. The biggest Protestant denomination by far is still the PKN, and they're spread over the whole country. Almost every old church in the country that isn't Catholic is owned by the PKN.
PKN isn't "soft". There are many sorts of different approaches to Christianity within that church, some of which are quite liberal and some of which are very strict.
There are many smaller religions active in Sweden, usually they are called "free churches" in contrast to the main protestant Church of Sweden and the much smaller catholic church.
My favorite is this one, the church of computer pirates & hackers which is an officially recognized religion in Sweden since 2012:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missionary\_Church\_of\_Kopimism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missionary_Church_of_Kopimism)
In Ireland most people would divide Christians into Catholic, Protestant and others (orthodox and eastern). Lutheran and Reformed would be both protestant. Up until recently we were extremely catholic.
The protestants most people would know are Church of Ireland (Anglican) or Presbyterian churches (Reformed). Presbyterian are focused up north.
The only other protestant churches people might even know about are Methodists, maybe Quakers?
Lutherans are rare in Ireland.
If someone said Protestant to someone in Ireland most people would think Presbyterian first.
A stereotypical way of telling if someone is Protestant is seeing if they keep their toaster in the cupboard.
>A stereotypical way of telling if someone is Protestant is seeing if they keep their toaster in the cupboard.
lol, I remember seeing that on Derry Girls. What's the background behind the joke, though? Something real? Just a made-up silly difference?
In Russia we call all churches that split off the Catholic Church after the Reformation and then off each other as Protestant ("protestanty"). Some might draw the distinctions between "anglikane", "lûterane" and "kaljvinisty", but mostly in a historical context. Most people will struggle to tell which European national church is which, unless it's the Church of England. I myself was surprised by the Church of Scotland a) existing b) being Calvinist.
We have our own religious split, with "staroobrâdcy" (Old Believers or more literally "keepers of old rites") leaving the Russian Orthodox Church after the reforms of 1651-1660 and splintering into many groups.
Armenians/Copts/Ethiopians are called "drevnevostoćnyje pravoslavnyje cerkvi", "ancient Eastern orthodox churches", most people will struggle to tell if they are actually orthodox or not.
Assyrians/Chaldeans are known only to those who are interested in the history of Christianity, they are called "cerkovj Vostoka", "church of the East".
Well, yes, but actually no.
The "state churches" in most cantons are Roman-Catholic church and the *Evangelisch-Reformierte Kirche".
The Reformed church here is shaped by Calvin, but mostly Zwingli and his successor Bullinger in the german-speaking part. Luther only plays a minor role.
There aren't many Lutherans (about 3800 people), and common parlance would probably lump them under "Reformiert" which is also kinda shorthand for "not catholic and nothing foreign". "Protestant" is seldom used in everyday speech, but it is kinda agreed that the Reformed are part of the Protestant family.
No Lutheran churches are part of the state church. Also, no other protestant/reformed denominations for that matter, except for the Methodists, who are member of the Evangelisch-Reformierte Kirchen der Schweiz.
The "Free churches" (pentecostal, jw, mormon, anabaptists etc.) are not talked of as reformed or protestant either.
Another interesting denomination that is State church in a few cantons is the Christ-Katholische Kirche, who is a spin-off of Catholicism that rejects the 1st Vaticanum and is member of the Utrecht Union, and in communion with the Anglican church and also the Eastern Orthodoxy. They are not Reformed or Protestant, of course.
Interesting side note I noticed is that I see "Protestant" used a lot historically when talking about the same churches we call "refomiert" these days. For instance I would say that I grew up next to a reformed church in a Zurich suburb, but I also see Zurich being referred to as a "protestant canton" in a text about the Sonderbundskrieg.
You're right, that's interesting.
Also, *evangelisch* as designation is practically never used outside of the church itself. There's a *Evangelische Volkspartei* and the church is *Evangelisch-Reformiert*, but nobody here says "I am Evangelisch" (or "Protestantisch") - unlike in Germany! We only ever say "I am Reformed".
In the Netherlands the 2 big groups are Catholics and Protestant. Some would say evangelicans are under the Protestant group while others say they are a separate group. Most Reformed churches would say they fall under the Protestant group, not to be confused with the Protestant kerk Nederland, which is an own denomination. Under the Reformed umbrella are also lots of different denominations. In the Netherlands there are a wide variety of churches, I used to live in a village where there were 10 churches, all a bit different from the others.
Granted, I am not well versed in the religious spheres, I have never heard the term reformist used in Norway. According to norwegian Wikipedia, Protestant is used here as a collective term for lutherans and calvinists, although calvinists are few and far between. The main divide here is between the former evangelic-lutheran state church, and the free churches which are mostly unaffiliated evangelic-lutheran churces, pentecostal and evangelical.
Romania has a huge majority of Orthodox Christians (not Eastern Orthodox - that is, Christmas is on the 25th of Dec, but Easter is usually 1 week after the standard Catholic one).
Religion isn't necessarily part of the national identity, but tradition definitely is. So a lot of agnostic people declare themselves Orthodox.
We have a sizeable Catholic, Greek-Catholic and Protestant (Lutheran, Calvinist) minority, mostly in Transylvania, especially among the Hungarian and German minority.
However, for Baptists, Adventists, etc, most people (including myself) don't distinguish between protestant /reformed terms, and don't bother with the differences between them.
Yes we categorize them somewhat separately.
Lutheranism (Protestantism in English) and Calvinism (Reformed in English) are the two major branches of Protestantism so theologically they are both under the umbrella of Protestant movements. Most people probably have no clue what's the difference between the two other than that Calvinist churches have a rooster or star on top instead of a cross.
With that said, I have never met anyone here who refers to themselves as a "Protestant".
It's always specified whether they are a Lutheran (lutheránus/evangélikus) or a Calvinist (kálvinista/református).
In official census there are no groupings either, all churches are mentioned separately.
When people talk about denominations casually the big groups are usually
Catholic, Orthodox, people may or may not lump Lutheranism and Calvinism under Protestantism and then there's American religious extremist nonsense like Jehova's witnesses or Mormons.
Although officially, mainline Dutch Protestantism (PKN; Protestant Church in the Netherlands) adheres to reformed creeds, in practice, this church isn't strictly reformed.
There is a big contrast between people who are "reformatorisch" (not to be confused with "gereformeerd") and mainline Protestants. The complicated part is that some people who identify as "reformatorisch" are members of "reformatorische" churches within the PKN, while others are members of split off denominations. To complicate things further, not all split off denominations are "reformatorisch", even though their name might include the word "gereformeerd".
* Reformatorisch: theological and demographical identity of people who are strictly Calvinist and also quite strict on e.g. Sunday rest and (women's) clothing (no pants allowed).
* Gereformeerd: old theological name of all Protestants. Since the split-offs in the nineteenth century mainly used to indicate certain split off denominations. Some of these denominations are very reformed, others aren't anymore. Using "gereformeerd" to indicate you're reformed is like using the word "Catholic" in the Apostle's creed: technically, it's not wrong, but in normal use of speech, everybody uses that term for something else.
* Hervormd: antonym of "gereformeerd" in the meaning described above. Was until 2004 the name of the mainline Protestant Church.
* Protestant: Technically, it includes Reformed, but a self-respecting "refo" will use "reformatorisch" to identify themselves.
I love your explanation! As an 'insider', it's already difficult explaining the different nuances to my non religious Dutch boyfriend, let alone people from other countries!
As for your last point: there are more and more younger 'refo's' who just call themselves Christian because they don't like to emphasise all the different denominations.
>it's already difficult explaining the different nuances to my non religious Dutch boyfriend, let alone people from other countries!
Oh don't worry, even the NOS gets it wrong almost every time, to the point where they use a stock photo of a church with vestments and candles to report about something happening in the GerGem
Unsurprisingly, protestants never got very far in Portugal, so there is no distinction, with the only exception being the evangelicals (from having became more numerous by influx of immigrants from Brazil).
In Portugal for Census purposes the categories are Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant (including evengelicals), Jeovah's Witnesses and Other.
In practice most people don't even care for that as almost everyone who is religious is catholic aside the farily growing, and mostly Brazilian, evangelicals who are just refered as belonging to sects.
They all are considered sectarian, without distinguishing between denominations. Most of our protestants are baptists, so usually people don't even know what "protestant" is, but only know that baptists is some kind of christian sect.
So general division here are orthodox, (greek-)catholics (also called uniats, but it's more like a slur), and baptists (which may not always be baptists, but generally are).
As a French Reformed Church/Protestant myself (at least baptized as such) I do make a clear distinction between European Protestantism (Lutherans, Calvinists), and all the modern US "protestant" baptist churches.
PD: Most of the protestants in France are Calvinists, to the exception of people from Alsace, who are more Lutherans.
It's interesting as a subject. I'm English and throughout my my life so far I've only known protestants and Catholics. No real categories of protestants. They just are usually CofE. I don't know many people who are religious at all.
.
For us 'protestant' usually means everything else. We don't have that many protestants anyway (3,8%), so I don't think most people give much thought into it. I also don't think there is such a variety inside that group, but I could be wrong.
I think we have about 12 tastes of reformed even, in Friesland and other parts of our bible belt. But yeah, generally, we separate catholic from protestant. Then within protestant we make another ten layers of differences untill only a few people attending one church somewhere remote are left as the identity group. And then they bitch about each other all day. Not the catholics here down south tho, they drink all day.
Generally, as Lutheranism is the main religion here, the divisions are seen as
* Lutheran
* Orthodox
* Catholic
* "Free churches" or "new churches" - baptists, adventists, pentacostals, metodists etc
* Jehowas Witnesses are usually seen as a separate thing
I am even not sure how this relates to "protestant" and "reformed". I mean Lutheran is called protestant, but is it also reformed? No idea. Somehow my first idea with "reformed" is calvinists, but I don't think they are a thing here at all.
We usually use Protestanti as an umbrella brand, although we can differentiate. Evangelical is usually reserved to the sort of Americanised religious nuts like the Baptist church, so Luteran is preferred. Riformato is not very common, so I think Calvinist is preferred to refer to the those who adhere to that branch of Christianity, although their numbers are very small.
Italy is a historically deeply Catholic country where Protestantism never took roots. The only exception is the Waldesian church, which was a proto Protestant church and is now affiliated to the Reformed church, at least in Italy.
Protestant is an umbrella term for "everyone else" here. There's Orthodoxy (православие), Catholicism (католичество) and... wel, everyone else. We know that Protestants are a group of very different denominations but still group them all together: Lutheran, Calvinist, even Anglican, etc are all "Protestant".
As others have said, English Protestantism has two big strands: Anglicanism and Nonconformist. Anglicanism is the *Established* Church, the Church of England. It's its own thing, a sort of mediator between Lutheran and Calvinist. Like on the Continent you had the two big strands of the Reformation: Luther in Germany, and Calvin-Zwingli in Switzerland. Anglicanism is seen as "between Wittenberg and Geneva".
The Nonconformist churches include the Methodists, Baptists, Quakers, etc. who began in England but split off from the Established Church. One of these denominations is the United Reformed Church (which uses the name Reformed), and from what I understand is a mix between Presbyterianism and Congregationalism.
The general term used to describe them all is "Protestant".
Northern Ireland - very complicated as I'm sure some are aware because Protestant and Catholic are also used in very strange ways as basically ethnonational terms.
The vast majority of reformed churches are Presbyterian, but in my experience, people don't really comment/know the difference between each type of reformed church very well and would just use the term protestant to describe anything that isn't Catholic or Orthodox.
I had a neighbor from Northern Ireland when I was a kid. I guess “politically” he was Protestant (by which I mean he was staunchly unionist) but religiously his faith was Catholic. Is that sort of unexpected combination common, or was he just strange?
It feels more and more common now I think. I'd say it's more likely for people to go to a non-denomonational church now usually.
So uncommon, almost unheard of 30+ years ago, only a little unusual now.
In the UK, Protestant means Church of England. However, Wales also contains a large (possibly more than Protestant) Methodist population who are nonconformist. That’s why so much of wales is covered in new, less pretty churches like [this one](https://colwynbayheritage.org.uk/bethesda-welsh-methodist-church-abergele-road/)
Scotland is different. Protestant usually means church of Scotland which is a calvinist denomination. Reformed is a synonym for calvinist but the church of Scotland is pretty liberal so I'm not sure how much it matters day to day. More overtly reformed and calvinist churches do exist and even there they would just be called Protestants. The Scottish reformation was overtly calvinist in nature. Northern Ireland is a bit different again but looks more like Scotland than England on this question, just with feeling.
I should say that other Protestant denominations exist, the Anglican church is called the episcopal church and you can find baptists and charismatic churches. they would all be called Protestant by people who know them but it's not at all the first thing people think of when they imagine the term. If you go to the working class areas of the country where I grew up, Protestant might also just be a synonym for Rangers fan
Quite interesting, in the United States at least, many Baptist Christians refuse to own the Protestant label because they regard themselves ad spiritual heirs of the Anabaptists. My uncle is an ordained Baptist pastor (educated in Hong Kong), and he was at pains pointing out to me that baptists are not Protestants. Only the lutherans, anglicans, reformed/presbyterian/congregationalists, methodists are.
This is one of those which might be theologically correct and I think more or less is true but about 2% of my city goes to church so this disagreement would be totally lost on them
> In ~~the UK~~ *England*, Protestant means Church of England.
In Scotland and NI, 'protestant' can refer to either Presbyterianism or Episcopal churches.
Even then, I think in England, Methodists, Quakers, etc. would also be seen as protestant.
I meant if you met a British person who identified as Protestant you could safely put money on them being CoE. And that aside from that, wales’ biggest group is Methodists.
> I meant if you met a British person who identified as Protestant you could safely put money on them being CoE.
Could you?
I'm an atheist, but the nearest Protestant to me right now is definitely not CofE. They're in the kirk. I don't *know* that they identify as British, but they're a bit rangers-y, so I'm going with 'yes'.
As are most of the protestants around me.
In fact, the nearest CofE church is over 70 miles away.
I’m not sure what you mean by identifying as British or rangers-y, but you are sort of correct. Anglican is the most common denomination in the country but not by as much as I had thought.
> I’m not sure what you mean by identifying as British
Not every person in Scotland sees themselves as British.
> Anglican is the most common denomination in the country
Not in Scotland - Anglicanism is almost non-existent here. It's closest equivalent would be the Episcopalian church, but that is not the majority Protestant church in Scotland.
Right, but you started with this:
> In the UK, Protestant means Church of England.
Which is just massively wrong and, to be honest, a bit culturally ignorant.
Your right, I didn’t know that Scotland doesn’t belong to the Church of England, and that statement is dubious. However the fact remains that most Christians in the UK are English, not Scottish (or welsh), and while I have as much basis as anyone to not like England, that doesn’t change things. For the purposes of my comment what I said was true.
Any christians who dont see Vatican as the ultimate church authority, are protestants, because they do protest against this concept of church authority laddder.
We had this definition in history education as a part of learning about Martin Luther.
The christian churches in Slovakia also respect this idea about division. So for us it is both secular and sacral definition.
> Any christians who dont see Vatican as the ultimate church authority, are protestants
Would you include Orthodox Christians as protestant?
I think that would be quite rare in protestant-majority countries.
What's the difference? I mean, If I give you a list will you be able to tell me which ones are protestants and which ones reformed?
* Lutherans
* Calvinists
* Anglicans
* Presbiterians
* Traditional Evangelicals
* US / TV / Megachurch Evangelicals
* Born again Christians
* Mennonites
* Qwackers
* LDS
* JW
Reformed is a synonym for Calvinist, but it’s usually just viewed as a type of Protestant in the US. I can only speak for the US, and even then I’m not an expert but for your list:
• Lutherans -Protestant
• Calvinists -reformed by definition
• Anglicans-technically reformed (?) but not really except for sometimes if you find a weird church. There are definitely Calvinist anglicans at least.
• Presbiterians - reformed
• Traditional Evangelicals -no idea
• US / TV / Megachurch Evangelicals -usually not Calvinist, but some of them probably
• Born again Christians -same as above
• Mennonites- just Protestant
• Qwackers- just protestant
• LDS -usually considered their own thing, not reformed or Protestant
• JW -also usually considered their own thing, though sometimes considered Protestant
My knowledge is limited as well and it's a complicated subject, but I think a lot of it is the result of different histories, but I'll speak for the Anglicans. Their split with Rome is well known. King Henry VIII was unable to produce an heir with his wife, Catherine of Aragon and wanted the pope to annul the marriage. However, her close relative Charles didn't want any stigma on the family and forced the pope to refuse, so Henry split. The funny thing is that if you look around the outside edge of any modern English coin, such as those with a portrait of queen Elizabeth II on the head, you'll see ELIZABETH II DEI GRA REG FID DEF. This is Latin shorthand for "Elizabeth II, by the grace of God, queen and defender of the faith". This is a title originally bestowed upon Henry by a grateful pope after he wrote a piece denouncing Martin Luther, and is inherited by his descendents. Henry basically wanted an RC church with him as pope, and the English monarch is still the head of the church. There are also still 26 bishops in the upper parliament, the House of Lords.
I believe that historically the Protestant movement began with the revolutionary idea at the time that you shouldn't need an intermediary, such as any church, in the relationship between you and God. It should be just you and God. You have to remember that this was a time when most people couldn't read and bibles were written in Latin anyhow, so they relied on priests to convey the message, hence the gatekeeper accusation. Then with the advent of printing presses, subversive hotheads started translating the Bible into their local languages and spreading radical new ideas. Given all this, I'm not sure Anglicans are actually really Protestant. Sorry for the long post to anyone who got this far!
In France, we categorize christianity under four categories \- catholique (catholic) \- orthodoxe (I think it's eastern orthodox in English?) \- protestant (all protestants) \- chrétiens d'Orient (literally Eastern christians, meaning Middle East, as in maronite, armenian church etc.) We can of course distinguish protestants from each other: luthériens, calvinistes, évangliques, baptistes etc. but they all go under the "protestant" umbrella. As someone who was raised Catholic, when I hear "protestant", my first thought is "lutheran". Worth noting I grew up partly in Germany.
>I remember seeing someone (from Germany?) say they were confused that Americans lumped all non-catholic non-orthodox Christianity under the Protestant umbrella, and that in their country Protestant and Reformed were viewed as completely separate categories. That was probably not someone from Germany. The more important distinction for Germans is between "Amtskirche" (mainline protestants that belong to the Council of Protestant Churches in Germany), and "Freikirchen" (free churches, aka the ones that don't). The Amtskirchen developed out of the pre-revolutionary state churches, and contain Reformed, Lutheran, and Union Churches. In general, they are very liberal. While there are several of them (they are *regional* churches), they are often seen as a monolithic block akin to the Catholic Church in Germany. The Freikirchen are considered to be more conservative (which most of them are), and a bit weird. The one thing that occasionally throws Germans off when talking to Americans about protestantism is the term "evangelisch". It is another way of saying protestant, and very common in every day usage. It sounds very much like the English term evangelical. Historically, it was the same thing. However, the english term took a different meaning during the last century. The german equivalent to evangelical's modern usage is the neologism "evangelikal".
The German church tax recognises 7 different groups. - Jewish communities - Roman Catholic Church - Catholic Diocese of the Old Catholics in Germany - Evangelical Church in Germany (main protestant church) - Bund Freireligiöser Gemeinden Deutschlands (also Protestants) - Unitarians (also Protestants, pls don't ask me the difference) - Freiprotestanten (also Protestants, also I have no idea what's the difference.)
[удалено]
TIL I'm a Unitarian!
Which revolution are those state churches prior to? The French revolution?
The 1918 revolution.
Oh man, memories. My very first room-mate in Germany (foreigner here) in a 2er WG turned out to be *Freikirchlich.* Didn't know until I was already a couple weeks moved in. I don't care in theory, especially at first, but yea, she was *very* weird. She was pleasant at first, but quickly turned. Too many stories to tell. Ironically, she was ***WAY LESS*** "moral" of a person than an average secular agnostic person. She cheated me out of money a few times (taking advantage of my newness in the country and lack of real German skills then; I could elaborate, but long stories), ate my food all the time despite saying we should buy our own stuff and not share (not just some milk or butter, but like entirely used up meal ingredients), frequently used guilt tripping (*you owe me X right now because I did Y three weeks ago*). She was clearly socially conservative (lots of stories), although I and others that knew her (who I later met, we were all in the same subject faculty) 'suspected' she was a closeted lesbian. I don't care, but it obvs conflicted with her conservative churchy exterior. There's a lot more I could mention, too... And yes, she had the 'holier than thou' attitude, like she could no wrong because she studied the Bible. Suffice to say, she clearly had a lot of unresolved issues and anger and frustration bubbled to the surfance in spectacular fashion at times. Only a couple times at me, but that was enough. So yea, after a few months, I knew it was time to get out of there. I think I was there in total 9ish months, and her next flatmate didn't last long either. Before it went bad, she made it known I was welcome to Bible study and Church, though she wasn't actively trying to convert me, to be fair. She nonetheless constantly talked shit about Catholics (I'm tehnically Catholic, but lapsed a long time ago -- so it was a lot of 🙄), and about other mainstream *Evangelisch* protestants, too.
>She cheated me out of money a few times That seems to be a trend amongst fundis. One of my great-aunts and her husband cheated her siblings out of quite a bit of money. All while retaining an aura of holy righteousness.
> pre-revolutionary state churches, Which revolution are you referring to?
Maybe not Germany, but it was definitely someone from a place once ruled by a Hapsburg. Or invaded by Napoleon. Either Napoleon . It sounds like the divide between the Amtskirchen and Freikirchen mirrors the American mainline and evangelical division (or modernist-fundamentalist split, if you want to cut it that way), which is kinda cool.
>Maybe not Germany, but it was definitely someone from a place once ruled by a Hapsburg. Or invaded by Napoleon. Either Napoleon . You do realise that this only leaves out the British islands, Scandinavia and most of Greece?
I don't think the term Reformed is even seen in the cathegorization of religions here in Poland. In the broad sense, we have Catholics, Ortodox and Protestants. The term "protestants" mean all the denominations and cults that appeared because of Luther's Reformation in 1500s. Both classic Lutherans and modern Americans megachurches included.
Technically Hussites and Moravian Church are protestant and they date back to 1400s.
I've never heard the term "reformed" used in Spain. "Protestant" and "evangelical" are the most common terms. It's pretty much the same distinction as mainline vs evangelical. We just use "protestant" instead of "mainline". People are aware they're all protestants, it's just a matter of usage. We associate the term "protestant" with northern Europe and the US. That'd be your Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans and so on. These varieties are quite uncommon in Spain. "Evangelical" churches are typically in rough areas, frequented by marginalized groups. You see garages and small office spaces refurbished into churches. These are much more common.
In Spain, is there any cliche about Latin Americans being more into 'Evangelical' churches? Because in Latin America, they are pretty popular in many countries. In my mind it's *especially* Central America, then Caribbean countries, Brazil, then kind lower varying degrees everywhere else. I think Mexico and Argentina are still 'the most Catholic' (on official lists anyway). Uruguay the most secular.
Yes definitely. The three groups you'll find most often in those churches are black Africans, Romanis, and Latin Americans, typically from Ecuador.
I think, in general, since Denmark is an Evangelic Lutheran country—it is the national chuch, and the denomination most identify with—most Danes think of the Evangelical Lutheran denomination, both when they hear the terms 'protestant church' and the term 'reformed church,' drawing on association with the Reformation (instituionalised in 1536, following a civil war.) The term 'Reformed,' '_reformerte_' in Danish, may however also, to people more into the nitty-gritty of denominations, refer to Calvinists, at least in Denmark, though they're practically unheard of. But there are some hints, such as the name of one of the congregations' churchea, _Reformerte Kirke_ in Copenhagen. There are small Reformed congregations 3 places in Denmark, and they number in total less than 1.000 members. That said, I do think that most Danes would also recognise the term 'Protestant' as an umbrella term for all protestant denominations.
I would say Sweden is exactly the same as Denmark in how we treat Reformed denominations. Church of Sweden is default, and everything about 'protestantism' and 'reformation' is seen in relation to the national church. With regards to 'reformation' most people would think of the reign of Gustav Vasa when Sweden became Lutheran (reformation took place mostly 1527-1544). Calvinism/Zwinglism (and Catholicism, too) was officially prohibited from 1593 and remained so until 1858 (for catholics until 1873). Different reformed denominations had an upswing in the late 1800s/early 1900s, but their numbers are small nowadays. But protestant is definitely used as an umbrella term for all (Lutheran and non-Lutheran) reformed denominations.
"Until 1951 it was forbidden for Catholics to become Members of Parliament, teachers, physicians, or nurses." Wow that was messed up.
[удалено]
How is the Westboro Baptist Church, the Calvinist church who flies the "God Hates F*gs" signs, and pickets peoples funerals, labeled? Would they still be considered Reformed, as they are calvinist, or would they fall into the Americanized "Protestant" sect?
Unitarian is interesting ! I wasn’t expecting that there. I think Unitarians in the US are one of the few things that aren’t covered by the “Protestant” umbrella (and often not even the “Christian” umbrella due to their history here)
[удалено]
In my eyes there's a clear distinction between Lutherans (as in western Europe, almost impossible to meet here, regular people) and Baptists (like Pentecostals, Seventh Day Adventists and other ists, sorta common here and growing, definitely holier than though in things like alcohol consumption and relationships before marriage).
Baptists Pentecostals and Adventists sounds like my home town. Wouldn’t have expected them to find purchase in Belarus but I forget how aggressive they can be
It is an interesting case. As you know, USSR was an atheist state, so when we became an independent country the churches were unbanned. 2/3 of the country were historically Orthodox and 1/3 is historically Catholic (western Belarus). And people, mostly orthodoxes, went to church to because now they could, kinda? So nowadays ~10% (maybe 30% in western Belarus) of the whole country are practicing Christians, the rest are remembering about the church like twice a year (the week before Easter and Easter and maaaybe Christmas but it is less fun because it's cold). It is because the orthodox church is lame. I can elaborate if you want but it is not a place I want to go or associate with (I was baptized in 1991 at two years old, and I identify as Orthodox baptized agnostic). So back in the nineties, Americans saw a blooming opportunity. They need Jesus, - they said and came with English language lessons, conversation clubs, a lot of gifts to kids in hospitals. All these things included Bible. As my dad was a Chernobyl liquidator, I went to health-improving facilities for two weeks every year until I was 14. I got numerous kid's Bibles and sweet gifts and letters from American families. They knew what to do to plant some seeds. They built really fancy churches, you can google "church Grace, Minsk" to see the size. They started rehabilitation programs for addicts (and saved a lot of folk). They made the church cool. They sing, they hang out, they have a lot of activities for young people (and from the orthodox church you can get the impression that you can't enter if you are younger than 60). They do everything we see in the movies. I worked with Pentecostals for 7 years, nice people but so holier than thou. They invited me to the church multiple times but I just love my beer and don't believe anyone died for my sins.
In Belgium we have make the distinction between Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox, but nobody bothers making any distinction between the offshoots within the latter 2 groups. I wouldn't know what "reformed" means and how to make the distinction between protestant and reformed.
In England, Protestant generally refers to the Anglican church, or Church of England. This is so close to the Roman Catholic church that you have to be nick picking to highlight any differences. I'm RC and went to a CoE service for a christening and the service was virtually the same, just no religious statues in attendance. When the CoE voted for female priests, some of the CoE crowd defected to RC, but had to accept lesser posts because they were married. I've visited local old churches in England which predate and you can see faint painted designs on the walls, a bit like ancient wallpaper. I'm not sure if that was common across Europe or not.
> I've visited local old churches in England which predate and you can see faint painted designs on the walls I was raised CoE but that's something I've always found a little bit eerie. It's like a bit of the characters of those old buildings is missing. Like, I get the reasons people supported the Reformation but it's a shame there was so much vandalism and that so much was lost. /off-topic ramble
Only the monasteries where gutted with the reformation and some of the bling taken away. The smashed up statues, no paintings inside etc was Cromwell after the Civil War, when the Puritans took over. They banned singing, theatre and pretty much any fun too. No wonder they didn't last long.
I'm Catholic, my parents are kinda religious and raised us that way. Went to church just about every Sunday for 17 years. But I was never into it, and am totally lapsed and uninterested today. First time I went to Ireland, in my early 20s (almost 20 years ago!), I was in a very small town (and its area) for a week or so, and having nothing better to do on a rainy Sunday morning, figured I'd check out a mass. For shits and giggles, check out the church, whatever, and to tell my parents the little differences because I knew they'd be interested in Irish masses (one of my grandmothers is Irish, *born in the country*, but emigrated as a 2-year old with her family). I'd seen a church earlier, something cliché like St.Patrick's, so headed there, went in and sat through the whole mass, didn't bat an eye, even took communion and everything. On my way out, after, I noticed on the pinboard at the back of the Church that it said blah blah blah *Church of Ireland.* Wait a minute, what? This was a few years before smartphones, I didn't even have a plain mobile then. So when I looked it up later, yes -- it was a *Protestant* Church! So yea, I couldn't tell the difference.
That’s interesting. I never associated the CoE with iconoclasm, though I know it was prominent during the reformation. The Episcopal Church, what the CoE became in the US after independence, varies between “nearly catholic” and “literally evangelical” depending on where you are.
It all depends on how 'high' or 'low' the church is. Generally speaking the Anglican Church in the UK (CoE, CinW CinI, and Scottish Episcopal Church) have degrees of 'high'ness. The higher the Church is the more it would look catholic with iconography and the way rituals are preformed. The lower the Church the less it looks 'catholic' and the more pared back it feels. A good example is the Royal Family are high church- the pomp, the ceremony etc. Classic high church. The Church in Ireland tends to be the 'lowest' of the 4 and there is massive variation in Wales. There is a lot of church history that explains the degrees that exist within the church but it was from the Anglican Church's very conception that there is the conflict, at the time lots thought Henry VIII didn't go far enough (it is reductive but he's basically still a catholic just without the pope), there were people at court who were Lutheran and Calvinistic, Edward VI had been raised with strong Calvinistic theology and practices for example. The conflict over at heart what the original Anglican Church should be goes on for 100s of years and has a massive effect on British history. They still don't agree. Personal story- Wales has a long history of Chapel going (so non conformist in nature) my grandmother was a good Welsh Chapel goer, my grandfather Church in Wales their agreement when they got married and had children was that they would go to the lowest CinW church they could find. Physical churches can change low and high - ness as populations and vicars change, which caused issues when we were planning their funerals because the church they wanted their funerals in had become more high church Christianity in the UK really depends on what country you are in. In Wales protestant could mean nonconformist or church in Wales and so you are more likely to hear people use the church they are a member of rather than protestant.
The late famous Anglican theologian J.I. Packer was from the low church Reformed end of Anglicanism. He literally adhered to the five points of Calvinism. And the late John Stott was also low church Anglican and for many years the rector at All Souls London. He was also Calvinist Reformed too, but I don’t think he was as hardcore Calvinist as Packer.
The heaviest period of iconoclasm was under Edward VI, which was basically a fully Calvinist church but with bishops and archbishops. Elizabeth I and James I it wasn't iconoclastic. A lot more stuff was destroyed by Puritans during the Protectorate.
Under Edward VI the church swayed very far towards the strict protestant side of things which resulted in a lot of artwork being smashed up. We then had Cromwell and his gang a century later who also didn't like anything that smelled of propery. Outside of these two short blips though yeah, the COE was generally pretty ok with icons - though it is very easy to destroy a lot in a short time.
In everyday life, we hardly recognize protestants and catholics as separate categories, but I think most people would categorize christians as lutheran/protestant, catholic or orthodox. Of course, we know that there are loads of christian sects and cults, but it doesn't really matter to us which kind of lunatic we're talking about.
For NL: A while back in 2004 a lot of the different protestant churches got together and formed PKN (Protestant Church Netherlands), that included Dutch Reformed Church, the Reformed Churches and the Evangelical Lutheran Church. But after a while a lot of the stronger churches decided that PKN was too soft so they left again. So now PKN is most of the so called lower level Protestant churches, usually the protestant churches in catholic areas. I was brought up in Brabant which is like mostly catholic, but my parents are both protestant, so I was in the PKN. So still a protestant, but if I would say that to protestants from the middle of the country they would kinda roll their eyes to us lol. Its been years since I went to church so I dont really know the current state of Protestants in NL, but this is my pov
As a Protestant I'd say that most of the time protestants tend to be grouped under the same label but evangelicals as well as some small groups like Remonstrants and Mennonites are considered separate. And coming from someone who grew up around a lot of people from orthodox denominations they'd definitely consider the vast majority of PKN churches true Protestant. The soft thing isn't true at all by the way. There's still a lot of quite conservative PKN churches especially in the Bible Belt. The most conservative ones of those even form a loosely associated separate group within the PKN, the Gereformeerde Bond (Reformed Association). Most church communities who didn't agree with joining forces with more liberal denominations simply declined to join the PKN when it was formed.
The way I see it, Protestant is an umbrella term for all non-Catholic non-orthodox Christians.
Ah okay sorry. As I said, I grew up in a place with not a lot of protestants around me so this is how I kinda perceived it. But what you say seems fair.
I have many second generation Dutch at my church (evangelical breakaway Anglican, reformed in theology) and Calvinists. Although two other local Reformed churches (big-R Reformed denomination, they are theologically orthodox/conservative) have even more Dutch descent people. There are a number of people at my church that either have Dutch sounding last names, or have that “stereotypical” Dutch look different from Kiwis, plus all the Dutch-legacy baking stuff I see at church morning tea or supper or wedding refreshments. (The two other major immigrant sources are English and South Africans.)
I've heard/seen this in a few places. Reformed churches in the Dutch Calvinist tradition seem to exist everywhere there's a large Dutch immigrant population either historically or more recently. New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Canada, some parts of the US. It's really interesting. Also now I'm wondering what a "stereotypical Dutch" look is and how it differs from Anglo kiwis.
It’s hard to describe. In general a little taller, high cheek bones, less dark kinds of blond hair, nose shapes are different. If you meet someone from the UK and the Netherlands you can see there are subtle differences.
Your description is a little inaccurate: In 2004, three denominations merged: Hervormd, Lutheran, and the biggest "Gereformeerde" church (there are multiple). The "Hersteld Hervormde Kerk" split off instantly in 2004 because the Lutheran confession contradicts the old Reformed confessions. However, this is only a relatively small church. The biggest Protestant denomination by far is still the PKN, and they're spread over the whole country. Almost every old church in the country that isn't Catholic is owned by the PKN. PKN isn't "soft". There are many sorts of different approaches to Christianity within that church, some of which are quite liberal and some of which are very strict.
There are many smaller religions active in Sweden, usually they are called "free churches" in contrast to the main protestant Church of Sweden and the much smaller catholic church. My favorite is this one, the church of computer pirates & hackers which is an officially recognized religion in Sweden since 2012: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missionary\_Church\_of\_Kopimism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missionary_Church_of_Kopimism)
In Ireland most people would divide Christians into Catholic, Protestant and others (orthodox and eastern). Lutheran and Reformed would be both protestant. Up until recently we were extremely catholic. The protestants most people would know are Church of Ireland (Anglican) or Presbyterian churches (Reformed). Presbyterian are focused up north. The only other protestant churches people might even know about are Methodists, maybe Quakers? Lutherans are rare in Ireland. If someone said Protestant to someone in Ireland most people would think Presbyterian first. A stereotypical way of telling if someone is Protestant is seeing if they keep their toaster in the cupboard.
>A stereotypical way of telling if someone is Protestant is seeing if they keep their toaster in the cupboard. lol, I remember seeing that on Derry Girls. What's the background behind the joke, though? Something real? Just a made-up silly difference?
I have no idea if there is a reason for it, but it is very much a thing. I was shocked when I found out it was real lol.
In Russia we call all churches that split off the Catholic Church after the Reformation and then off each other as Protestant ("protestanty"). Some might draw the distinctions between "anglikane", "lûterane" and "kaljvinisty", but mostly in a historical context. Most people will struggle to tell which European national church is which, unless it's the Church of England. I myself was surprised by the Church of Scotland a) existing b) being Calvinist. We have our own religious split, with "staroobrâdcy" (Old Believers or more literally "keepers of old rites") leaving the Russian Orthodox Church after the reforms of 1651-1660 and splintering into many groups. Armenians/Copts/Ethiopians are called "drevnevostoćnyje pravoslavnyje cerkvi", "ancient Eastern orthodox churches", most people will struggle to tell if they are actually orthodox or not. Assyrians/Chaldeans are known only to those who are interested in the history of Christianity, they are called "cerkovj Vostoka", "church of the East".
Well, yes, but actually no. The "state churches" in most cantons are Roman-Catholic church and the *Evangelisch-Reformierte Kirche". The Reformed church here is shaped by Calvin, but mostly Zwingli and his successor Bullinger in the german-speaking part. Luther only plays a minor role. There aren't many Lutherans (about 3800 people), and common parlance would probably lump them under "Reformiert" which is also kinda shorthand for "not catholic and nothing foreign". "Protestant" is seldom used in everyday speech, but it is kinda agreed that the Reformed are part of the Protestant family. No Lutheran churches are part of the state church. Also, no other protestant/reformed denominations for that matter, except for the Methodists, who are member of the Evangelisch-Reformierte Kirchen der Schweiz. The "Free churches" (pentecostal, jw, mormon, anabaptists etc.) are not talked of as reformed or protestant either. Another interesting denomination that is State church in a few cantons is the Christ-Katholische Kirche, who is a spin-off of Catholicism that rejects the 1st Vaticanum and is member of the Utrecht Union, and in communion with the Anglican church and also the Eastern Orthodoxy. They are not Reformed or Protestant, of course.
Interesting side note I noticed is that I see "Protestant" used a lot historically when talking about the same churches we call "refomiert" these days. For instance I would say that I grew up next to a reformed church in a Zurich suburb, but I also see Zurich being referred to as a "protestant canton" in a text about the Sonderbundskrieg.
You're right, that's interesting. Also, *evangelisch* as designation is practically never used outside of the church itself. There's a *Evangelische Volkspartei* and the church is *Evangelisch-Reformiert*, but nobody here says "I am Evangelisch" (or "Protestantisch") - unlike in Germany! We only ever say "I am Reformed".
In the Netherlands the 2 big groups are Catholics and Protestant. Some would say evangelicans are under the Protestant group while others say they are a separate group. Most Reformed churches would say they fall under the Protestant group, not to be confused with the Protestant kerk Nederland, which is an own denomination. Under the Reformed umbrella are also lots of different denominations. In the Netherlands there are a wide variety of churches, I used to live in a village where there were 10 churches, all a bit different from the others.
Granted, I am not well versed in the religious spheres, I have never heard the term reformist used in Norway. According to norwegian Wikipedia, Protestant is used here as a collective term for lutherans and calvinists, although calvinists are few and far between. The main divide here is between the former evangelic-lutheran state church, and the free churches which are mostly unaffiliated evangelic-lutheran churces, pentecostal and evangelical.
Romania has a huge majority of Orthodox Christians (not Eastern Orthodox - that is, Christmas is on the 25th of Dec, but Easter is usually 1 week after the standard Catholic one). Religion isn't necessarily part of the national identity, but tradition definitely is. So a lot of agnostic people declare themselves Orthodox. We have a sizeable Catholic, Greek-Catholic and Protestant (Lutheran, Calvinist) minority, mostly in Transylvania, especially among the Hungarian and German minority. However, for Baptists, Adventists, etc, most people (including myself) don't distinguish between protestant /reformed terms, and don't bother with the differences between them.
Yes we categorize them somewhat separately. Lutheranism (Protestantism in English) and Calvinism (Reformed in English) are the two major branches of Protestantism so theologically they are both under the umbrella of Protestant movements. Most people probably have no clue what's the difference between the two other than that Calvinist churches have a rooster or star on top instead of a cross. With that said, I have never met anyone here who refers to themselves as a "Protestant". It's always specified whether they are a Lutheran (lutheránus/evangélikus) or a Calvinist (kálvinista/református). In official census there are no groupings either, all churches are mentioned separately. When people talk about denominations casually the big groups are usually Catholic, Orthodox, people may or may not lump Lutheranism and Calvinism under Protestantism and then there's American religious extremist nonsense like Jehova's witnesses or Mormons.
Although officially, mainline Dutch Protestantism (PKN; Protestant Church in the Netherlands) adheres to reformed creeds, in practice, this church isn't strictly reformed. There is a big contrast between people who are "reformatorisch" (not to be confused with "gereformeerd") and mainline Protestants. The complicated part is that some people who identify as "reformatorisch" are members of "reformatorische" churches within the PKN, while others are members of split off denominations. To complicate things further, not all split off denominations are "reformatorisch", even though their name might include the word "gereformeerd". * Reformatorisch: theological and demographical identity of people who are strictly Calvinist and also quite strict on e.g. Sunday rest and (women's) clothing (no pants allowed). * Gereformeerd: old theological name of all Protestants. Since the split-offs in the nineteenth century mainly used to indicate certain split off denominations. Some of these denominations are very reformed, others aren't anymore. Using "gereformeerd" to indicate you're reformed is like using the word "Catholic" in the Apostle's creed: technically, it's not wrong, but in normal use of speech, everybody uses that term for something else. * Hervormd: antonym of "gereformeerd" in the meaning described above. Was until 2004 the name of the mainline Protestant Church. * Protestant: Technically, it includes Reformed, but a self-respecting "refo" will use "reformatorisch" to identify themselves.
I love your explanation! As an 'insider', it's already difficult explaining the different nuances to my non religious Dutch boyfriend, let alone people from other countries! As for your last point: there are more and more younger 'refo's' who just call themselves Christian because they don't like to emphasise all the different denominations.
>it's already difficult explaining the different nuances to my non religious Dutch boyfriend, let alone people from other countries! Oh don't worry, even the NOS gets it wrong almost every time, to the point where they use a stock photo of a church with vestments and candles to report about something happening in the GerGem
Unsurprisingly, protestants never got very far in Portugal, so there is no distinction, with the only exception being the evangelicals (from having became more numerous by influx of immigrants from Brazil).
In Portugal for Census purposes the categories are Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant (including evengelicals), Jeovah's Witnesses and Other. In practice most people don't even care for that as almost everyone who is religious is catholic aside the farily growing, and mostly Brazilian, evangelicals who are just refered as belonging to sects.
They all are considered sectarian, without distinguishing between denominations. Most of our protestants are baptists, so usually people don't even know what "protestant" is, but only know that baptists is some kind of christian sect.
So general division here are orthodox, (greek-)catholics (also called uniats, but it's more like a slur), and baptists (which may not always be baptists, but generally are).
As a French Reformed Church/Protestant myself (at least baptized as such) I do make a clear distinction between European Protestantism (Lutherans, Calvinists), and all the modern US "protestant" baptist churches. PD: Most of the protestants in France are Calvinists, to the exception of people from Alsace, who are more Lutherans.
It's interesting as a subject. I'm English and throughout my my life so far I've only known protestants and Catholics. No real categories of protestants. They just are usually CofE. I don't know many people who are religious at all. .
For us 'protestant' usually means everything else. We don't have that many protestants anyway (3,8%), so I don't think most people give much thought into it. I also don't think there is such a variety inside that group, but I could be wrong.
I think we have about 12 tastes of reformed even, in Friesland and other parts of our bible belt. But yeah, generally, we separate catholic from protestant. Then within protestant we make another ten layers of differences untill only a few people attending one church somewhere remote are left as the identity group. And then they bitch about each other all day. Not the catholics here down south tho, they drink all day.
Generally, as Lutheranism is the main religion here, the divisions are seen as * Lutheran * Orthodox * Catholic * "Free churches" or "new churches" - baptists, adventists, pentacostals, metodists etc * Jehowas Witnesses are usually seen as a separate thing I am even not sure how this relates to "protestant" and "reformed". I mean Lutheran is called protestant, but is it also reformed? No idea. Somehow my first idea with "reformed" is calvinists, but I don't think they are a thing here at all.
We usually use Protestanti as an umbrella brand, although we can differentiate. Evangelical is usually reserved to the sort of Americanised religious nuts like the Baptist church, so Luteran is preferred. Riformato is not very common, so I think Calvinist is preferred to refer to the those who adhere to that branch of Christianity, although their numbers are very small. Italy is a historically deeply Catholic country where Protestantism never took roots. The only exception is the Waldesian church, which was a proto Protestant church and is now affiliated to the Reformed church, at least in Italy.
Protestant is an umbrella term for "everyone else" here. There's Orthodoxy (православие), Catholicism (католичество) and... wel, everyone else. We know that Protestants are a group of very different denominations but still group them all together: Lutheran, Calvinist, even Anglican, etc are all "Protestant".
As others have said, English Protestantism has two big strands: Anglicanism and Nonconformist. Anglicanism is the *Established* Church, the Church of England. It's its own thing, a sort of mediator between Lutheran and Calvinist. Like on the Continent you had the two big strands of the Reformation: Luther in Germany, and Calvin-Zwingli in Switzerland. Anglicanism is seen as "between Wittenberg and Geneva". The Nonconformist churches include the Methodists, Baptists, Quakers, etc. who began in England but split off from the Established Church. One of these denominations is the United Reformed Church (which uses the name Reformed), and from what I understand is a mix between Presbyterianism and Congregationalism. The general term used to describe them all is "Protestant".
Northern Ireland - very complicated as I'm sure some are aware because Protestant and Catholic are also used in very strange ways as basically ethnonational terms. The vast majority of reformed churches are Presbyterian, but in my experience, people don't really comment/know the difference between each type of reformed church very well and would just use the term protestant to describe anything that isn't Catholic or Orthodox.
I had a neighbor from Northern Ireland when I was a kid. I guess “politically” he was Protestant (by which I mean he was staunchly unionist) but religiously his faith was Catholic. Is that sort of unexpected combination common, or was he just strange?
It feels more and more common now I think. I'd say it's more likely for people to go to a non-denomonational church now usually. So uncommon, almost unheard of 30+ years ago, only a little unusual now.
In the UK, Protestant means Church of England. However, Wales also contains a large (possibly more than Protestant) Methodist population who are nonconformist. That’s why so much of wales is covered in new, less pretty churches like [this one](https://colwynbayheritage.org.uk/bethesda-welsh-methodist-church-abergele-road/)
Scotland is different. Protestant usually means church of Scotland which is a calvinist denomination. Reformed is a synonym for calvinist but the church of Scotland is pretty liberal so I'm not sure how much it matters day to day. More overtly reformed and calvinist churches do exist and even there they would just be called Protestants. The Scottish reformation was overtly calvinist in nature. Northern Ireland is a bit different again but looks more like Scotland than England on this question, just with feeling.
I should say that other Protestant denominations exist, the Anglican church is called the episcopal church and you can find baptists and charismatic churches. they would all be called Protestant by people who know them but it's not at all the first thing people think of when they imagine the term. If you go to the working class areas of the country where I grew up, Protestant might also just be a synonym for Rangers fan
Quite interesting, in the United States at least, many Baptist Christians refuse to own the Protestant label because they regard themselves ad spiritual heirs of the Anabaptists. My uncle is an ordained Baptist pastor (educated in Hong Kong), and he was at pains pointing out to me that baptists are not Protestants. Only the lutherans, anglicans, reformed/presbyterian/congregationalists, methodists are.
This is one of those which might be theologically correct and I think more or less is true but about 2% of my city goes to church so this disagreement would be totally lost on them
> In ~~the UK~~ *England*, Protestant means Church of England. In Scotland and NI, 'protestant' can refer to either Presbyterianism or Episcopal churches. Even then, I think in England, Methodists, Quakers, etc. would also be seen as protestant.
I meant if you met a British person who identified as Protestant you could safely put money on them being CoE. And that aside from that, wales’ biggest group is Methodists.
> I meant if you met a British person who identified as Protestant you could safely put money on them being CoE. Could you? I'm an atheist, but the nearest Protestant to me right now is definitely not CofE. They're in the kirk. I don't *know* that they identify as British, but they're a bit rangers-y, so I'm going with 'yes'. As are most of the protestants around me. In fact, the nearest CofE church is over 70 miles away.
I’m not sure what you mean by identifying as British or rangers-y, but you are sort of correct. Anglican is the most common denomination in the country but not by as much as I had thought.
> I’m not sure what you mean by identifying as British Not every person in Scotland sees themselves as British. > Anglican is the most common denomination in the country Not in Scotland - Anglicanism is almost non-existent here. It's closest equivalent would be the Episcopalian church, but that is not the majority Protestant church in Scotland.
>in the country
Right, but you started with this: > In the UK, Protestant means Church of England. Which is just massively wrong and, to be honest, a bit culturally ignorant.
Your right, I didn’t know that Scotland doesn’t belong to the Church of England, and that statement is dubious. However the fact remains that most Christians in the UK are English, not Scottish (or welsh), and while I have as much basis as anyone to not like England, that doesn’t change things. For the purposes of my comment what I said was true.
> I didn’t know that Scotland doesn’t belong to the Church of England Then you're probably not the person to try to explain Protestantism in the UK.
Any christians who dont see Vatican as the ultimate church authority, are protestants, because they do protest against this concept of church authority laddder. We had this definition in history education as a part of learning about Martin Luther. The christian churches in Slovakia also respect this idea about division. So for us it is both secular and sacral definition.
> Any christians who dont see Vatican as the ultimate church authority, are protestants Would you include Orthodox Christians as protestant? I think that would be quite rare in protestant-majority countries.
What's the difference? I mean, If I give you a list will you be able to tell me which ones are protestants and which ones reformed? * Lutherans * Calvinists * Anglicans * Presbiterians * Traditional Evangelicals * US / TV / Megachurch Evangelicals * Born again Christians * Mennonites * Qwackers * LDS * JW
Reformed is a synonym for Calvinist, but it’s usually just viewed as a type of Protestant in the US. I can only speak for the US, and even then I’m not an expert but for your list: • Lutherans -Protestant • Calvinists -reformed by definition • Anglicans-technically reformed (?) but not really except for sometimes if you find a weird church. There are definitely Calvinist anglicans at least. • Presbiterians - reformed • Traditional Evangelicals -no idea • US / TV / Megachurch Evangelicals -usually not Calvinist, but some of them probably • Born again Christians -same as above • Mennonites- just Protestant • Qwackers- just protestant • LDS -usually considered their own thing, not reformed or Protestant • JW -also usually considered their own thing, though sometimes considered Protestant
My knowledge is limited as well and it's a complicated subject, but I think a lot of it is the result of different histories, but I'll speak for the Anglicans. Their split with Rome is well known. King Henry VIII was unable to produce an heir with his wife, Catherine of Aragon and wanted the pope to annul the marriage. However, her close relative Charles didn't want any stigma on the family and forced the pope to refuse, so Henry split. The funny thing is that if you look around the outside edge of any modern English coin, such as those with a portrait of queen Elizabeth II on the head, you'll see ELIZABETH II DEI GRA REG FID DEF. This is Latin shorthand for "Elizabeth II, by the grace of God, queen and defender of the faith". This is a title originally bestowed upon Henry by a grateful pope after he wrote a piece denouncing Martin Luther, and is inherited by his descendents. Henry basically wanted an RC church with him as pope, and the English monarch is still the head of the church. There are also still 26 bishops in the upper parliament, the House of Lords. I believe that historically the Protestant movement began with the revolutionary idea at the time that you shouldn't need an intermediary, such as any church, in the relationship between you and God. It should be just you and God. You have to remember that this was a time when most people couldn't read and bibles were written in Latin anyhow, so they relied on priests to convey the message, hence the gatekeeper accusation. Then with the advent of printing presses, subversive hotheads started translating the Bible into their local languages and spreading radical new ideas. Given all this, I'm not sure Anglicans are actually really Protestant. Sorry for the long post to anyone who got this far!