What does it mean to be Protestant? And why are we Protestant? What is a Protestant view of the

sacraments, the gospel, and the scriptures? Back to discuss these issues is author and Biola

University professor Fred Sanders. This is an episode of the Think Biblically Podcast. I'm your

host, Sean McDowell. I'm your co-host, Scott Ray.

Fred, this is a conversation I've been wanting to have for a long time.

And you're the perfect person to talk about it in my estimation.

You have argued in blogs and in other forms that Protestant is not the most helpful name for our movement

because it doesn't stand for anything positive but just

implies protest. So what does it mean to be Protestant? And what do you think might be a better

name for our movement? Yeah, so we're stuck with the name. You can't really rebrand at this point.

It goes way back into the 1500s. But something has changed in the English language since then,

where the word Protestant used to mean from the Latin protestare to hold forth, to have a view,

to advocate for it passionately. That's not a word we use in English in any way. If we say protest,

it means mainly you're mad about something and you're going to protest it and that's the reason you're talking at all is to say no to something.

So protesting has just kind of poisoned our use of the word.

Is there a better word?

The problem with thinking about Protestants as mainly protesters, and again, let me make clear that's a bogus etymology.

That's not where that word comes

from. We're not anti-Catholics as our defining identity. What that term leaves out is the idea

that we are holding forth a positive teaching about Christianity and that we're passionate about

it. And that we're part of the one Christian church of all ages,

and we have an idea for how to reform it.

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