What are Protestant denominations actually like, and why are the stereotypes of each so popular? In this episode, a Baptist, Lutheran, Anglican, and Reformed sit down to discuss what their traditions are really about, clear up common misconceptions, and assess whether these famous stereotypes carry any truth.
The Right (and Wrong) Ways to Be Protestant
49 min
In this Episode
- The panel names the “all too true” caricatures of the Lutheran, Anglican, Reformed, and Baptist traditions and asks whether each tradition holds the resources to diagnose and resist them.
- Bob Hiller describes law-gospel reductionism, a sermon formula that skips what the text actually says. He points to Luther’s catechisms and the Formula of Concord’s third use of the law as the corrective.
- Justin Holcomb describes Anglican aestheticism, theological shapelessness, and moralism, drawing on C. FitzSimons Allison’s The Rise of Moralism. He argues that the Thirty-Nine Articles and Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer keep the gospel “structurally unavoidable.”
- Michael Horton warns against Reformed intellectualism, “cage-stage” Calvinism, and TULIP reductionism. He calls listeners back to the comfort of Heidelberg Q1 and the humility of the confessions.
- Walter Strickland addresses Baptist anti-intellectualism, anti-confessionalism, and a strict memorialism. He calls for recovering the historic Baptist confessions and the Supper and baptism as sign and seal. The episode closes with a reminder that Christ builds his church and every tradition serves his promise.
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Other resources
- Preaching for the Church by Richard R. Caemmerer
- The Rise of Moralism by C. FitzSimons Allison
- Luther’s Small and Large Catechisms and the Formula of Concord (Article VI covers the third use of the law)
- The Book of Common Prayer and the Thirty-Nine Articles
- The Three Forms of Unity (Heidelberg Catechism, Belgic Confession, Canons of Dort)
- The Westminster Standards
- The First London Baptist Confession (1644), the Second London Baptist Confession (1689), the Philadelphia Confession, and the New Hampshire Confession
- More Than a Symbol: The British Baptist Recovery of Baptismal Sacramentalism by Stanley K. Fowler
- Amidst Us Our Belovèd Stands: Recovering Sacrament in the Baptist Tradition by Michael A. G. Haykin
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