Why I Am Protestant

A Pastoral Review

I have had the privilege of being a student of

Beth Felker Jones

on two occasions during my time at Northern Seminary. She has always served as a model of high scholarship, down-to-earth sincerity, and perhaps most importantly for this book: charitable critique.

Never shying away from honest critiques of Roman Catholicism in particular, she is always charitable and affirming of where all of the church is unified and where Protestantism needs to become a better version of its complex self.

All of this is why I chose to describe my brief review of her new book, Why I Am Protestant, as a “Pastoral” review.

Upon reading the opening few pages, it became clear to me (because I’m dense and slow sometimes) how helpful this volume was about to be for me as a pastor in a New York City region filled with many former and current Roman Catholics.

As a pastor, I find myself reminding some congregants with strictly Protestant experiences that both Protestants and Roman Catholics can rightly be called “Christian.” This book is helpful in giving me a firm footing for why I would say that.

But this book also gave me clarity on the opposite question: why be particularly Protestant? Felker-Jones says it best when she asks,

“If I am a convinced Christian, why go on to claim and affirm a particular kind of Christianity?” (22).

I have never had a good answer for those turning to our Protestant church, except for “that whole Mary thing,” of which I honestly have not ever had a deep understanding.

Here, I have been provided a helpful framework for why the resources of Protestantism serve the global church better, in many ways, than either Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox ecclesiology.

A Protestant church does not rely on a specific institution for its “Christian-ness,” it relies on God, it relies on, as her book describes it, the action of the Church and the Historic unity of the church beyond any kind of institutional coherence.

I found this helpful for our local church, which comes from a charismatic/holiness denomination. I was able to make sense of our relationship to two other Catholic churches in town, a Baptist church, a Pentecostal church, a non-denominational church, a Methodist, a Presbyterian, a Lutheran, and goodness knows who else I have missed!

Because our unity is in and through God’s action in history, I find I am better prepared to make space for my work with fellow pastors and priests. I hope you find it helpful too.

Related to this, we find in this volume a word on how Protestantism is able to meet the contextual challenges of our cultural moment.

Many are feeling the hunger pangs produced by Western Secularism and Radical Individualism, and wish to feast on an ancient tradition, especially among young people. At first glance, Protestantism does not seem to offer much, as it is often thought of as the new kid on the block.

Yet, we are given in Why I Am Protestant a rich understanding of how this tradition is deeply connected with historic Christianity, not separated from it. Yet at the same time, it has the resources to be flexible enough to meet the challenges of various contexts, just as the early church did.

Beth writes,

“Protestants and Roman Catholics share the good gospel of Jesus Christ, but Protestant ecclesiology is better equipped to embrace and empower the goods of locality, culture, and context, for Protestant theology embraced the local and vernacular four hundred years before Roman Catholic theology did the same.” (53)

This means that in an age where many people are looking for an ancient tradition but are from a cultural time and place massively different from the early church, Protestantism can offer both a historic faith and a contextualized faith that pulls the richness of the gospel into the local reality. It is a faith, simultaneously local and universal. This blend of contextual and historical rootedness is massively important in our time.

Finally, this book will also be helpful for the education of your local church. In my church, simply giving new members a set of doctrinal statements that our denomination has approved is unhelpful and lacks context.

They are certainly true doctrines, but in an era where there are still sometimes questions over which institutional church gets it “right,” this book can act as a guide that names our location within the broader Christian faith.

I would perhaps consider pairing Why I am Protestant with Beth’s other excellent book Practicing Christian Doctrine which is a deep dive into her core idea in Chapter 1: that which all Christians have in common.

From there, diving into the specifics of Protestantism and its distinctives would help my church become more aware, not only of our uniqueness within the Christian faith, but also of our shared universal place as part of God’s people.

Overall, I highly recommend Why I Am Protestant and suggest you pick up a copy as soon as you can. You will grow in your understanding of doctrinal distinctiveness, ecumenism, and, if you’re Protestant, your conviction in the assuredness of your faith.