Christian Studies by Credo Reference: Protestantism

Bodiless, immortal spirit, limited in knowledge and power, accepted in the traditional belief of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and other religions.

Philosophical writings that attempt to refute attacks on the Christian faith. Apologists include St Justin, Origen, St Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Blaise Pascal, and Joseph Butler.

Immersion in or sprinkling with water as a religious rite of initiation.

Widely used symbol. In various forms, it can be found in such diverse cultures as those of ancient India, Egypt, and pre-Columbian North America. It also is found in the megalithic monuments of Western Europe.

Doctrines of the end of time. Christian eschatology concerns the end of this Earth and of time; the resurrection of the dead; the Antichrist; the return of Jesus Christ to overthrow the Antichrist; and the culmination of history with the destruction of this world.

The practice of voluntarily going without food. It can be undertaken as a religious observance, a sign of mourning, a political protest (hunger strike), or for slimming purposes.

The power of making choices without the constraint of fate or some other uncontrollable force, regarded as a human characteristic.

In Greek and Hebrew metaphysics, the unifying principle of the world. The central idea of the Logos is that it links God and man, hence any system in which the Logos plays a part is monistic.

In theology, doctrine that asserts that God predestines from eternity the salvation of certain souls. So-called double predestination, as in Calvinism, is the added assertion that God also foreordains certain souls to damnation.

A system of thought, feeling, and action that is shared by a group and that gives the members an object of devotion; a code of behavior by which individuals may judge the personal and social consequences of their actions; and a frame of reference by which individuals may relate to their group and their universe.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Arising again from death to life. The emergence of Jesus from the tomb to live on earth again for 40 days as told in the Gospels has been from the beginning the central fact of Christian experience and a cardinal feature of Christian doctrine.

Traditional opponent of God and humanity in Judaism and Christianity. In Scripture and literature the role of the opponent is given many names, such as Apolyon, Beelzebub, Semihazah, Azazel, Belial, and Sammael.

Transgression of the will of God or the gods, as revealed in the moral code laid down by a particular religion.

The vital, immaterial, life principle, generally conceived as existing within humans and sometimes within all living things, inanimate objects, and the universe as a whole. Religion and philosophy have long been concerned with the nature of the soul in their attempts to understand existence and the meaning of life.

Adoration and service of God or gods. This service involves reverence, awe, and wonder, and may take many different forms.

French Protestants, followers of John Calvin. The term is derived from the German Eidgenossen, meaning sworn companions or confederates.

From Cambridge Dictionary of Christian Theology ‘Puritanism’ is a term used to denote a movement, or movements, within the Anglican Church of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The term was coined in the sixteenth century as a pejorative to refer to those Anglican Protestants who had over-scrupulous consciences in matters of theology and practice

In Northern Ireland, solely Protestant organization founded in County Armagh in 1795 in opposition to the Defenders, a Catholic secret society.

Group of Christian believers originating in the early 19th cent. in Ireland and spreading from there to the Continent (especially Switzerland), the British dominions, and the United States.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Name applied, originally in scorn, to certain Protestant sects holding that infant baptism is not authorized in Scripture and that baptism should be administered to believers only. A convert if baptized in infancy must be baptized again as an adult.

Member of a Christian group originally based on the Mennonite Church, found today in the USA and Canada. The Amish are distinctive for their adherence to pre-20th-century dress and a simple lifestyle.

The body of churches in all parts of the world that are in communion with the Church of England (see England, Church of). The communion is composed of regional churches, provinces, and separate dioceses bound together by mutual loyalty as expressed in the Lambeth Conference of 1930.

Denomination of Protestant Christians holding a distinctive belief with regard to the ordinance of baptism. Since 1644 the name has been applied to those who maintain that baptism should be administered to none but believers and that immersion is the only mode of administering baptism indicated in the New Testament.

Established form of Christianity in England, a member of the Anglican communion. It was dissociated from the Roman Catholic Church in 1534 under Henry VIII; the British monarch is still the supreme head of the Church of England today. The service book until November 2000 was the Book of Common Prayer. It is now Common Worship.

Anglican church of the United States. Its separate existence as an American ecclesiastical body with its own episcopate began in 1789.

In Protestantism, religious movement that arose among conservative members of various Protestant denominations early in the 20th cent., with the object of maintaining traditional interpretations of the Bible and of the doctrines of the Christian faith in the face of Darwinian evolution, secularism, and the emergence of liberal theology.

Branch of Protestantism that arose as a result of the Reformation, whose religious faith is based on the principles of Martin Luther, although he opposed such a designation.

Descendants of the Dutch and Swiss evangelical Anabaptists of the 16th century.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
The doctrines, polity, and worship of those Protestant Christian denominations that have developed from the movement started in England by the teaching of John Wesley.

Worldwide 20th-century Christian movement that emphasizes the experience of Spirit baptism, generally evidenced by speaking in tongues (glossolalia). The name derives from Pentecost, the Greek name for the Jewish Feast of Weeks, which falls on the fiftieth day after Passover.

Protestant denomination founded in colonial times by settlers from the Netherlands and formerly known as the Dutch Reformed Church. The Reformed Church in Holland emerged in the 16th cent., after Calvinism gained influence in the northern provinces of the Netherlands.

Protestant denomination and international nonsectarian Christian organization for evangelical and philanthropic work.

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
Member of the Protestant religious sect of the same name. It originated in the USA in the fervent expectation of Christ's Second Coming, or advent, that swept across New York State following William Miller's prophecy that Christ would return on 22 October 1844.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
In the United States, the United Presbyterian Church of North America was constituted (1858) by the union of the Associate Presbyterian Church with the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church.