Gordon Melton – Encyclopedia of Protestantism

Encyclopedia of Protestantism deals with a movement within the larger Christian community that began in Europe in the 16th century, established itself in opposition to the Roman Catholic Church, subsequently spread around the world, and in the present day lives on in literally thousands of individual denominations and PARACHURCH ORGANIZATIONS. Using an A-to-Z format, the work covers the primary people, events, groups, and theological issues that emerged at the movement’s origin; the main individuals, concerns, and movements that shaped it in subsequent centuries; and a representative sample of the movement as it now exists around the world. A special effort has been made to include coverage of those parts of the world in which Protestantism did not appear until the 19th century, regions that are now home to the growing edge of the movement (Asia, Africa, and Oceania).

In constructing this volume, the author had to confront the ambiguity of the term Protestantism, which can be used in both a broad and a narrow sense. Most narrowly, it denotes a movement that began within the Roman Catholic Church in Europe in the 16th century and the churches that come directly out of it. In this narrow sense Protestantism would include the Lutheran, Reformed or Presbyterian, and Anglican (Church of England) churches, and by extension the churches of the British Puritan movement, which sought to bring the Church of England into the Reformed/Presbyterian camp. Most recently, scholars have argued quite effectively that the churches of the radical phase of the 16th-century Reformation, the Anabaptist and Mennonite groups, also belong within this more narrow usage.