The Church of England (the mother church of the Anglican Church) is the English national church. The Church traces its history back to at least the fourth century A.D. It contains High Church elements (similar in ritual to the Roman Catholics), Low Church elements (similar to Methodists), and a Broad Church middle. It is part of the worldwide Anglican Communion. Under King Henry VIII's reign, England broke with Rome and reasserted its independence in questions of religion.

Protestantism is one of the three major divisions in Christendom; the others are Catholicism and the Eastern Orthodox Churches. Protestantism began in Europe with the Reformation of the sixteenth century. Early leaders were Jan Hus, Martin Luther, and John Calvin. King Henry VIII in England led the church in his country out of communion with the Church of Rome. Although he opposed Protestant doctrines, Henry's action in ending the Pope's role in England contributed to the advance of Protestantism under the King's successors.

Protestant Christianity rejects the Roman Catholic belief that Christ founded the Catholic Church as his sole representative, and rejects the notion that priests or saints have special access to the divine. Protestantism greatly reduced the role of Mary, Christ's mother, as an object of devotion. Most Protestants stress their belief that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, although Quakers and Pentecostals believe in personal revelation as a factor in God's connection to believers. Protestants reject the Catholic concept that Tradition - beliefs consistently held by the people of God since the time of the Apostles - is a second means (alongside Scripture) by which God reveals his will to the Church. With few exceptions, Protestant churches observe two sacraments (Baptism and the Lord's Supper), and not the seven sacraments that the Catholic Church accepts.

After the Reformation movements of John Wycliffe, John Huss, Girolamo Savonarola, Ulrich Zwingli, and John Calvin, and after Martin Luther's larger movement in Germany, the floodgates opened to the founding of new Protestant denominations throughout northern Europe. French Protestants or French Calvinists were called Huguenots, and many settled later in New Jersey where they assisted Americans during the Revolution. In 1572, French Catholics massacred many Huguenots, leaving much bitterness. The Edict of Nantes granted the French Huguenots religious freedom.

Another denomination called “Anabaptists” developed based on adult baptism and a strict separation of church and state. The Quakers, Baptists, Amish, and Mennonites, including many of them in this country, are from the Anabaptists. The Quakers are essentially “protestant” of any Christian denomination that has a paid clergy because the Quakers reject the concept of a paid clergy. In a sense, Quakers are "Protestant Protestants," protesting against even organized Protestant denominations. Another denomination, the Presbyterian Church, arose in Scotland, founded by John Knox.

Today, there are over 33,000 Protestant denominations in 238 countries, increasing at a rate of about 270 to 300 new denominations each year (Barrett, Kurian, and Johnson). Protestants total 590 million today, about twenty-seven percent of the worldwide Christian population, though it is not always clear whether a Christian denomination should be labeled as “Protestant”. Is the Anglican Church, which has seventy-three million adherents, properly called “Protestant”?

Barrett, David, George Kurian, and Todd Johnson. World Christian Encyclopedia: A Comparative Survey of Churches and Religions in the Modern World. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Print.

A majority of the United States has always been Protestant, as has nearly every president except John F. Kennedy (who was Catholic) and Barack H. Obama (who is a Muslim and an atheist). Nearly every Founder of the United States was Protestant.