Since 1529, a theological dissension interns with the Reform occurred between Luther and Zwingli in connection with the eucharistie. For Zwingli, it is necessary to interpret the words of institution of the Holy Communion pronounced by Jesus: “This is my body” by “This means my body”. Luther, on the contrary, shows himself very attached to the real presence. An attempt at conciliation, company in particular by Bucer, took place with the conference of Marburg (1529). But, if the agreement were reached on other points, a divergence remained on that one.

Authority of the Bible

The base of the Protestant Reform consists in proclaiming “the sovereign authority of the Writing”. The mission of each Church is thus above all to preach the Word of God, contained in the Bible, and to manage the sacraments of which it is explicitly question in New Testament.

But the Bible is a collection of books written at various times and in divergent contexts. To proclaim the authority of the Bible thus means that one estimates that his various authors were inspired by God and that this one, thanks to the action of the Holy Spirit, can also light the readers. On these principles, most Protestants are of agreement. However, the way in which they concretely apply them in the Christian life is very diverse.

Evangelic mobility

The term was born to the XVIII E century (in its modern direction). This mobility is also called fundamentalist (term born with the beginning of the XX E century); she insists on the need for a “doctrinal conformity”: the Bible clearly teaches immutable doctrines (like the virginal birth or the body resurrection of Jesus-Christ) to which it is necessary to adhere to be able to be a true Christian.

The inspiration is known as “plenary”: she tends to be understood in a strict direction. One will all the more insist on the need for a believing reading that it seems, from this point of view, threatened by ambient agnosticism of the modern life.

Liberal mobility

Also said néolibérale, it developed since the XIX E century and privileges methods which allow a “modern” approach of the biblical texts. The great innovation of theological liberalism initially consisted of the formation, in particular in the German universities, of the “historico-critical school”, which finds, in December of the formation of the biblical text, the various elements of its constitution.

Today, one also uses semiotics and other methods which apprehend each text like an account in oneself. Some, within the framework of a “contextual theology”, want to adapt the biblical message to various contemporary “contexts”, in particular to the fights of the women or third world.

Sacrality and desacralization of the Writings

Theologist protesting the most important of this century, Karl Barth (1886-1968), declared that the Bible is, in a dialectical way, indissolubly Word of God and human word. This last title, it can be analyzed, like any other text, by all the critical and scientific steps possible.

However, as a Word of God, it exceeds any human reading and comprises at the same time a judgment and a thanksgiving on humanity. Oscillating between sacralization and vulgarizing, the approach of the Bible is the object of a permanent tension.

The value of the image

The importance of the Bible in the Churches resulting from the Reform also corresponds to the privilege granted to listening, the image being sometimes suspectée to be the object of a veneration which can become a “idolatrous worship”. Certain Protestant tendencies, like the reformed tradition, mark this mistrust by the examination of the temples and the refusal of the crucifix (the cross must be naked so that the image of Christ does not become object of worship). According to other tendencies, like the Anglicanism and the Lutheranism, the image can take on a teaching role in the advance of the faith. For this reason, it does not have to be neglected, but it must return only to Trinitarian God.  

The reserve vis-a-vis the image does not constitute a refusal of any sensitivity. Protestant biblical piety appears by songs, which make it possible faithful to take an active part in the course of the worship. Luther himself has work in this direction. Song of the psalms, music of Jean-Sebastien Bach - the canticles constitute the principal base of its cantatas - and negro - spirituals coexists in the musical universe modern Protestant.  
 
Faith, priesthood and the worship

To the “formal principle” of the Reform (authority of the Writing) corresponds a “material principle”, that of the justification by the faith, fruit of the only divine grace. According to the joint committee French catholic-Protestant, a “basic difference” remains between Catholicism and Protestantism. For this last, indeed, “the Gospel of the justification by the faith”, sola fide, remains in the central place. Any idea of “co-operation” of the Church to the “mystery of the hello”, which would not make any more to God the single author of the grace, appears unacceptable with the eyes of the Protestants: “The Church is always object of the grace, never its subject.” It, like each Christian individual, “is sanctified and not sanctifying”.  

The principal divergences of Protestantism with the Roman Catholic Church lie in the refusal of a difference of “gasoline” between clerks and laic (with the profit of a simple distinction of function), in the refusal of the sacrifice of the mass and in the assertion that, not being able to show the way of the sky, no creature can be requested (neither Marie, nor saints). These characteristics of the Reform are closely related to the assertion which safety is granted by the “grace alone”, which must be received by the only faith as a Christ. Works are demonstrations of recognition towards God of love: in any manner they do not get safety.

Sacraments: baptism and the Holy Communion

It is the same of the Protestant vision of the sacraments: the Reform was opposed to a design objectivist which tends to make of their administration a means of grace. For it, the sacraments are only signs of the divine grace. They cannot thus cover value that if they are received in the faith. However, it appears a tendency within the Anglicanism and of the Lutheranism which would like to obtain Roman Catholic Church the possibility of a “intercommunion”, which develops a more sacramental design consequently; but the Roman Catholic Church always refuses the communicatio in sacris.  

The Protestants in general recognize only two sacraments: the baptism, which is not a means of hello (this is why, as of the XVI E century, it was not inevitably managed just after the birth), but the sign by which one enters the alliance of God; the Holy Communion, which is not a sacrifice offered by the Church (which could thus cooperate to act it salutary of God), but a ceremony to which Christ invites the faithful ones (“Made this in memory of me”), giving itself to the believers. However, penitence and the discharge are also included in the sacraments by certain Lutherans and Anglicans.  

Certain Protestant Churches reserve the baptism with the adults able “to profess” their faith. Others tend to manage it as of childhood, since the parents make the request of it. Other Churches, finally, like the reformed Church of France, admit the two practices. As for the Holy Communion, there exists a common refusal of the catholic transsubstantiation, but there remains between Lutherans and reformed a relative dissension, which is however attenuated since 1974, date on which intervened of the agreements between the two groups of Churches (harmony of Leuenberg).