“So if the reformers’ thesis was true, if Catholic tradition is really kind of the aggression of the Roman hierarchy to suppress the gospel, we should expect to find in communities remote from the Pope something that looks like Lutheranism. If protestantism naturally flows forth from the pages of Scripture, we should find protestantism flourishing wherever there’s an absence of Catholicism. And in fact what you find is something very different. If you go look in ancient Persia, or southern India, or Ethiopia, Eritrea, Egypt, north Africa (well north Africa was Roman), Arabia, these places in the world that were remote from direct Roman influence, you find nothing remotely similar to Lutheranism, nothing remotely similar to Calvinism! And it puts the lie to this Calvinist thesis that the protestant religion just sort of spontaneously emerges out of the Bible.

No, protestantism emerged in a very specific time and place: Saxony, Europe, northern Europe, in the early 16th century for reasons that were highly particular, and very, very related to that social context. It’s not the natural outgrowth of the Bible. It’s the natural outgrowth of that particular historical era.”  - Dr. David Anders