Protestantism

How do you define "Protestant"? It seems to me that it would need to mean something beyond simply "not Catholic or Orthodox". Often I think modern evangelicals, nondenoms, charismatics, and Pentecostals are lumped in as Protestants when they really are not. By and large they have no real historical ties to the Reformation and no actual protest against the Catholic Church.

Protestant is Chalcedonian Christian (Jesus is true God and true man united in his person, his hypostasis) but not in one of the ancient high churches — Catholic (Chalcedonian — whence Protestants came), Orthodox (Chalcedonian), Assyrian (not all Eastern churches are Orthodox), or Miaphysite (ditto) — or one of those churches' rare relatively intact splinters such as the Polish National Catholic Church, or internal splits such as Constantinople vs. Russian Orthodox and SSPX vs. regular Catholic. So "Chalcedonian Christian but not Catholic or Orthodox" covers it.

With one modification acknowledging that many Anglicans say they're not Protestant.

I hear you but Restorationists, modern evangelicals, nondenoms, and Pentecostals (except Oneness Pentecostals) are Protestants.

Unitarians, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Oneness Pentecostals — groups that deny the Trinity — are from Protestant culture but no longer Christian.

Why do you think the Protestant Reformation happened?

Mine is the standard modern conservative Catholic view: there was and is room for reform — being more Christ-centered, reading the Bible more, not taking a mechanical approach making religion a game — but the Protestants went too far, dumping the church's teachings.