Episcopalians: What's a Protestant?

Are Episcopalians Protestants? Yes, say Low Church evangelicals; no, answer High Church Anglo-Catholics. Last week delegates to the Episcopal General Convention in St. Louis tried to resolve this debate over what's in a name with a typically Anglican compromise: letting each faction in the church decide for itself what it wants to be called.

When the nation's Anglican divines in 1789 chose to call themselves "the Protestant Episcopal Church in the U.S.A.," the name seemed like a suitable description. Originally applied to German Lutherans in 1529, "Protestant" then implied rejection of papal...