What has been lost by almost all professing Christians is respect for the Bible. I suspect most Christians like most people are in an almost constant "crisis" mode. Life has just gotten too difficult for must of us. We call the Bible the "word of God"---but that does not mean much. It serves as a badge of identification for others. So they will know which "tribe" we belong to.

To understand what the expression "the Bible is the Word of God" means we have to think in terms of ultimate answers for living.  Everyone needs guidance.  Whether our guidance comes from our thinking (rationality), our hunches (mysticism), our emotions (existentialism), there is ONE "fact" that we ultimately appeal to.  That ultimate fact, is called an axiom and is where all our thinking starts.  Everyone has an axiom, a central and pre-proposition that is merely assumed, not proven, from which all other things derive.

Some have MORE than one axiom.  And they are not necessarily consistent with each other, neither is every proposition necessarilly consistently derived from the axiom.  Empiricism for example is the belief in the axiom of knowledge acquisition through the senses.  Roman Catholic theology traditionally is derived from two axioms, the empiricism of Aristotle, and a tradition of supernaturalism made up of infallible church, oral tradition, and supernatural bible.  This is referred to as "Thomism".  Thus Empiricists do not believe in what they cannot measure and are therefore anti-supernaturalistic, and mystics believe in supernaturalism.  Its like trying to combine oil and water.  Thomism does not work because its comprised of "oil" and "water."

The Protestant Christian is defined as someone who believes that "the 66 books of the Old and New Testament contain all the knowledge that can be derived from them either explicitly or implicitly".  Implications must come about logically by "good and necessary consequence" (WCF).  Historically this is what it means to be a Protestant, and this is still what it should mean to be a Protestant.  When a church like the Christian Reformed Church of North America (CRCNA) affirms in one of its synod that there is MORE than one source of truth, that being the modern findings of observational science (Empiricism), and that this source of truth can correct the Bible, it ceased to be Protestant.  I dont know what it is but it is not Protestant.

When anyone individual, group, church, does the same thing, adds or takes away from the axiom of Scripture that entity ceased to be Protestant.  For instance, the axioms of the Mormon church are the 66 books of the KJV AND the Book of Mormon.  This theologically defines a cult.  But there is another kind of aberation that is not defined as "cult" which nonetheless should be placed in the same category.  That variation is cultism on the liberal side, where nothing is added to the axiom of Scripture, rather, something is taken away.  Liberal churches (ed. the word is here used colloquially), take away the axiom of Scripture by attributing error to it, or affirming that it only "contains" the Word of God, or by adding Empiricism, etc., to it.

When I went to a putatively conservative Bible college a Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada professor taught me that Jonah was not swallowed by a "big fish" but that this was an allegory---even though it is presented as historical narrative.  Not a single person blinked.  The uniform response was a yawn.  Yet if they had been asked whether they believed the Bible was the Word of God they would all have said "Yes". 

Tribalism.  You must believe that to belong to the tribe known as "evangelical"---who knows what it means.  What it means is, that if you in any way limit the supreme authority of the Bible, by limiting its integrity, or its reach or any other attribute, you are NOT a Protestant.  And if you are not a Protestant, you CANNOT be a Christian.  Why? Because the founder of Christianity said in John 10, "the Scripture cannot be broken".  His description of the Bible is the Protestant one; He took Scripture to be the ultimate axiom of his life.  He opposed Satan with it in the wilderness; He justified his own teaching and miracles, by it.  He defended himself against the World with it, and gave it to his disciples by promising the completion of it. See: John 14:16,17; 14:26; 15:26; John 17.

If the founder of a religion cannot decide what the axiom of that religion is, who can?  So dont call yourself a Christian unless you have the same axiom as Jesus Christ.  And if you have the same axiom as Jesus Christ, then if not in fact, then certainly by obligation you are a Protestant.  Then you have implicit faith in Scripture, nothing and no one else.  This does not say everything about the Bible and Classical Protestantism, but for now, it says enough.