Some free churches wont admitt they are protestants.

[Mortimer]

Im a friend of some of them. Their narrative is that they do not belong to any religion, and that religion is obsolete, that it is not religion but faith, and that they have faith in jesus christ, but are nothing of any religion. If you ask them what religion they are they say none, they are not a religion. That is confusing because I know such evangelical free churches are protestants. Right?

[Fraisod]

I understand that members of churches founded long after the reformation (e.g.: ones springing up in America in relatively recent times, and often spreading elsewhere),
don't want to use the term "Protestant", even though they may be theologically close to Calvinism, and so forth.
But even though I'm hardly a religious myself my (ancestral ) Catholic hackles rise at their tendency to appropriate the term "Christian" -- often in contrast and opposition to "Catholicism", which they besmirch as non-"Christian."
A typical conversation goes something like this:

- They: My grandparents were Buddhist, but I'm Christian, like my parents.
- I: I was raised in a Christian culture, too. Most people in Spain are/were nominally Catholic.
- They (horrified): But, I'm not Catholic! I'm Christian...