My responses varied: "That's a matter of opinion", "Wow, revise history much?" and "That's unprovable without a time-traveling DeLorean and a lot of plutonium".
Funny! Here are my points again. I can't figure out what is so ridiculous or historically inaccurate about any of these points:
-A council was definitely not called soon enough
The Council of Trent was too little too late. As far as I know, most historians would agree. A council was WAY overdue.
-The Church, at the time, was very corrupt
I would think this would need no explanation. Cardinal Dolan is even on record about how corrupt the Church was during the medieval period. I guess if you had absolutely no knowledge of any sort of medieval history and had blinders on, maybe one wouldn't acknowledge this point.
-The Church, at the time, was more concerned with secular affairs than theology/reform
Again, just look at the historical record and the powerful families in Italy during the medieval period. They were concerned with their coffers and expanding their families empires, certainly the theology and practice of the Roman Church wasn't on their priority list. Again, this point is so obvious I can't believe I'm explaining it.
-Luther and the Church grew more hostile as time went on, both share blame in this
Once again, what started out as Luther looking to debate/reform/correct the corrupt practice of selling indulgences spun out of control fast. On the one hand, the Church wants to burn Luther at the stake and on the other hand, Luther's rhetoric became very fierce as hostilities increased.
-Luther wanted reform, not a split with the Church (amazes me how so many don't understand this)
Again, one doesn't desire debate or a Church council when all they want to really do is split and form their own church. If all Luther wanted was his own Church, why do everything he did to challenge and attempt to reform and dialogue?
-Luther's reforms were quite conservative compared to non-Lutheran reformers
Luther didn't go near as far as Calvin or the Anabaptists. This should require no more explanation
-There was misunderstanding and miscommunication on both sides
This is another painfully obvious point. There were many false rumors that Luther had abolished the Mass and a whole host of other radical innovations that were not true.
-The secular political political landscape, at the time, favored some sort of reform or even split
Many German princes resented the power of the Roman Church in German lands, this is historical fact.
His own writings, you say? Interesting.
tl;dr- Basically Luther called it quits because the Church has a Pope and the Pope was Catholic (rather than Lutheran).
One supposes that Luther might've stayed "Catholic" if the whole Church had converted to Lutheranism. But since they wouldn't, he had no choice but to create a schism.
Not coming to agreement and splitting is far different than a plot to schism all along. It would be more accurate to say that the Church wasn't willing to compromise and neither was Luther and they split. You can say his demands for reform were ridiculous and heretical if you want, but it doesn't change the fact that Luther did not want to split. When people want to kill you and you live in fear of that on a daily basis, perhaps the rhetoric can get a bit heated? I think had the Church acted much quicker and responded differently, Luther might have made concessions, but we will never know.
Speaking of revisionism though, Luther seems to have the cart before the horse up there. The New Testament was written by Christians. Christians are members of the Church. The Church was founded on Pentecost. Pentecost occurred before the New Testament was written.
In other words, the Church created the New Testament; the New Testament did not create the Church.
I'm not sure what this has to do with any of my posts. I agree, but Luther wasn't using the New Testament alone to make his points or back up his arguments.
