Quo Vadis? said:AgLiving06 said:
I'm a little late to the party, but it's really an incorrect statement to blame the Reformation for the splits within Christianity.
The splits were coming one way or the other. Rome could only execute so many people and technology was beginning to outpace that ability.
Luther wasn't the first Reformer, just part of the increasingly educated group who could see how corrupt Rome was. Even Erasmus, who was called to speak against Luther, did so mostly to avoid accusations and potential punishment.
Had it not been Luther, it would have been someone else. We know God would not have allowed his church to stay corrupted and so reforming was going to be necessary.
If you ever talk to a kid from a broken home there's always plenty of reasons for one parent to divorce the other, but it always takes one person to pull the trigger.
Much like with a marriage, bad actions by one person do not invalidate the marriage. If I cheat on my wife, we are still married. If my wife cheats on me, we are still married. Christ created the Catholic Church, and bad actors do not invalidate that.
The reformation didn't reform the church, it tried to create its own; but just succeeded in being a heresy. Like a married guy who is "separated" and thinks he can date because he told his wife they're separated.
So lets state the obvious. Christ did not create the Roman Catholic Church. Christ created His church. Rome can claim whatever it wants about itself, but that does not make it true.
But I do like your analogy because it shows the flaws of Rome.
Rome kicked Luther out. He didn't ask to leave. In fact, as we celebrate Reformation week, we acknowledge that while 1517 is deemed the start of the Reformation, really, Luther was a Roman Catholic for nearly another 4 years before Rome officially excommunicated him and put a de facto death sentence on him and his followers. Rome, as it turns out, was the bad actor who attacked it's spouse/children/whatever analogy you want to use, and then turned around and tried to act innocent. They literally just didn't need to kill people they disagreed with and thing could have gotten better, but that's now who Rome was.
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Your last paragraph is incorrect. The very definition of the Augsburg Confession was to present beliefs that all of the Christian Church should be able to agree to. It actually had to be added to at the last minute because Eck attempted to drive a wedge further. It was the Reformers who wanted reunion. Rome, as always, wanted the knee bent to the pope.
The Reformers never wanted a new church. They simply wanted the Church that Christ built, not the Church the pope (a man) built.