“I have always been struck by the arrogance of people who think that no one understood or followed the Bible until they came along 1600 years after the fact.”
Arrogance? Compare the church of the 1600s to the life of Christ,,,, and look how they squeal at being reformed. That, is a good example of high arrogance.
were there bad people in the Catholic church, you betcha but to call the protestant revolution a reformation is to ignore fact. First of all you revolt from without, you reform from within and a reformation should improve not alter the organization. The "revolters" denied some of the basic tenants of the church, completely changed some of the most basic teachings of Catholicism to a point that they are almost unrecognizable as Christial "denominations"...but go ahead and do your own thing, Christ warned that there would be "false witnesses" and there are...started with Martin Luther