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I don't think these views are more common than they used to be. They've always been here in a certain proportion, and they'll likely always be in any area of discourse that allows open debate.
I think you are right however that a certain proportion of the left has stopped pushing back against these and other views in this community. But it's not a mystery why they did so. They made it very plain why: they tried to spin themselves off into another community where moderation was controlled by left wing people and when that failed, they kicked us off the orange website.
The "liberal" PMCs became tired of pretending they have liberal ideals. They're still running the show at Reddit. You're in the pit with the rest of the undesirables.
There is always /r/theschism, our Evil Twin (or maybe we're their Evil Twin). Set up in good faith (I do give them that much) as a place where the left leaning could express themselves without being dogpiled by all us (reads notes) pitbull Pence lovers. They don't seem to have as much activity as on here, though that too may be a part of the whole evaporative cooling thing. There was even a great opportunity for me to have a punch-up with one particular post if I wanted, but I do try to avoid just haunting the place looking for something to be offended by and then leaping in to have an argy-bargy, so I didn't even stick my head up for that one.
I don't go around looking for left-leaning sites to have fights with, and I'm sort of sad that the Schismatics never stuck around here because it would help balance out the right-leaning views, but you can't force people to join up with your community if they don't want to.
When I saw that, my first thought was that this seems to be engaging on the wrong level, but my second was to wonder what you'd make of it. I'm still curious, if you're up for a non-argument explanation of what you personally think?
I don't really want to start a fight about it. There's much to be said on both sides (she said weaselly); I do find "to be deep in history is to cease to be Catholic" annoying myself, and I'm an unregenerate Papist. You could equally well end up Orthodox, or even the Oriental Churches might like a word there. And we've deliberately jettisoned so much of our history anyway, Benedict made a brave effort to re-introduce things but he was swimming against the current, so in many instances we're functionally indistinguishable from Protestants.
That being said, you have to end up somewhere. You can go on being a spiritual tourist, but if you insist on finding the one perfect setting where every single box is ticked on your list and it's all totally in tune with your preferences and prejudices, you're going to end up in a church of one. And Protestantism has split off from the Mother Church, no denying that, Trail of Blood notwithstanding, or Branch Theory, or any justification that "Well actually we're not a new denomination".
I deny it.
I don't think the natural unit of churchhood is adherence to Rome.
Hence, Luther and the other protestants were engaging in reforming the existing church of Germany (and Switzerland, the England, Sweden, etc.), not the creation of new institutions.
This has become less obvious as time has passed and denominations are no longer locally separated, and so the tendency is to think of it in terms of sects instead of in terms of the community of Christians.
I could refight the Wars of Religion here and it'd be fun, but I will refrain for the sake of peace, love and a currant bun.
You think Luther would recognise modern Lutheranism, with lesbian bishopesses for one thing?
Probably not; I imagine he would think that the ELCA and whatever else would need to be reformed. Remember, his ecclesiology, much more than yours, allows for institutions to start off healthy and then stray further.
But I suppose I don't get your point. Are you happy with the current state of Roman Catholicism everywhere? The German bishops? The current pope? Blessings for same-sex couples?
(And there are strands of Lutheranism which are healthier. The LCMS is somehow both conservative and pretty large, which is fairly unusual for more traditional protestant churches.)
Is there some way that that previous question was supposed to relate to my previous comment that I'm currently not seeing, or was that just meant to be a sample of the refighting the wars of religion that you would do?
(1) No (2) Should all be defrocked (3) Not a fan but he's not Satan or an anti-pope (4) Again, not a fan, but once again that will likely be taken as an excuse by those who would do it anyway to go farther than intended
I think if we brought Luther forward in a time machine, he would recognise the Catholics as much the same as he had been fighting, but he would have no idea what the Lutheran church had become. So yes, I'm sticking to "the Reformers did found new denominations, not just reform the existing church". For one thing, they pretty much 'reformed' in different directions from each other, and the Anglican mess under Henry was "I'm only reforming" so he happily burned at the stake both Catholics for opposing him and Protestants for going further than he wanted. And when his son came to the throne, he had been influenced by the very Protestant nobility around him to take the 'reforms' even further. Then Mary tried reversing that with no success, and Elizabeth (and her spymaster) settled on making it a political question rather than religious - so now you would be executed for treason, not heresy, for not being in line with the state church and the monarch as its governor.
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