Those were all accurate statements. Where is the twist you claim?
Look at Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt
Karlstadt operated as a church reformer largely in his own right, and after coming in conflict with Luther, he switched his allegiance from the Lutheran to the Reformed camp, and later became a radical reformer before once again returning to the Reformed tradition.
From Spring 1524, Luther started to campaign against Karlstadt, denying his right to publish and preach without Luther’s authorization. In June, Karlstadt resigned as archdeacon. In July, Luther published the Letter to the Saxon Princes, in which he argued that Thomas Müntzer and Karlstadt agreed, and were both dangerous sectarians with revolutionary tendencies.
In September 1524 Karlstadt was exiled from Saxony by Frederick the Wise and George, Duke of Saxony. Luther also wrote against Karlstadt in his 1526 The Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ—Against the Fanatics.
What is the twist you claim?
I’m not going to get into a lengthy debate, but let’s look at his summary of Wycliffe’s position in history...Wycliffe was a Bible translator who had the radical belief that everyone ought to have access to the Bible, and in their own language.
For that he was condemned, persecuted, etc., and after he died, his bones were dug up and burned. Just a foreshadowing of what would come in the English Reformation where St. (ahem) Thomas Moore burned Protestants at the stake.
And it wasn’t so much that Wycliffe wanted the state to be superior to the church, but that the state has a separate and defined realm of authority which is separate from the church, and the church shouldn’t be interfering in those matters.
Again, far from a radical opinion.
The twisting that I am referring to, generally, is the whole notion that somehow Roman Catholicism has been the great defender of the Bible, and that Protestants are, along with secularists, are responsible for the Bible being forgotten.
This is lunacy. And it’s propagandizing and twisting that only someone like Scott Hahn (a very intelligent former Protestant, who obviously has a huge axe to grind) is capable of.
No one is disputing that Luther had people in the more Reformed camp and especially the radically Reformed camp that he disagreed with. That’s not in dispute. It’s also entirely predictable in light of what Luther set in motion.