Handling frogs does not cause warts. The sun does not revolve around the earth. Leninist socialism does not work. Still, each of these notions had its advocates, and none was easily dispelled. Entrenched assumptions are difficult to uproot, especially when they are advanced by respected leaders.
Respected leaders can be wrong, however, and their definitions of reality misguided.
In that case, those who recognize the error are obliged to point it out, and the greater the consequences of the error, the greater the obligation upon the reformers. Those who challenge prevailing assumptions are seldom popular, at least at the beginning. Their motives are impugned, their ideas maligned. Any hope of displacing error with truth requires perseverance, sometimes in the face of shrill opposition. The Anabaptist movement of the sixteenth century began with the conviction that leaders such as Luther and Zwingli had inaccurately defined the reality of the church and Christian discipleship.