To clarify and not to confuse. . .

When Pope Francis named Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernández to be Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, he put someone into authority who represents exactly what is his own weakness.  He does not clarify the faith but confuses it every time he opens his mouth.  While this is certainly true of official speech and writings, it is even more true of his off hand comments and interviews.  Now, one of his own ghostwriters who put into practice Francis' own muddy thinking in Amoris Laetitia, will have his own bully pulpit and an official title to back up the foggy thinking that is typical of Rome today.  More than this, he has been given a red hat ticket to vote on the successor of Francis.  Muddy thinking is in vogue in Rome.  But he is not alone, I am sad to say.

The whole function of teaching in the Church is to clarify and not to confound or confuse with muddled thinking or explanations or expressions of what we believe, teach, and confess.  If you cannot do that, the official voices of the faith should simply be silent.  That is as true for the Roman expression of Christianity as it is any other.  As a Lutheran, it is a problem in the liberal jurisdictions and among the theologians who purport to speak for the faith -- especially when they teach at odds with the clear word of Scripture.  We cannot, however, blame only those progressive Lutherans (and Romans) who are speaking to change what the Church believes, teaches, and confesses.  Sometimes it is the problem of those who think they are bringing clarity to the orthodox faith.

If there is anything I would say against some of the things we have put forward today, it is that they have not spoken as clearly and plainly as should be said about the issues before us.  When online communion became a thing, it could have been answered simply.  No, it is not possible and cannot and should not be done so cease and desist.  Instead the "no" was cloaked in verbiage that at times almost sounded sympathetic to those who thought this was the answer to communion in a pandemic or in a variety of other situations that might preclude personal presence at the Divine Service.  Say it clearly and plainly.

The handling of the controversy over the Large Catechism volume is, at least in part, a result of the failure to speak plainly.  I admit that I have not read the volume but when I read that people I respect and whose judgment I esteem highly differ on what they read and what they believe the text says, my conclusion is that what is being said may not be wrong but it is not clearly right and that is as much a problem for the witness to the faith today and for the work of catechesis to young and old as error.  This is precisely the problem.  The faith compels us not only to speak courageously but clearly in the witness to those within the faith and to those outside the faith.  Of course, it is true that what is clear from within the household of God's people is not going to be clear to those outside.  Will Weedon did a fine job of using the analogy of the stained glass from inside the church as opposed to those outside the church to explain this very thing.  But we dare not settle for it being unnecessarily muddy to those who are outside the faith now but either interested in or listening to the voice of the Church in the public square.  It is our duty to be both faithful and clear in our witness for the sake of those being catechized in the faith and those not yet of the kingdom.

Sometimes we needlessly complicate things because we are afraid of causing offense.  This is certainly true of the issue of closed communion and may be also true of the way we affirm God's order of gender and marriage and family while trying not to offend the prevailing alphabet soup of desire and felt identity so prevalent in the world.  It does more harm than good by being obtuse when the witness needs to be clear.  Of course, there are complexities that cannot be simplified without harming the truth but this is certainly not universally true of what we believe, teach, and confess.  Muddying the waters by confused thinking and writing harms not only our witness but detracts from our faithfulness.  Rome, as it is now under Pope Francis, seems to be elevating this confusion over clarity and consistency.  It is a model we cannot afford to emulate.  For the sake of those outside the faith, we ought to hope that Rome comes to its senses and that we clean up our own act.