Tolerated but not commended. . .

Over time it becomes tedious to keep repeating it but apparently it must be said again.  Adiaphora does not imply that every choice is equal or equally valid or commendable.  It merely means that no law can be made about it to bind the conscience of people.  It does not mean that every possible choice or preference is equally licit or valid or worthy.

Lutherans have bound themselves to catholic doctrine and practice.  We do refuse to legislate this in such a way that it becomes new rules or commands to be followed but we make it crystal clear in our Confessions that the side you ought to come down on is not how little but how much we retain in church usage, ceremony, ritual, and piety.  We are inclined to keep and permit those who would not keep what we do only because we refuse to legislate such -- not because we really believe less is more.

After Easter and Holy Week with its rich and full devotional life, there are always those who complain about too much and how they prefer a simpler service.  It is their American right both to complain and to have a different preference.  But to presume that preference is all that drives adiaphora or that the Lutheran liturgical principle is actually less is more should dictate what we do or do not do, well, that is simply false.  While less is permitted and no command laid upon to demand more, the Lutheran liturgical perspective is that we keep not cut.  You may not like that or appreciate it but it is embodied in our first and basic Confession.  We are not simply free to cut what we do not like or value or appreciate lest preference become the new pope that determines everything.  Remember that practice and belief are not far from each other and it does not take much of a stretch to make preference into a pick and choose mentality that governs doctrine as well as practice.  In fact, some practices become significantly more because of the denial of doctrine!

So when someone tries to say that adiaphora means it does not matter, they are wrong.  It does.  Not all choices are equal or equally salutary for the life of the faithful.  Remember that the first Lutheran church order produced by the great Reformer was less an order than a set of rubrics on how to use the existing missal (Roman).  That ought to tell you something.  It was not merely a matter of conserving resources but a conservative liturgical principle that said the more is better than the less but no law must demand it -- especially where the more is difficult to sustain.  Lutherans claim to be the Evangelical Catholics Rome ought to be -- not only in matters of doctrine but also in practice.  Strange how it is then that some become more concerned with what is restored to the Divine Service than with what is omitted (until nothing of the Ordo actually is left!).  

By the way, the Pastor is called to model not his own preference but to model the fullest of the ceremonial of the Divine Service so that the people know what belongs to their tradition even when they themselves do not practice it and so that the Pastor does not get to have the dictatorship of his own preference over the preferences of others.  It is not about preference at all no matter whose it is.  We ought to be striving for fullness and never ought to be satisfied with simply the least (costly, effort, or ceremony).  So when a pastor says he does not do this or that because that is just not me, he is teaching the people it is all about the person and nothing else.  That is also a false idea of adiaphora!