We are all growed up now. . .

It is not uncommon for those on the liberal and progressive side of Christianity, and in particular Lutheranism, to claim that they have not departed from the faith as it was once confessed.  So when that is challenged by something that conflicts with the new solas of sexual desire and gender identity, for example, this point is made:

1. The Biblical writers and probably most folk back then thought that way. It was their culture, their experience.
2. We no longer think that way. Our faith, guided by the Holy Spirit and our experience, have taught us otherwise. 

I am thankful for their clarification.  So, according to them, yes, the Bible is filled with things we no longer believe but that does not affect our acceptance of Scripture and even our affirmation of its truthfulness (at least in some matters) and, yes, they now believe otherwise but it is not because they have departed from Scripture.  No indeed, it is because they are guided by the Spirit to go beyond Scripture and affirm what the other leg of revelation stands upon (experience).  It is all perfectly rational and logical.  But it is Christian?

The importance of the sola Scriptura of the Reformation era lie not simply in the affirmation of what Scripture is but also what reason and experience are not -- namely, the arenas of God's revelation that stand equal to or perhaps even above Scripture itself.  Culture and experience, according to those left of center on the Biblical spectrum, must be sifted out from God's Word and probably includes just about anything and everything except Jesus Himself, the love that saved us (though perhaps not by dying to pay the cost of sin), and freedom (to fulfill in yourself the full potential God has planted in you).  Now that sounds exactly like Luther, right?  Or the early church fathers, too, right?  Well, perhaps not.  But that is a convenient fact we overlook in our pursuit of a Christianity which reflects us at least as much as it reflects God.  In this faith, God is not the only writer of revelation but we join Him in that task, under the guidance of the Spirit, to go beyond what Scripture says or perhaps even conflict with God's Word.  While this is certainly liberalism, this is also the problem and complaint of the Reformation against Rome.  In this Rome and liberal Protestantism and progressive Lutheranism are allies.  What Scripture says is good enough but it must be sifted by the enlightened and educated within the church (or pope), and it must be squared with reason and experience.  So perhaps Rome has won and the Reformation lost this battle if there is an alliance between the liberals outside and those in Rome.  All the more reason for the heirs of the catholic reformation now called Lutheran to contend for the faith.