People are capable of error. . .

In many discussions regarding the changes to teaching to provide Christian support for same sex marriage, sex apart from marriage, marriage intentionally without children, birth control, change in the view of the death penalty, etc., the point is often made that people are capable of error.  Indeed, they are.  Individuals have not guarantee that they have it right and no mechanism to prevent them from falling into error, even egregious error.  Then the example cited is often the Reformation and Luther.  The Church had fallen into error, even egregious error, and Luther came along to lead the Church to new understandings.  Rome usually says that Luther was the innovator -- of such things as sola Scriptura, for example.  So we end up with the typical progressive view of things in which there are no guarantees, in which Scripture is not quite finished and God is still speaking new and even contradictory things, and that there is no real guide or rule except the individual reading Scripture for himself or herself.  Everything is an open question and nothing is settled doctrine.  In effect, there is no catholic tradition.  Period.

I cannot speak for Protestants in this matter, but that is clearly NOT the perspective of the Augsburg Confession.  While Luther and other Lutherans might have railed against Rome, it was a two way battle.  Rome was interested in preserving the status quo and Luther was interested in a theological debate.  In the end, both ended up disappointed.  Rome has become liberal Protestant in many ways and Lutherans overall have listened less to Scripture and the fathers and more and more to the tenor of the times.  We all know this is true.  But just as it is not Roman to embrace all sorts of settled things as open questions (as example, the ordination of women), neither it is Lutheran to presume that sola Scriptura means everyone alone with his or her Bible can decide what God said and what He means.  The Augsburg Confession not only presumes the catholic tradition but affirms it and insists that if this Confession and its confessors can be seen to have departed from catholic doctrine and practice, they will change to conform to it.

The question is what kind of Church do you want?  Do you want a Church in which nothing is settled and the most we can receive from those who went before is a best guess for their own time what God said and what He meant OR do you affirm that there is this thing as a tradition of faithful belief in and confession of what the Scriptures say, have always said, and will always say?  That seems to me to be the issue for today.  So either the Scriptures and the catholic tradition that has surrounded that Word of God and flowed from it are correct for their time, our time, and for the future times or else everything is up for grabs.  Either this is reflective of the sex and marriage issues and the ordination of women, to cite just two examples, or else it cannot be reflective of such matters as if we can know that we are forgiven and that God has prepared a place and life for us that death cannot end.  You cannot pick and choose and say one part of this is divinely true and the other up for interpretation and change -- even conflict with the written Word of God.  Until we figure this one out, much of Christianity is in for a slow and increasingly faster departure from any truth whatsoever.  In the end we will insist that our read on God is correct and that no one can challenge that take on what is momentary, what is eternal, what is true for all, and what is true just for me.  Without some regard for the catholic tradition, there is no anchor and God's Word itself is adrift on the sea of personal opinion and cultural norm.  Everyone will have done what is right in their own eyes and God will be reduced to a mere spectator.  I am pretty sure this is not Roman and I am most confident it is not the faith of the Augsburg Confession.