Neither one nor the other. . .

Lutherans sitting on the side of the road love to watch the Roman parade go by and to ridicule what we have been objecting to for a very long time.  It is a tedious delight to some.  It is a tiresome repetition that gets old to others.  Under Francis, it has been rather easy sport since he seems determined to muddy what is clear and make clear what is rightfully muddy (meaning complex).  Yet much of what Lutherans complain about is or should be an aberration in Rome, something called ultramontanism.  The term derives from the practice of labeling a non-Italian pope  papa ultramontano – a pope from beyond the mountains (the Alps).  Though it refers to the tension between papal authority and the state authority that lives side by side, it really comes down on the side of papal authority -- absolute papal authority.  It took on steam in the wake of the Reformation but was formalized in Vatican I.  Thus from the 19th century on some conservatives have made something of a hyperpapalism in which both episcopal collegiality and the role of the cardinals has been weakened.  Now, the current pope and his allies seem to capitalized upon this idea and made his papacy among the most authoritarian that has been known.  It has become somewhat of a crisis in Rome.  Suffice it to say, the church is not an autocracy.

That said, Lutherans have not been immune from the tendency to view the structure of churches both local and national as a sort of democracy.  We vote on anything and everything -- though we insist we do not vote on the Word of God.  Sometimes it seems like a bit of semantics to slide out of that one.  We vote on doctrinal resolutions in any case.  We have not quite decided what it means when a vote on our doctrinal stance and its accompanying practice is not unanimous.  We have not quite decided by what threshold such affirmations of what Scripture teaches and we confess ought to pass -- is a simple majority enough to uphold the faithful teaching of the faith?  The modern aberrations of same sex marriage, gender identity, and even women's ordination entered the practice of Lutheranism not because we confessed this as what Scripture has always taught but by a democratic vote deciding that this is what some churches wanted to do.  We vote on calling pastors (simple majority among some and super majority for others).  We vote on the money we will spend, buildings we will build, furniture we will purchase, maintenance we will do, even on excommunications!  We have a long history of voting and yet the church is not a democracy.

We want to make the church into a mirror image of the world -- the monarchical style of the papal system or the democratic style of Lutherans (and most Protestants).  We are, in reality, neither one nor the other.  Our structures should be designed to maintain the faith but not to change it.  Our governance should exist to give integrity to what we believe, teach, and confess but not to change it.  One of the things I struggle with most is how we try to use structures and procedures to make up for what seems a lack of confidence in the Word of the Lord that endures forever or our discomfort with what that Word says.  The only real job of a pope ought to be to maintain the faith and correct the faithful when they err.  The current pope has tightened up the authority but at the same time created confusion where confidence should exist.  The only real job of Lutheran governance is the same -- to maintain the faith and correct the faithful when they err.  Instead, many Lutherans seem more intent upon protecting the structures or changing them than they do standing where we have always stood.  In the end, an ecclesial autocracy and democracy create more confusion than clarity and hinder what ought to be our primary purpose and role.