Lutherans are not Protestants. . .

Lutherans have always found themselves the odd man out at the table of religious traditions.  We seem to be Protestants but we are not.  We claim to be Catholics but we aren't Roman.  Nowhere it this more true than when it comes to our approach to authority.  It sounds like Lutherans are right there with every other Protestant in putting authority in reason.  Unless we can be shown by Scripture, we will not believe it.  It almost sounds like Luther but it is not Luther.  Luther was bound by the Word that had authority over his conscience and not because of it.  Luther did not place Scripture into the realm of personal interpretation (though, to be sure, sometimes he sounded that way).  Luther believed in authority -- an authority bigger than him and bigger than the moment.  I sometimes wonder if we as Lutherans have forgotten that.  Luther was not a Protestant -- at least not in the way that term has been used since the first days of the Great Reformation.  Luther was a creedal theologian and one whose whole purpose was not to vitiate the authority of the Church but to correct that authority by placing it upon the firm foundation of Scripture.  The Reformation was and remains about authority and where it resides.

Even some Lutherans have come to sound pretty Protestant.  They submit to no man or institution, to no creed or confession, and only to a Scripture through the lens of their own reason.  They insist that they are happily free from these constraints as long as they stay true to the Word of God.  In the end, creed and confession, man and institution must submit to their understanding of Scripture and to their interpretation of it.  In this construct, nothing can be accepted from the past without being re-proved by the Word of God.  It is an exhausting proposition.  Every time you open the Bible you have to prove or disprove something and at the top of the mountain is reason.  It is not the end of the papacy but the making of every Christian a pope.  It ends up being a religious version of the autonomous self.  But is that Lutheran?  Or, is it even Christian?

Rome makes an attractive alternative to those who have tired of proving or disproving everything every time they open the Bible.  Rome has chosen which authority is above Scripture so that there is only one authority to interpret the Bible.  They say it is the Church but it is those with agency within the Church to do that (teaching magisterium or papacy).  If the church has the authority to infallibly interpret Scripture, then individual authority is not what is operative.  The problem is that this authority does not mean the same to all those who claim to be Catholic -- Rome puts it in one place, Constantinople puts it in another, and Lutherans put it somewhere else.  For Rome this problem lies with the fact that the teaching magisterium and popes have disagreed and erred and been inconsistent and even contradictory.  For Constantinople this problem lies with the fact that councils have contracted and erred and disagreed.  For Lutherans is that we sometimes are not even ready to admit that there is a church larger than a congregation and so we default to some sort of individual reason that is top of the heap.  

My Roman friends tell me that in order to disprove Roman Catholicism, you do not start with the Bible. Roman Catholics understand this as mere private interpretation and point to their historical claims.  The authority lies in the church -- whatever that means.  The problem for a Lutheran is that Rome has been all over the place and there is no clear and consistent teaching -- especially in the more modern times.  The teaching of Rome does not need Biblical authority nor does it invite it.  The other problem is exactly that history.  Who in their right mind believes that the early Church is the same as medieval Roman Catholicism or the same as Rome after Trent or the same as Rome after Vatican I or II.  In fact, Rome is debating this very point.  Is the Mass of Trent the same as the Mass of Vatican II?  This is evidence of the fact that the problem cannot be solved by shifting the authority from one autonomous individual to an autonomous institution.  What we call Roman Catholicism is defined most clearly by the Council of Trent and yet it is that very Council of Trent that Romans are insisting has been replaced by another Council that, on both sides of the divide, represents a different doctrine or teaching.

Lutherans often sound and act like Protestants but we are not.  We are Catholics not of the Roman kind.  We esteem our institutions highly but we do not endow them with autonomy or authority any more than we place one individual over truth.  We believe that there is an identifiable Catholic and Apostolic confession that has not wavered from the ages, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets by the voice of God's Word, and is not alterable by voice or vote.  Are there challenges to this by some, sure.  There will always be.  We will always seek to find an authority in our conscience or reason or in an individual or group of teachers because that is controllable.  If we defer to the sacred deposit once delivered to the saints, the faith will be confessed without being controlled or altered and this is what we say to the world.  It is the mark of true catholicity and we would welcome popes and teachers and individuals of any kind to join us in this faithful confession once and always the same.