I think that the great dividing line in Christendom is between sacramental churches (and therefore liturgical ones) and those who are not sacramental. No, this is certainly not a guarantee that a sacramental church will not succumb to liberalism or fail to live up to its stated confessions but it does mean that we speak the same language even if we end up in different places. The ELCA and Missouri have little in common other than the name Lutheran and yet we speak the same language. Missouri and the Southern Baptists may appear to have something in common but we really do not speak the same language at all. This is especially true of Scripture. We believe that Scripture is itself sacramental -- it speaks and in its speaking things happen. Hearts are warmed to faith and sins are forgiven and water bubbles with life and bread and wine actually become the flesh and blood of Jesus. This sacramental reality flows naturally from the Scriptures as living voice. We say this not to confine God to something alien to Him but precisely because this is how God has said He works.
Liberal sacramental churches may have forsaken their roots but they retain the language of the Scriptures and the way God works in and through that living Word. Though it might seem that conservative Lutherans might share something with conservative Baptists, the reality is that they do not speak the language of Scripture at all. The truth they seek to preserve is a testament or record to factual events of the past and is not a living voice that works through the Word. How can we say we have more in common with conservative Protestants than sacramental churches? The sinner's prayer and baptismal regeneration do not complement each other but work against each other. One group preserves the historicity of Scripture and its unconditional truth but then ignores what that Word says to invent a means of grace called the sinner's prayer. Where in Scripture or in the history of Christendom prior to the Reformation any sense in which God requires a decision from us or uses such a prayer in order to come to us and make His home in us? What ever happened to faith comes by hearing the Word of God?
Of course, we Lutherans have problems with Rome. I am not saying that because Rome (or any other communion) is sacramental or liturgical we give them a pass on the things they confess that conflict with God's Word. But we speak the same language. A high view of Scripture does not lead to a high view of the sacraments but a high view of the sacraments forces a church to deal with the Scriptures in a way that most all Protestant churches do not and cannot. They are preserving a fossil -- a record book of facts and events. We are hearkening to the living voice of our Good Shepherd still speaking to us by His Word.
Thankfully there is a great felicitous inconsistency. Individual Baptists actually believe the Scriptures even when it conflicts with their confession and individual Roman Catholics actually believe the Scriptures even when it conflicts with theirs. That said, I long for the day when the great divide in Christendom will change. In this great realignment, people will move toward the poles of greatest consistency. On the one side are sacramental churches who have Scripture and the history of the faith on their side. On the other side are the non-sacramental churches who have insist upon an inerrant Word but do not allow that Word to speak. If the patterns of the present continue, younger Christians will not countenance a church that says and does different things. It is one thing to move from a liberal sacramental communion to a more conservative one (call it catholic and orthodox). It is something else to move from being non-sacramental to suddenly confessing baptismal regeneration, the Real Presence, and a God who works through means -- including a sacramental Word. I wish I could say there is a good chance that we will find movement on the Protestant front closer to our Lutheran Confessions but I think the real movement will actually come as those in liberal sacramental churches begin to discover how untenable that is.
Of course, I have been wrong before. I thought maybe after the 2009 sex decisions in a body like the ELCA that an exodus of people would end up in Missouri. Instead the ELCA birthed two very small denominations which tried to be like the ELCA prior to 2009 and those infamous sex votes. In the end, they did not want go very far from home even if they see the inconsistency of their position. I have been equally as wrong with those Baptists who actually believed closer to Lutheran but kept going back to their Baptist Church because they had a higher value on things other than the implications of what Scripture actually said. So maybe it does not matter because a grand realignment of Christianity is not in the cards. At least not in the foreseeable future. God willing, I am wrong, and we will find the renewal of the faith led by those who hear the voice of God speaking and follow Him even where they first said they would not go. If that happens, it won't matter all that much anymore and Christianity will end up with faith that matters and the people will go where the catholic faith of the Scriptures lives. At that point, it will matter less what name they wear than the fact that they believe not only what God says but believe that God is working sacramentally through that Word.
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