The institutionalization of novelty. . .

The joke used to be how many Lutherans does it take to change a light bulb.  The answer, of course, was none because Lutherans did not change.  I used to tell that joke -- 50-60 years ago!  That is certainly not the case today.  Everything has changed and is still changing among Lutherans today.  It is not simply about worship.  Novelty has become institutionalized among Lutherans (but not only Lutherans!).  We think and desire creativity more than ever before.  It is killing us as a "brand" and even the Lutherans are hard-pressed to define what it means to be Lutheran anymore.

Worship is certainly the obvious arena in which this is true.  There is a certain segment of Lutherans on both sides of the worship wars who keep their ears tuned to what is happening and who are constantly re-imagining what it means to be Lutheran on Sunday morning.  While the obvious suspects are those who live outside the liturgy of the hymnals and invent their own style and content, they are not alone.  Just as one set of progressive Lutherans constantly are trying to copy or even get a page ahead of everyone else when it comes to contemporary Christian music or the preaching style that appeals to the masses, there is another set of traditionals who constantly argue over what it means to be really confessional when it comes to worship.

When it comes to catechesis, the situation is exactly the same.  Many Lutherans have no idea what it means to be Lutheran because they got Lutheranism 101 LITE or because they got the version of Lutheranism which reflected a particular spot in time or pastoral preference.  Hardly any catechesis (youth or adult) includes an honest historical survey of where we have come and yet they expect those new to Lutheranism to be equipped to judge where we are going anyway.  It is the institutionalization of novelty to presume a creative invention of Lutheranism without the prejudice of history will serve to hold us together in the future.  The doctrinal fluidity of Lutherans from the liberals on one side to the confessionals on the other to evangelicals on another have left us with a triangle of problems and an ever confused idea of what it actually means to be Lutheran.

Doctrine is part of this problem as well.  Some look at the Scriptures as a mere guide to belief and not the source and norm of that belief and some look at the Lutheran Confessions with the same freedom which refused to be bound by anything except the moment.  We do not even agree on the basic meaning of the words in the Creeds of the Church so how on earth can we be expected to have a doctrinal consensus.  Absent such a doctrinal consensus, Lutherans across the world have also had a moral diversity that is not simply the betrayal of our own history but the destruction of our identity.  We have Lutherans who actually think the Gospel has more to do with liberated sexual desire or gender identity or care of the planet than the cross.  Just wait until the next cause of the day comes along.  Novelty seems to win out over faithfulness and historical integrity and there is no sign it will stop winning in the near future.

I think this is actually what is behind the conflicts in Rome as well.  Vatican II became not simply a council for Roman Catholics but the defining moment in what it means to be one.  Nevermind the 400 years of the Tridentine Mass or Roman Catholic teaching on the family and marriage, Vatican II seems to have institutionalized novelty and made faithfulness secondary to creativity.  The divide between Benedict XVI and Francis reveal this dispute and Leo now seems unsure of whether he wants to restore the course or opt for change or muddle through trying to do both.  It is clear that in many parishes of Rome, Sunday morning reveals more of a penchant for novelty than for clinging to the markers that once gave folks a pretty clear idea of what and where Rome was and where it is going.

I consider myself an evangelical catholic who began life as a bronze aged Missourian but the truth is that I am not sure where people would place me today.  The conversation reveals that we are all over the place when it comes to Lutheran identity and that can change as quickly as you talk to someone new and different.  Lutherans have changed and changed with such a rapid pace that it has left all our institutions and our identity confused.  We once had a name for Lutheran institutions of mercy but now we do not even own or operate Lutheran hospitals or orphanages and our mercy footprint has come to look more like an NGO than a church oriented proposition.  We are all confused.  That is what unchecked diversity and the institutionalization of novelty does.  It leave us confused and so confused the people outside our churches do not know who we are or what to expect from us anymore.  Their own historical illiteracy has made the Reformation less a movement than an idea or footnote.  How will we ever extricate ourselves from the mess we have made pushing freedom and invention as the primary values of everything while faithfulness and continuity languish way behind?