Contemporary Lutheranism is losing its Lutheranism.
I recently visited a Missouri Synod Lutheran church that had so-called "contemporary worship" (hereafter "cowo"), as well as gender neutral language in the recitation of the Nicene Creed and in the reading of Scripture.
What is the big deal, right? I mean what does it matter what kind of songs are used in the Divine Service? Did you know, by the way, that historic Lutheranism calls it the Divine Service, and not a "worship service"?
Am I just being nit picky?
Why does it matter if we say "What manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God" instead of "sons of God"?
Am I just being nit picky?
What does it matter if we say in the Creed "Who for us and for our salvation" instead of "Who for us men and for our salvation"?
I must be just being nit picky.
Because, even though cowo songs in their very essence are about our worshiping of God, even though historic Lutheranism emphasizes what God does for us, it must not really matter. I must be nit picky.
Because, even though calling it the Divine Service emphasizes what God does for us--namely, He serves us forgiveness, life, and salvation--calling it "worship service" emphasizes our worship of God. But it must not really matter.
And whether we say "children of God" or "sons of God" must not really matter--even though biblically it was the son who was heir to all the father had, so the theological truth that all the Baptized are SONS and therefore receive the full inheritance of heaven from the Father--that must not really matter.
The Lutheran Reformers understood that lex orandi, lex credendi. They understood that the law of prayer is the law of belief. They knew that practice affects doctrine, and doctrine affects practice. They knew that they were so intricately connected that if one is done away with, so is the other.
They would not recognize most Lutheran churches today, whether in the Missouri Synod or the Wisconsin Synod. Both the LCMS and the WELS in general have lost their awareness of history and the Book of Concord, and they are therefore losing their Lutheran identity.
The only way forward is to repent and return to the historic Lutheran Confessions in the Book of Concord.
And the time is now.
What will the future hold?
Will we be confessional Lutherans, unapologetically committed to the Book of Concord?
Or will we bow to the spirit of the age--the kind that Luther told Zwingli was "of a different spirit"?
Want to know what a Lutheran is?
The Book of Concord tells us.
Anything less is just not Lutheran.
