But scripture itself tells us of continuing revelation and the guidance of the holy spirit.
Can that really be solidified into a tradition? Even the books of the Bible form part of tradition... there are different Bibles with different numbers of books... this is still argued over.
That you call yourself a Lutheran and say there are other traditions that disagree with you proves that things are not done and dusted. There isn't even a single creed that all those that call themselves Christians follow... I hear some Christians say this group or that group aren't really Christians.
Some of the variations in belief and practice are varied enough to be incompatible.
What's the point of taking about consistentcy if there are so many different traditions... and they all think their way is right... and some, that 'only they' are saved.
Surely more revelation and guidance is needed..? It's hard to be sure about the truth!
I'm told on here 'believe first' and then afterwards I will see the spirit working in me...
... but there seems to be so much variation in belief and tradition that there is a danger of cherry picking the kind of God that suits me... Isn't that idolatry? Selecting a God in my image?
How do you know your tradition is right and the others.. less so.
I try to avoid telling other people to be Lutheran just because I am, though I am convinced that Lutheranism is true. Simply saying that doesn't mean a lot to others, and it can come across as too "join-my-team-y".
But what I will say and talk about is how I ended up where I am and why.
I wasn't raised Lutheran, and in the religious environment I was raised I didn't even know anything about Lutherans except that they were "similar to Catholics" which didn't mean much either since I didn't know anything about Catholicism outside of a few (and often wrong) things I heard in passing from non-Catholics.
I won't get too deep into it here, but suffice to say that by the time I was 18 I had begun questioning some things and had began trying to figure out what to believe. I made my anchor point in in that search this: That Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that He really did have a Church and that He really did call together a group of people He called His Apostles, and those Apostles taught--by the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit--the truth about Christ and who Christ is and what Christ did to and for the world.
In other words, my anchor point was I should believe as the Apostles believed.
So one place I started looking for insight, to understand and interpret the words of the Apostles, was to look at what early Christians--those who had learned directly from the Apostles and were members of congregations started by the Apostles--thought, believed, and what they did. And, actually, I was surprised at just how obvious it seemed to me that the early writings of Christians looked like the same things I read in the Bible. So that when I had the Bible on one side, and the writings of early Christians (the fathers of the Church) on the other, things lined up.
So I was able to conclude fairly reasonably that there wasn't some sudden breakdown in Christianity, as though there was this early generation of Christians who believed true things, and immediately the second and third generation was somehow something else. It was the same faith preserved from the first generation, to the second, to the third, and fourth, etc.
So what this told me was that part of what "hold firm to the traditions which you have received" (2 Thessalonians 2:15) and "earnestly contend for the faith once and for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 1:3) meant was being grounded in historic Christianity.
The second thing, and why I am a Lutheran rather than Catholic or Orthodox, is--to put it short and sweet--the Gospel. Lutheranism wasn't even on my radar at the time, but one of my constant and long-time nagging spiritual burdens was the deep existential dread of my salvation, this deep sense of dread about whether God loved me, a sinner. In those [Protestant] traditions I had been raised I had, and in some ways I only learned to be able to articular and recognize later on, been saturated with the idea that it was ultimately up to me to prove my worthiness with God. Not because I had been taught to earn my salvation, not because I had been taught that I had to be good enough to go to heaven. Rather, I had been taught that the Christian life should look a certain way, that I should think and feel certain things. And the lack of those things in myself, I saw, as a defect that I did not know how to overcome. I was allegedly saved because I believed (such as I was taught) but if I am really saved I should bear fruit, I should have a walk that not only looks holy but is holy.
I had a history of people telling me I was spiritual, that I was close with God. I earned a lot of praise from both my Christian peers of my own age, and older Christian adults for how "on fire" I was for God. The thing is, I was never comfortable with any of that, and it actually often made me feel worse--a hypocrite, because I saw what they didn't see. I saw what was inside of me, the struggles I had with my passions (aka "the flesh" as the Bible calls it), with all my doubts, and worries, and the like. From the outside looking in I had all the appearance of being "holy", but I knew I wasn't. I was a sinner and I continued to be a sinner. I hid my darkness away from others, fearful of judgment; and in that darkness my heart felt terror when I thought about God. Knowing that my insides were dirty even if my outsides were clean, a white-washed sepulcher. And it seemed that no matter how hard I tried, no amount of going on mission trips, youth camps, worship seminars, prayer meetings, or the hours I spent devoted to being on my knees begging and pleading with God moved me a single inch toward being holy.
That was the weight I carried on my shoulders. And this is how that weight lifted, almost in a single instant: On a religious discussion forum, not this one, but another, there was a Lutheran poster and they simply talked about what Lutherans believe about the Gospel and salvation. That it is not up to us to reach out and find God, we never go up, instead God always comes down. It isn't my yes to God, it isn't my acceptance of God, it isn't my attempts to live a holy life for God, it is that God Himself comes down and meets us right where we are and declares us full and freely forgiven for Christ's sake.
We
never go up, God
always comes down.
The moment that hit me it was like a billion ton weight simply slumped off my shoulders. This was never supposed to be about me "being a good Christian" it was supposed to be about Jesus and His cross.
I didn't instantly become a Lutheran, though perhaps in a sense I had and just hadn't yet realized it. That set me down a path of looking into the Reformation, specifically Luther's reform movement, and recognizing the harmony between Scripture, the historic traditional faith of Christianity as expressed in the ancient fathers and the Creeds, and the Lutheran Confessions.
It was, therefore, in Lutheranism that I found:
1) A Christianity that is deep and ancient, catholic and apostolic.
2) A confession of the Gospel that truly says that I can trust and depend on Jesus Christ for everything, and in spite of all my brokenness, He won't let me go--God's promise is God's promise, regardless of how I feel at any given moment.
-CryptoLutheran
