Here’s your big word for the day, “Adiaphora”. “Adiaphora” literally means “it doesn’t make a difference”, and it is the Latin word used by the Lutheran Reformers to talk about things that don’t have a necessarily Biblical basis, but are a part of church practice. Confirmation is a good example of this. Nowhere in Scripture does it mandate that someone should be confirmed in their faith by a congregation, but it is still a good idea, and is therefore a “rite of the Church”. This is different from Baptism which is clearly instituted and commanded in Scripture.
The Lutheran Reformers were keen on making distinctions between what was clearly a command of Scripture and what was just a practice of the Church. This is obviously because they had seen practices of the Church get a little carried away with things like indulgences and monastic life. So for them it was important to make the “Sola Scriptura” distinction, asking “well, is this in the Bible or not, bub?”
Today, the term adiaphora gets applied to a wide variety of stuff from contemporary worship to making the sign of the cross to the design of church buildings. The Lutheran Confessions (specifically the Formula of Concord) say that adiaphora are those things that are “neither commanded nor condemned by Scripture.” This is great, because it means that we are free to choose in these things….but it is also difficult because we are free to choose in these things.
Adiaphora always comes with the responsibility to make a decision. In some ways, it would be nicer if we didn’t have to. If we believed that somehow everything that we did as Christians just dropped out of heaven, that would be great. If we believed that one specific hymnal dropped down from God, then we wouldn’t have to question it. But despite how much you may like (or despise) the 1941 “THE Lutheran Hymnal” [emphasis added], Jesus didn’t throw it down to Peter and John when He was ascending into heaven.
If you have been to a Lutheran church that does things differently than we do them here, the differences that you’re noting are adiaphora. Those churches and our church have thoughtfully and prayerfully (at least most of the time) considered the decision and made a judgement call as a part of being a steward of God’s church. But you can rest assured that the things that do not differ from church to church – those things are not adiaphora, those things are the essential elements of Scriptural Christianity.
The longer I am a Lutheran, the more I notice one consistent value in Lutheranism – assurance. Lutheran theology is about assurance, about telling you where you can sink your anchor and know that it will catch. That is why we care about this difference – because at the end of the day, adiaphora really doesn’t “make a difference” at least in our salvation, but God’s Word does.