Book Reviews

[1] In this volume the English-language-preferred reader of things theological receives a distinguished German scholar’s summation and appropriation of the fruits of some forty years reading Martin Luther. The book’s immediate source was a series of fifteen double hour lectures given at the University of Tùbingen in 2001-2002. Thus there is here a freshness that […]

…a man’s religion is the chief fact with regard to him. – Thomas Carlyle, 1795–1881 [1] An impression I have of some of today’s newest Lutheran seminary graduates, and also of some rather seasoned Lutheran clergy, is that of relative indifference toward the nearly half-millennium old Lutheran heritage: i.e., towards Luther himself and his theology, […]

See also Response to Timothy J. Furry [1] The theological sense one makes of Constantine the Great reflects deeply on one’s other theological commitments. Beyond the painfully simplistic evaluations that Constantine’s reign was obviously a regrettable fall or that Constantine really was great, anyone interested in questions of theology, politics, and violence must attend carefully […]

See also Review of Peter Leithart’s, Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom [1] I am grateful to Timothy Furry for his careful and generous review of my book, and to the Rev. Michael Shahan for the opportunity to offer a brief response. Since Furry’s main criticisms concern my (mis)treatment […]

“…[T]he Kingdom of God is within you.” — Luke 17:21, New International Version “…[T]he Kingdom of God is in the midst of you.” — Luke 17:21, English Standard Version [1] In the book Paul’s New Moment, Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek paraphrases Karl Marx’s comments on the French Revolution, comparing “the sublime revolutionary explosion, the Event […]

See also Response to Bo Kristian Holm by Paul R. Hinlicky [1] Lutheran theology is in a process of transformation. Perhaps it has always been. The process of transformation moves in many directions at the moment, but several of these try for a variety of reasons to liberate Luther from twentieth-century mainstream Lutheran theology. Paul […]

See also Paul R. Hinlicky’s Luther and the Beloved Community:A Path for Christian Theology after Christendom by Bo Kristian Holm [1] I am grateful to Bo Holm for his careful and insightful elaboration of my recent book on Luther. Taking the book on its own terms, he grasps its leading intentions very well and in […]

[1] E.W. Mueller (1908–1993) was for many years the Secretary of Church in Town and Country for the National Lutheran Council. The NLC was a cooperative venture among Lutherans during the mid-20th century. At a time when Lutherans were split in several different denominational organizations, the NLC provided cooperative programming of benefit to the churches. […]

[1] To read Reinhold Niebuhr is pure pleasure; to read his disciples less so. The book, with a forward by Martin Marty and an introduction by Daniel F. Rice, seeks, as the title says, to revisit and engage with our greatest public intellectual of the twentieth century. Given that as an ethicist, Niebuhr’s applications are […]

[1] When America learned the President of the United States identified Reinhold Niebuhr as a person who influenced him, I imagine many people scurried to probe more deeply into the nature of Niebuhr’s ethical and political thinking. Of course, there were people wondering who Reinhold Niebuhr is. I imagine some people saw this as an […]