Book Reviews

[1] Like other books in the Lutheran Voices series, Gary Simpson’s War, Peace, and God: Rethinking the Just War Tradition appears intended for use in classroom and congregation. It aims to stimulate broader discussion on the morality of war. To that end the book certainly succeeds, and I would like to contribute to the discussion […]

[1] Gary Simpson, a professor of systematic theology at Luther seminary, has titled his new book WAR, PEACE and GOD: Rethinking the Just-War Tradition. He says that he uses the word tradition, rather than theory, because “a tradition is a historically extended, socially embodied argument about the common goods that comprise and sustain a community […]

Langerak, Edward, Civil Disagreement: Personal Integrity in Pluralistic Society. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2014, 170 pages, paperback, $29.95.

[1] Douglas John Hall, noted for his Theology of the Cross, has written an autobiography detailing the evolution of his theological framework from his childhood in Canada to present day. It is a short work for someone wanting a quick understanding of how current-day mainstream liberal theologians developed their theology and their worldview. [2] The […]

[1] Douglas John Hall describes Bound and Free as his attempt “at the end of this long apprenticeship to say something publicly about what I have found this vocation [theology] to entail” (page xi). Within that purpose statement stand the two words and concepts that become the most interesting reflection point of this work: theology […]

[1] I was intrigued to receive Douglas John Hall’s theological autobiography because his is a name I have long been aware of, but about whose life and theology I knew virtually nothing – except from a couple of small things he wrote ages ago. I was conscious that he was a Canadian but other than […]

[1] I do not know many parish pastors who routinely wrestle with a substantial theological work like this book by Mark Mattes. That is tragic because the result of failing to take our theology seriously is that we are awash in shallow preaching and trite worship. Yet deep theology is no guarantee of vitality for […]

[1] Every time I read Mattes’s Justification I am struck by its freshness, newness and, well-since there is no better word-promise. This remarkable little book starts by categorizing what has gone before, as theology must. Mattes’s ordering of the great, recent Lutheran or Lutheran-like theologians will no doubt be its most controversial aspect, since theologians […]

[1] Mark Mattes offers an assessment of the role of the doctrine of justification in five contemporary Protestant theologians: Eberhard Jüngel, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jürgen Moltmann, Robert Jenson and Oswald Bayer. These theologians are not just expounded and described but also rigourously assessed. By what criterion? This is explained in the first chapter. Mattes shares the […]

[1] Mattes offers a well-written and well-organized examination of the use of the Lutheran doctrine of justification in the work of five contemporary Protestant theologians. The reader who approaches Mattes’s work from a non-Lutheran theological background will find the work rewarding because the issues which Mattes addresses are universally relevant to the present concerns of […]