Martin Luther (incl. Luther’s Writings)

Edited by Timothy J. Wengert. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2004. 260 pp. [1] This impressive collection of essays by leading Lutheran theologians and Reformation historians represents the state-of-the-art in current Luther scholarship. Originally published in Lutheran Quarterly these essays now appear under a single title in Eerdmans’ new and promising series, Lutheran Quarterly Books. […]

Witte discusses (1) the distinctions between the fallen realm and the redeemed realm, the City of Man and the City of God, the Reign of the Devil and the Reign of Christ; (2) the distinctions between the sinner and the saint, the flesh and the spirit, the inner man and the outer man; (3) the […]

[1] In recent months I have had several conversations with colleagues in various aspects of church work about their experiences balancing family life and vocational obligations. Two particular scenarios stand out sharply. In one instance a friend and I discussed exhortations (or was it reprimands?) we had received from childless persons about not allowing our […]

[1] Schools in the United States face a multiplicity of challenges, from gaining adequate funds to hiring well-qualified and dedicated teachers to meeting the ever-increasing obligations of state-mandated testing to determining policy about such complex issues as bi-lingual education. In a nation of extraordinary religious, cultural and ethnic diversity, does Martin Luther, writing in the […]

[1] I have been asked to discuss resources in the Lutheran tradition that might undergird resistance to neo-liberal globalization.1 This paper explores four interrelated theological streams running through the work of Martin Luther.2 They are his eucharistic economic ethics, his theology of Christ indwelling creation, his refusal to minimize the pervasiveness of sin in human […]

[1] It is fitting, if frustrating, to find myself working on this article while my pre-adolescent child is throwing a prolonged fit over her mother’s inability to accommodate one more companion animal in the household. I am a divorced single parent, currently getting a snootful about my maternal shortcomings. It comes with the territory of […]

Abstract: In this paper I outline what is essential for Luther’s understanding of a pure doctrine of faith as articulated primarily in his treatise titled The Bondage of the Will (1525). Luther’s response to Erasmus’ text titled An Examination of Free Will (1524) makes it clear that in their relationship to God, human beings have […]

[1] This good occasion brings together two groups that divide the magisterial responsibilities that belonged to the Wittenberg faculty in the early decades of Lutheranism. Luther functioned well because he was surrounded by a gifted group of theologians who worked together, sharing the task and compensating for each other’s weak points. Many in that circle […]

Heinrich Bornkamm 12/01/2002 ​​ In this essay, the distinguished church historian of Heidelberg University gives us a guided tour through one of the most complex and controversial problems in the interpretation of Christian ethics. Luther’s “two kingdoms” doctrine has been variously praised and damned in recent theology. Thinkers such as Nygren, Althaus, and Ebeling have […]

An Ecumenical Problem [1] The question of the two kingdoms is one of the most pressing and delicate in contemporary religious and theological thought. No other aspect of Luther’s theology has been so fiercely attacked as this doctrine. Where Luther drew a clear line between spiritual and temporal authority, and expressly emphasised that under no […]