Lutheran Theology

This title offers an introduction for students and lay readers to doing theology in the Lutheran tradition. Lutheran theology found its source, and so its name in Martin Luther in the 16th century. The theology that emerged identified two essential matters for the relationship between humans and God, the law and the gospel. It made a simple but extremely unusual and controversial claim - that it was not the law that made a person right before God's final judgment, but the gospel of Christ's death on the cross for sinners. This book will lay out the implications of having all theology, and so all that can be said of God, humans and creation confessed and delivered in two parts: I, the sinner; and God, the justifier. Doing Theology introduces the major Christian traditions and their way of theological reflection. These volumes focus on the origins of a particular theological tradition, its foundations, key concepts, eminent thinkers and historical development. The series is aimed readers who want to learn more about their own theological heritage and identity: theology undergraduates, students in ministerial training and church study groups.

First published in 1983, Principles of Lutheran Theology has guided students into theological reflection on the landmarks of Christian faith as understood in the Lutheran confessional heritage for a generation. The book sets forth the main principles of classical Lutheran theology but with an eschatological accent. Canon, confession, ecumenicity, Christ-centeredness, sacrament, law/ gospel, and two kingdoms are all examined not only in terms of their original meaning and historical development but also in light of current reflections. In this new edition, Braaten takes stock of the research and reflection of the last twenty-five years and also adds a chapter on the distinctive, Archimedean Lutheran insight into the hiddenness of God as a fount or ground of all theologizing. This new edition, cross-referenced to key readings in Luther's Works and The Book of Concord, will both equip and facilitate the search for a contemporary articulation of Christian identity in light of the church's historic commitments.

From different perspectives this book studies the role of Reformation theology in the shaping of Danish society and the social dimensions of Lutheran confessional culture. The book develops an approach making it possible to draw strong conclusion about the social teaching of Luther and its impact on the development of the Danish society. It works on a conceptual level by analyzing the social dimensions of key Lutheran concepts and their translation into the doctrine of the three estates (church, household, and state), and on the level of lived experience of life within these three orders, not at least within the household forming the ideal form also for church and state. Thus the chapters in the book endeavor to connect the social ideas inherent in the Lutheran confession with the social formation of the Danish state from the Reformation into the period of Absolutism. A long mono-confessional situation within the Danish Monarchy makes it possible to study the impact of Lutheranism and the development of a confessional culture within a uniquely long timeframe. The focus is on basic mediums for the translation of Lutheran ideas into social practice: law, primarily connected to marriage and family; and the role of household, both as primary social relations and as basic social and political model. In this way the book offers important insights for theologians, historians, sociologists, and academically anyone interested in the relation between theology and sociality, confession and culture.

In this important new volume, Arand, Kolb, and Nestingen bring the fruit of an entire generation of scholarship to bear on these documents, making it an essential and up-to-date class text. The Lutheran Confessions places the documents solidly within their political, social, ecclesiastical and theological contexts, relating them to the world in which they took place. Though the book is not a theology of the Confessions, readers will clearly understand the issues at stake in the narratives, both in their own time, and in ours.

Rather than asking if theology is theoretical or practical -- a question that reveals a fundamental lack of understanding about the nature of theology in general -- it is better to ask "What exactly is theology?" It is this question that Oswald Bayer attempts to answer in Theology the Lutheran Way, clearing up misconceptions about the essence of theology. Along with Luther himself, Bayer claims that theology, rather than being something that we do, is really what God does. Based primarily on the third section of Bayer's original German work of the same title, this book evaluates certain approaches to theology that have been influential, from Schleiermacher's understanding of theology to debates with Kant, Hegel, and Bultmann. It also includes a substantial section on Luther from the original in order to clarify the Lutheran tradition.

This modern dogmatics text is invaluable for Lutheran pastors, teachers, professors and Christians who desire to arrive at a deeper understanding of the Lutheran confession of the faith.

Since the sixteenth century, the Protestant tradition has been divided. The Reformed and Lutheran reformations, though both committed to the doctrine of the sinners justification by faith alone, split over Zwingli and Luther's disagreement over the nature of the Lord's Supper. Since that time, the Reformed and Lutheran traditions have developed their own theological convictions, and continue to disagree with one another. It is incumbent upon students of the reformation, in the Lutheran and Reformed traditions, to come to an understanding of what these differences are, and why they matter. In The Great Divide: A Lutheran Evaluation of Reformed Theology, Jordan Cooper examines these differences from a Lutheran perspective. While seeking to help both sides come to a more nuanced understanding of one another, and writing in an irenic tone, Cooper contends that these differences do still matter. Throughout the work, Cooper engages with Reformed writers, both contemporary and old, and demonstrates that the Lutheran tradition is more consistent with the teachings of Scripture than the Reformed.

Carl Braaten’s memoirs tell the story of his life as a theologian, from his early years as a missionary kid in Madagascar to his years of study at the universities of Paris, Harvard, Heidelberg, and Oxford to his decades of teaching. Throughout the book, he delves into the many theological movements, controversies, and personalities that shaped his thinking and writing. Braaten’s fight for the faith is reflected in his theological work―spoken and written―that tangles with the “isms” of the surrounding culture of American religion. Because of Christ is more than simply a biography; it is a chronicle of the chief theological conflicts of the twentieth century that put the integrity of the gospel to the test.