In this significant book Mark C. Mattes critically evaluates the role of justification in the theologies of five leading Protestant thinkers, Eberhard Jüngel, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jürgen Moltmann, Robert W. Jenson, and Oswald Bayer, pointing out their respective strengths and weaknesses and showing how each matches up with Luther's own views. Offering both an excellent review of recent trends in Christian theology and a powerful analysis of these...

The Captivation of the Will provocatively revisits a perennial topic of controversy: human free will. Highly esteemed Lutheran thinker Gerhard O. Forde cuts to the heart of the subject by reexamining the famous debate on the will between Luther and Erasmus. Following a substantial introduction by James A. Nestingen that brings to life the historical background of the debate, Forde thoroughly explores Luther's "Bondage of the Will" and the dispute...

Martin Luther's relationship to music has been largely downplayed, yet music played a vital role in Luther's life -- and he in turn had a deep and lasting effect on Christian hymnody. In Luther's Liturgical Music Robin Leaver comprehensively explores these connections. Replete with tables, figures, and musical examples, this volume is the most extensive study on Luther and music ever published.

This volume by Gracia Grindal introduces English-speaking readers to several significant, yet unsung Lutheran women hymn writers from the sixteenth century to the present. After a brief introductory discussion of Elisabeth Cruciger, the first woman hymn writer of the Reformation, Grindal provides fascinating profiles of these talented Scandinavian women, who "preached from home", Dorothe Engelbretsdatter, Birgitte Hertz Boye, Berthe Canutte Aarflot,...

As profound as Martin Luther's ideas are, this giant of church history was concerned above all with practical instruction for daily Christian living. Harvesting Martin Luther's Reflections highlights this concern of Luther, mining his thought in key areas of doctrine, ethics, and church practice. Gathering noteworthy contributions by well-known Luther scholars from Europe and the Americas, this book ranges broadly over theological questions about...

This book is about faithful witnesses, from the Reformation to South African apartheid to Bonhoeffer, to the promise of Jesus Christ. Even in the midst of trials, these faithful followers have testified that the gospel is authority enough for the church's life and unity. Significantly, this is the first book in print by the late Robert Bertram, described by Edward Schroeder as "perhaps the most unpublished major Lutheran theologian of the twentieth-century."...

In this first of three volumes addressing Luther's outlaw God, Steven D. Paulson considers the two "monsters" of theology, as Luther calls them, evil and predestination. He explores how these produce fear of God but can also become the great and only comforts of conscience when a preacher arrives. Luther's new distinction between God, as he is, preached and God without any preacher absolutely frightened all of the schools of theology that preceded...

No twentieth-century American understood Luther's law-gospel distinction better than Gerhard O. Forde, who was professor of theology at Luther Theological Seminary in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Because Forde kept this Lutheran distinction razor sharp, his theological writings are an essential inheritance for us today. This volume, The Essential Forde, aims to provide the essence of Forde's writing centered upon Luthers and Scripture's essential distinction,...