Robert Schmidt While the Synod celebrates the 500th anniversary of Reformation, its president, his curia, and supporters are acting far more like the sixteenth-century Roman Church than the Luther they honor and extol. The celebration includes President Harrison leading “The Lutheran Mile,” an informative tour of the sites of the Reformation. The Luther film is…
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How Christ Is the Christian’s Victory over the Law: A Brief Study in Luther’s Galatians (1531) Concordia Theological Seminary Ft. Wayne, Indiana, January 16, 2001 Stephen C. Krueger 1. Whatever else the topic “the Law in Holy Scripture” can come to mean in contemporary Biblical studies, most giving “the Law” a far more positive assessment than the lex…
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Matthew L. Becker Matthew L. Becker is an associate professor of theology at Valparaiso University. In addition to teaching courses in modern systematic theology, he also offers courses on the Lutheran Confessions and the history of Protestant theology. He recently wrote an introduction to Christian theology, Fundamental Theology: A Protestant Perspective (Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, 2015), and…
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By Eugene Brueggemann All of us have a stake in the interface between religion and politics. Some of us support the agenda of the religious right, which stands for traditional values like opposition to homosexual behavior, for love of country and opposition to the slippery slope of secularism. Others of us emphasize equally biblical…
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By Robert Schmidt When Luther wrote his treatise in 1520, On the Liberty of the Christian Man, it was accepted by friend and foe alike. Here was little of the thunder and polemic found in the Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, or The Babylonian Captivity of the Church. Instead there breathed in it the quiet of the…
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By Robert Schmidt Tho’ devils all the world should fill, all eager to devour us We tremble not, we fear no ill, they shall not overpower us. This world’s prince may still, scowl fierce as he will, He can harm us none, He judged; the deed is done; One little word can fell him. …
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The Babylonian Captivity of the Church By Robert Schmidt High sacramental doctrine should make men eager…to provide the sacraments for Christians, and to remove all hindrances which prevent men, anywhere, from using them; but we see those who most glorify the sacraments, glorifying them by external adornment and standing most stoutly for those very things…
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By Frederick Niedner Jeremiah 31:31-34: The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of…
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By Marie Meyer When a layman asked Luther for guidance in being a God-fearing ruler, Luther directed him to Mary of Nazareth, a master teacher in understanding how God works through human instruments in the Church and in the world. Luther, God’s instrument for reforming the Church, wrote to the young man while waiting to…
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By Stephen Krueger Martin Marty sets out on an enormous enterprise in his new biography of Martin Luther as anyone who has seen the recent “Luther” movie can attest. How does one do a satisfactory biography of Luther within the space allotted? The movie, “Luther,” was roundly criticized, among other things, for its patchy coverage…
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