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As head pastor in Wittenberg and professor at that university during the early Reformation, Johannes Bugenhagen (1485–1558) published works spanning a variety of genres. Of all Bugenhagen's writings, however, his most popular publication was a harmonization of the Gospel accounts of Christ's passion and resurrection. This project spanned Bugenhagen's career, starting in 1519 and continuing with revised published editions over the next thirty-five years. In all, over seventy editions of Bugenhagen's Gospel harmony were published in his lifetime and beyond, appearing in Latin, High German, Low German, Danish, Icelandic, and Polish. While some of the reasons why this significant text is not well known today are discussed here, this essay also describes many of the valuable historical and theological insights that Bugenhagen's harmonization contains as an influential work of the early Lutheran Reformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article surveys and examines the translations into English of Luther's works during the early modern period. Certain themes emerge, with anti-Catholicism, devotion, and consolation particularly noted as safe and unobjectionable Lutheran topics for English audiences. English reformers chose to integrate certain divines from the European mainland at certain points, with Luther playing key roles. The reign of Elizabeth (1558–1603) was a highpoint for English translations of Luther, and these coincided with other efforts by some in England as well as Germany to emphasize unity among Protestants while downplaying divisions. A flexible and contingent deployment of Luther in English continued into the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when developments such as the Civil Wars, the Restoration, and German immigration provided moments of relevance for Luther. The article draws on and points to the considerable scholarship that has reshaped English Reformation studies over the past few decades, and it offers reflections on how the particularity of early modern England can be seen in relation to the heterogeneity of Reformation Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the early eighteenth century, the term "Lutheran Orthodoxy" has been used to discredit inaccurately the theological practice of Lutheran theologians in the seventeenth century as a sterile, rigid theological phenomenon. This term has largely been replaced by scholars in the last seventy-five years. However, a single term has not emerged that not only embraces the rich and lively theological developments of the Wittenberg heritage but also explores its setting in the piety, devotional literature, social and political settings that defined what "Lutheran" meant from 1580 into the mid-eighteenth century. This article supports the increasingly frequent general term "early modern" to embrace the larger picture of those who claimed to be Lutheran. The article calls for focused research into the various aspects of the theological developments: flourishing devotional writing of hymns, prayerbooks, and other genre; geographical spread, practices of the faith in daily life; ecclesiastical polity; and relationships to political and social trends in this period. Such micro-studies will provide material for drawing a more accurate picture of the Wittenberg heritage between Reformation and Enlightenment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The genre of the epitome, a digest or summary of a larger work or body of information, served all late medieval and early modern academic disciplines as a form for conveying material in a form easier to learn, master, and put to use. Epitomes served the Wittenberg Reformation in this way. This essay examines different types of this genre. Martin Luther's Small Catechism, the Epitome of the Formula of Concord, and the index of Johann Aurifaber's printed edition of Luther's Tischreden , designed as other indices of the time to guide readers to the proper use of the document, can serve as examples of how the authors of these three documents strove to provide a basic guide to proper biblical teaching for application in the life of the church. Epitomes were thus not mere summaries, but had a theological and at the same time didactic purpose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on recent developments within the Lutheran Quarterly, including tributes to Carter Lindberg and the launch of a new lecture series. Topics include the recognition of Lindberg's contributions as a Reformation scholar, the introduction of the LQ Essay Prize for students, and updates on Board personnel and their ongoing projects.

Over the years critics and scholars have not only accused ethnic and immigrant literature of being hackneyed and apolitical but also of becoming a commodity for the consumption of cultural fetishists. The increase in the publication of literary works produced by ethnic and immigrant American writers in the recent times has yet again sparked the longstanding debate over the commodification of ethnic and immigrant narratives. This paper is an attempt to contend such allegation and make a case for this genre. Centering the discussion on some of the salient literary works of Latino/a American and South Asian American writers and relying on Fredric Jameson's theory of "political unconscious" and Ramón Saldívar's theoretical perspective expressed in Chicano Narratives: The Dialectics of Difference , I demonstrate that ethnic and immigrant narratives have ideological subtexts and political and cultural implications. Concurrently, I attest that by experimenting with various writing styles and techniques the writers of this genre successfully navigate between authentic political engagement and commercial success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay frames Alexander Pope's translation of The Iliad (1715–1720) as a key moment in the history of print culture and as a self-conscious reflection on a contemporary media shift in which Pope was a key actor. I contend that Pope's Iliad project works as part of a broader impulse to evaluate print and theorize its ethics by regulating and revaluing the oral, putting it under a polite and enlightened domain, and exposing those who manipulated rhetoric as slippery and untrustworthy, if also hypnotic and persuasive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study in Lutheran hymnody and Lutheran history treats two related subjects in order: the faulty attribution of a popular quotation from the Reformation period, and its echo in two German hymns afterward obscured in the English translation. Since the nineteenth century, popular literature in English-speaking countries increasingly attributed to Luther's wife Catherine, née von Bora, the quotation "I will cling to my Savior like a burr to cloth." The history of this attribution, which is still treated uncritically, is here traced to its probable literary source. Second, the author highlights the reference to this quotation in two German Lutheran hymns "Jesus der ist mein Leben" and "Meinen Jesum laß ich nicht" (translated: "For Me to Live Is Jesus" and "Jesus I Will Never Leave," respectively) and offers a new English rendering where the reference is obscured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On July 1, 1523, Hendrik Vos and Johann van den Esschen, two friars from nearby Antwerp, were burned at the stake on the Grand Plaza in Brussels for holding "heretical Lutheran" beliefs. Their deaths were the first executions of the Reformation. Like Martin Luther, the men were members of the Congregation of German Reformed Augustinians, a small reform group within the broader Augustinian Order. The deaths moved Luther to compose his first song, a ballad entitled A New Song Here Shall Be Begun. This article explores the Congregation's history in the Low Countries, the background to the executions, and Luther's connections to this episode. It argues that when understood in this broader context, Luther did not see these deaths as merely the predictable outcome of the Reformation clash of ideas, or simply as an opportunity for anti-Church propaganda (as some have argued), but as confirmation that God Himself was at work in the early Reformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article informs on Reformation research developments in Germany. It mentions the organization of two new research centers in Wittenberg which intends to expand its offerings to include continuing education opportunities in other countries and to extend its seminar program in Wittenberg with respect to the Reformation and the history of the Lutheran church in the early modern period.

Hugh Latimer's 1548 "Sermon of the Plough" is well-known as an example of early English evangelical rhetoric. However, the sermon has often been considered as an effect of, rather than a participant in, evangelical theology. This article reads Latimer's rhetoric, especially his creation of a persona, as fully theological, using Melanchthon's valorization of rhetoric over logic as a model. Latimer's sermon produces an authority that is not limited to Latimer himself, but serves as a reformation of Catholic notions of the authoritative role of the Church, a role based upon the rhetorically effective presentation of the Bible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on advent postil and Christmas Postil of 1522 and preaching gained great theological importance in the Reformation. It mentions preaching was demanded by and was designed to appeal to the increasingly educated and curious urban dwellers. It also mentions Luther to concentrate on the exposition of the epistle and gospel texts designated for Sundays and festivals.

The article focuses on relations between Lutheran churches and the Roman Catholic Church during the first half of the twentieth century were almost exclusively characterized by the kind of strong polemics. It mentions 400th anniversary of the Reformation in 1917 was focused on Martin Luther as a national hero in the middle of World War I. It also mentions Ecumenism in the sense of a move toward Christian unity had just seen the beginning of a new era with the first World Mission Conference.

The article focuses on major publication of Martin Luther and maximizing the impact of these books and manuscripts through digitization, exhibitions, and teaching. It mentions importance of the work of the Richard C. Kessler Reformation Collection and publication seems to have come from Georg Spalatin, the Saxon courtier and supporter of Luther in charge of the territory's educational system, especially the university. It also mentions latest humanist approaches to the Bible.

The article discusses that all churches acknowledge the Old Testament and the New Testament Scriptures of the Bible as the normative basis for their speaking and acting. It mentions distinction between law and gospel and doctrine in the dogmatics of all the churches and has hardly been answered explicitly in the form of a defined dogma. It also mentions attention to ancient tradition and to the central importance of this topic for the Catholic Church as well and way to Reformation teaching.

As professor of Greek and theology at the University of Wittenberg, Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560) authored three of the most important rhetorical textbooks of his era. Melanchthon's addition of a new genre of rhetoric, the didactic, to the classical genres of demonstrative, judicial, and deliberative oratory illuminates his view of rhetoric as an instrument for the renaissance and reformation of traditions and institutions. Cultivating faculties of judgment and understanding was Melanchthon's prescription for survival amid theological and political chaos--a prescription that continues to hold value for rhetors in the current historical moment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on gospel-centered reformation of church, society, and daily life, as set forth in Martin Luther's Invocavit Sermons five hundred years ago. It mentions law also made broad liturgical changes and ordered the removal of religious artwork, which exacerbated the riotous iconoclasm that many in the community found troubling. It also mentions repressive measure was that the Holy Roman Empire had recently forbidden the implementation of religious changes.

It is generally accepted that humanism paved the way for the success of the Reformation, but German humanism was not a uniform movement in the decade before the Reformation. An analysis of the correspondence of German humanists and future reformers suggests that there were several distinct groups. The first was centered around Gotha/Erfurt and included both Wittenberg and Nuremberg, while the second was associated with Vienna. In southern Germany there were close connections but also some distinctions between the Upper Rhine circle, which stretched from Basel to Heidelberg, and the humanist circles found in the imperial cities of southeastern Germany. There was no direct epistolary contact between the Erfurt and Upper Rhine groups, and humanists in the lower Rhine did not participate in this correspondence network. Humanists in each of these areas responded differently to the early evangelical message. Most of those in Erfurt became Luther's supporters, but the Viennese circle showed little interest in religious issues and remained loyal to Rome. In the Upper Rhine, Luther's message combined with the prior concern for educational and religious reform associated with Erasmus to produce a Reformation in the south that differed from Wittenberg, while Catholic humanism was strongest along the lower Rhine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on reevaluating the term "Orthodoxy" in the context of the era between the Reformation and the Enlightenment, with Robert Kolb initiating a series of studies on "Early Modern Lutheranism." It also discusses English translations of Martin Luther's works and presents David Gehring's exploration of "Luther in Early Modern English," as well as John Hoyum's argument on the relationship between culture and God's world in the ecclesiology of Robert W. Jenson.

Marcus's study concentrates on the attitudes and actions adopted toward books that were written and read by physicians in early modern Italy, as well as the book collections they amassed. One of the rich and revealing examples of material culture included in Hannah Marcus's new book on early modern Italian censorship is a mid-eighteenth-century woodstove. The final chapter explores precisely these tensions and extends the discussion of prohibited medical books into the late seventeenth century when many take their place within important library collections on the peninsula. [Extracted from the article]

Not very much is known about Dorothea Susanna (1544-1592), duchess of Sachsen-Weimar. What we do know about her, however, opens a multi-faceted perspective on the interaction between faith and political power. The example of Dorothea Susanna of Sachsen-Weimar is a classic case of how the struggle for faith and power impacted the most diverse environments and spheres of activity: dynastic relationships, political rivalries, and the composition of confessional documents as normative expressions of Reformation identity. What follows demonstrates this from three complementary points of view, indicating how the duchess from Sachsen-Weimar was negotiating the fields of political and ecclesiastical tension in her day while struggling with the questions of faith and power that confronted her. The essay briefly reviews the factors setting distinct understandings of the faith at odds with each other, then discusses the maneuvering between the two branches of the Saxon Wettin dynasty, and finally considers how the duchess, although she was able to maintain her confession, ultimately lost the battle for political autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hymns claimed a prominent place in the spread and delivery of the biblical message in the Wittenberg Reformation. Luther regarded hymns as an important component in the proclamation of God's Word and wrote many of them. Members of Luther's circle—Philip Melanchthon, Justus Jonas, Elisabeth Cruciger—also composed hymns for worship and the wider transmission of Wittenberg thought. Their hymns altered the nature of congregational worship, aided instruction in the content of scripture, and shaped popular thinking as song always does. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the collection of 'experimental transformations' gathered during the Bogliasco Seminars on Wallace Stevens in June 2019. Topics include presenting Bogliasco into four clusters: Rewrites & Updates, Centos, Translations, and Reformations; materials being very much grafted on Stevens's writings seeking to transform in various more or less surprising ways; and collection following by a series of academic notes providing pointers and backgrounds in attempting transformations.

The article reports on the celebration of the quincentenary of the Protestant Reformation in 2016. That is not a very long time, but the speeches delivered since the beginning of the "Luther Decade" in 2008 have rapidly faded from public attention and drifted into the past. Life in the German Protestant churches has returned to normal.

Martin Luther lent a key importance to the instruction and education of children (both girls and boys), which he thought made human beings capable of serving God in the spiritual kingdom (as preachers) as well as in the earthly kingdom and of fighting against the devil. Luther developed these ideas not only in his treatise To the Councilmen of all Cities in Germany (1524) and Sermon on Keeping Children in School (1530) but also in some of his major Reformation writings, in his catechisms, in his writings on married life and even in his letters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reflecting on the early Reformation, the German church historian Rudolf Mau comments: "Never before or since in the history of the church has theological insight proven itself to be a power which both deeply and quickly changed the way people looked at their life and, consequently, also transformed their institutions, social order and politics." This observation equally applies to the ethos of the Reformation as well as the ethics stemming from it. The Reformation breakthrough thoroughly affected the essential understanding and expression of the Christian life. Consequently, Reformation ethics is one of the classical interpretations of the Christian life, and its ethos shaped this way of living for centuries. Modern Protestantism remains an heir to this tradition, even if it continues to depart more and more from its biblical origins and their rediscovery in the sixteenth century, and its Reformation heritage is still able to demonstrate renewed vitality. The perennial relevance of the Reformation legacy is especially true for Martin Luther's ethics, since his moral teaching served as the basis for all the ethical thinking in the Reformation, deeply influencing both the Lutheran and Reformed churches during the sixteenth century. Moreover, his ethics continued to impact the church and theology down through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and even today Luther's moral theology has proven itself to be an inspiring and thought-provoking approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"These are the three persons and one God, who has given himself to us all wholly and completely, with all that he is and has." With these words, Martin Luther in his Confession of 1528 emphatically reaffirmed the Apostles' Creed in the words of his day, thereby confessing the heart and soul of the Christian faith. He did so through his focus on the terms "gift" and "endowment"—a focus which knows no like in the writings of any theologian before or after him and which is not replicated in any of his other writings, at least not with such succinct clarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the introduction of Lutheranism in Russia in the mid-sixteenth century. In 1552, Danish king Christian III sent to the theologically curious Czar of Russia, also known to history as Ivan the Terrible, copies of the "Augsburg Confession" and Martin Luther’s, who was a German professor of theology, composer, priest, monk, and a seminal figure in the Protestant Reformation. "Small Catechism."

The article reports on the emerging Lutheran reform movement in 1520 in Germany. The goal of the leadership of the Roman church during that time was to discipline Martin Luther, who was a German professor of theology, composer, priest, monk, and a seminal figure in the Protestant Reformation. It wanted to crush the challenge of the church's theology and practices that Luther had initiated with the "95 Theses."

Based on baptismal records, the essay traces eighteenth-century church affiliation among African Americans. Particularly in comparison to patterns of the nineteenth century, the investigation reveals surprising results. The story of African American affiliation with Lutheran congregations is especially a story of missed opportunities, as membership statistics of the early nineteenth century reveal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Christianity disembedded"—according to Brad Gregory this has been the long-term effect of the Reformation. In his book Gregory calls it The Unintended Reformation, thus conceding that the sad effect was not deliberate. Yet the grim diagnosis is not softened by mitigating circumstances. The "bed" whose cozy cushions Christianity has been forced to leave is "Western society." The result of the ejection is that society's secularization. Viewed in this way, the result can only be judged in negative terms: the empty bed of a de-Christianized society, and at its side, crouching on the floor, freezing and becoming more and more puny, the miserable shape of a Christianity without a social place or home. The image coined by Gregory is new. What is not new is his interpretation and evaluation of the Reformation. Roman Catholic and Protestant critics have similarly charged the same thing. This view, which was also shared by many Jews in Germany, Western Europe, and America, prevailed in the nineteenth century and lived, even lives on, with modifying and differentiating clauses, in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, with an author like Ernst Troeltsch. The essay addresses the question of the charge's veracity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay sets out to trace the movement step by step from this pre-confessional phase to the confessional consolidation of the Wittenberg Reformation in a confession-oriented Lutheranism. At the same time, the historical junctures taking place in those events or phenomena are to come into view which promoted this development or can be considered as milestones in this process. As a result, differing perspectives on this process of confessional consolidation (i.e. on the way to Lutheranism) are to be described. The first perspective is focused on the religious colloquies and their failure to reconcile feuding groups. The second treats theological standardization through the formation of confessions and the construction of authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's views of works of theologian Martin Luther in Latvia and Estonia. Topics discussed include his teachings on religious reformation, letter he wrote to Duchy of Courland, Lutheranism in Europe after the Polish-Swedish War and how religious education was promoted at that time.

An introduction is presented in which editor discusses various articles within the issue on topics including Martin Luther's views of Erasmus; three Reformation examples of a theological "epitome," and uses of law and gospel.

The article tackles the battle over breath and the Holy Spirit during the French Reformation and its aftermath. Topics discussed are breath as the last remaining sign of the presence of theologian Jean Calvin, breath as a political metaphor for minority's rights to live on French soil as a right to breath, and the misery of Protestants banned from professional positions and living only a sad breath of life, a bare life as helpless and voiceless against sovereign power.

An examination of the careers of nineteenth-century theologians Gottlieb Thomasius and Konrad von Hofman illustrates the revival of Lutheran confessional theology and interest in the contribution to contemporary theology of Martin Luther. While there are criticisms to be made of the appropriation of Luther by Thomasius and Hofmann, it cannot be at the cost of overlooking the contributions offered by their readings of Luther. In comparison to existing portrayals of Luther, theirs was an intentionally theological depiction—while perhaps lacking in historical contextualization—that helped rediscover Luther's unique theological voice. They took Luther's theological vision seriously. More specifically, Thomasius and Hofmann were instrumental in the recovery of the Christological center of Luther's soteriology. While Hegel had utilized aspects of Luther's Christology for his speculative philosophy, the research of Thomasius and Hofmann was instrumental in retrieving the Christological complexity of Luther's theology. The scholarship of Thomasius and Hofmann should be considered as the emergence of a path of Luther research that sought to circumvent the shortcomings of either a "neo-Protestant" or "conservative-Lutheran" rendering of the sixteenth-century reformer. Moreover, in concentrating on Luther's understanding of the relationship between justification, the atonement, and Christology, Thomasius and Hofmann were forerunners of trends in later Luther research that helped to lay the foundation for the Lutherrenaissance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2017, publishing houses flooded the market with new publications on Martin Luther and the Reformation. On the shelves of the bookstores sit ambitious scholarly works alongside masses of trivial Luther literature. This essay presents an initial evaluation of the literature in the following categories: Luther biographies, new emphases in Luther research, histories of the Reformation, long-term consequences of the Reformation, catalogues and lexicons. The essay concludes with a discussion of open questions and research perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The life of pioneer Lutheran pastor F. C. D. Wyneken has an important place in the settlement and religious history of Indiana. However, his story is not widely known. Wyneken's exemplary dedication and service to the spiritual well-being of nineteenth-century German immigrants was remembered on the 500th anniversary of the Reformation by the Indiana German Heritage Society, Indianapolis, and the "Friends of Wyneken," a nonprofit heritage organization, currently restoring Wyneken's house in Decatur, Indiana. If C. F. W. Walther was the mind of first generation Missouri Synod Lutheranism, F. C.D. Wyneken was its heart and soul. Wyneken gathered scattered German Protestants into confessional Lutheran congregations and forged them into a family of churches. He is aptly called the "thunder after the lightning." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This brief history of the decision to ordain women to pastoral service was first published in the volume, Called and Ordained (1990). It is here republished by Lutheran Quarterly with a new Afterword by the original author, Gracia Grindal. As she points out, the historical review of the matter is "worth considering since it raised the fundamental question of how Lutherans theologically understood the office of the pastor, a vexing issue as the question of the historic episcopate came up in the ecumenical conversations of the last century." Although the late 1960s were years of unprecedented social upheaval, Lutherans studied and debated women's ordination on the grounds of the Confessions and scripture. While the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod still does not ordain women, the Lutheran Church in America and the American Lutheran Church were on the basis of their study of their Confessions and scripture were compelled toward the decision to ordain women even at the risk of church unity and the ecumenical moment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fresh from his inaugural lecture on Luther and Caritas Pirckheimer in our last issue, Kenneth G. Appold here shares a concise overview of "Early Lutheran Perspectives on the Council of Trent." A veteran of international ecumenical dialogues of Lutherans with Pentecostals, Orthodox, and Anglicans, Appold concludes that the Lutherans who first wrote on Trent concentrated almost entirely on its textual results, not on the event itself. After all, they did not attend. Appold is the Nichols Professor of Reformation History at Princeton Theological Seminary, P.O. Box 821, Princeton, NJ 08542 ; Kenneth.Appold@ptsem.edu. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]