supplement, and perhaps supplant, that volume. Both volumes grew out of team teaching the

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1 Günther Gassmann and Scott Hendrix, The Lutheran Confessions. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, xiii and 226 pages. $ It is now more than twenty years since the publication of Lutheranism: The Theological Movement and Its Confessional Writings, by Eric Gritsch and Robert Jenson. This volume can supplement, and perhaps supplant, that volume. Both volumes grew out of team teaching the course on the Lutheran confessions at The Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg. This is a volume designed for use by students. Because the two authors divided up the territory there is a bit of repetition in the material, but if repititio est mater studiorum, then that is actually an asset. Church Historian Scott Hendrix wrote Chapters 1 and 2 (the historical introduction), half of Chapter 4 on the Structure of the Faith, and Chapter 6 on The Christian Life. Systematic Theologian Günther Gassmann wrote Chapter 3 on the texts of the Lutheran Confessions, the second half of Chapter 4, Chapter 5 on the church, and Chapter 7 on the place of the Lutheran Confessions in contemporary Lutheran churches. The divided responsibilities work well. The same high quality of introduction, instruction, and insight is present throughout the volume. The format makes this volume ideal for teaching purposes. There are questions for discussion and further study at the end of each chapter. There are convenient theological summaries of the content in the theological chapters, following explicatory notes that introduce the actual texts in the confessions. There is a map of central Europe, which should at least nudge students to examine historical atlases. There is a helpful chronological table. There is an excellent glossary of persons and concepts to supplement the index. Finally, there is a modest but helpful bibliography 1

2 that identifies resources in both German and English. This reminds us again of the multi lingual and multi cultural character of the continental reform movement from its origins to the present day. The bibliography is due not only to the fact that Hendrix is American and Gassmann is German. It is due to the fact that, like the Roman Catholic or the Orthodox, Lutheran clergy need to know another language (in this case German) in order to take optimal responsibility for their tradition. The bibliography is excellent, but I did miss some important volumes from the 20 th century's attention to the Lutheran confessions. Werner Elert s two volume Morphologie des Luthertums, and especially the flawed but useful English translation of the first volume, The Structure of Lutheranism, should not be omitted from any bibliography. Theodor Mahlmann s Das neue Dogma der Lutherischen Christologie is especially helpful for explicating the developments in the Formula of Concord s Christological articles. There was no mention of Albrecht Peters thorough multi volume work on Martin Luther s catechisms, nor the English translation of Herbert Girgensohn s two volume Teaching Luther's Catechism, still an excellent resource for students. Peter Manns 1983 biography, Martin Luther, remains one of the best English language treatments of the reformer, and because it is written by someone who comes out of the Roman Catholic tradition, it illuminates Luther s catholic roots and their life long impact on his theology as no other biography does. Missing too are Friedrich Brunstäd s Theologie der Lutherischen Bekenntnisschriften and the late Karl Heinz Ratschow's two volume Lutherische Dogmatik zwischen Reformation und Aufklärung, especially because both contribute much to identifying the failure of the Formula of the Concord to exploit Luther's revolutionary insights in the Christological and Trinitarian dogmas. And surely Charles Anderson s Augsburg Historical 2

3 Atlas of Christianity in the Middle Ages and Reformation needs to be called to the attention of students. Since the Book of Concord is a collection of documents which includes the catholic creeds as well as seven documents from the 16 th century, some way must be found to organize the repetitive material. Here Gassmann and Hendrix have succeeded superbly. Chapter 4 on The Structure of the Faith attends to the scriptural and confessional norms for Lutheran teaching, the distinction between law and gospel which is determinative for the use of those norms, the way the Lutheran reformers received and confessed the Christological and Trinitarian dogmas from the ancient church, and the center of reformation theology: justification by faith. Chapter 5 addresses the most controversial consequences of the reform movement: ecclesiology and sacraments. Chapter 6 deals with The Christian Life, and takes up the topics of sin, good works, and the two reigns of God. There are many issues worthy of comment. Space requires that I limit myself to three. First, Gassmann addresses, as everyone must, the fact that Philip Melanchthon confesses the Trinity and Christology in formulations inherited from the ancient church. Martin Chemnitz creatively adapted the Christological dogma for attention to Lutheranism's conflict with Calvinism in the Formula of Concord. But Luther alone offers impulses for the way in which these dogmatic formulations can be understood as necessary for the proclamation of the gospel. Because the inherited formulations are most often taught and learned as intellectual conundrums (three in one, divine and human), only Luther s approach can save them from either heteronymous imposition, 3

4 or, when the power of the enforcing authority breaks down, outright rejection. Gassmann follows Robert Jenson (and many other German and American theologians) in exploiting Luther s evangelical point of departure (to use Elert s phrase) in his Christology from below. Second, Gassmann s very competent treatment of the ecclesiology of the confessions reveals once again the inner tension of the reform movement between its catholic and protestant dimensions. Gassmann s excellent description of the catholic reform of the sacraments is matched by the necessities imposed on the reform movement to develop ad hoc ecclesiological structures in the face of resistance on the part of the German bishops. What Gassmann neglects is attention to how this development has plagued Lutheranism throughout the centuries (1) in the development of multiple émigré churches in the Americas (resulting, e.g., in dozens of Lutheran churches in 19 th century USA), (2) in the essentially private rather than churchly character of evangelization and church planting efforts in Asia and Africa (resulting, e.g., in 10 separate Lutheran churches in India), and (3) in the ecclesiological weakness of the Lutheran World Federation (which only in 1990 by resolution declared the member churches of the LWF to be in communion with each other, and which is now struggling to find structures to express that communion). Lutherans reacted defensively when the Vatican called attention to Lutheranism s ecclesiological weaknesses; but it does not help us to ignore them, as Gassmann seems to do in his otherwise excellent ecclesiological work. Finally, this book reveals again how durable the Lutheran confessions are. When compared with the theological work of other traditions in the 16 th century (The Council of Trent, the many Reformed confessions, the Anglican Thirty Nine Articles of Religion), the Lutheran confessions 4

5 have worn well as Western culture has passed from the pre modern religious culture which obtained in the 16 th century, through the modern essentially secular culture of the Enlightenment, to post modernism and its loss of a cultural grand narrative. Lutheranism s distinction between law and gospel is the key, as Hendrix and Gassmann demonstrate in the theological dimension of this volume. This distinction as expressed in the teaching and power of justification by faith still uncovers the deepest levels of the human predicament (sin as mis directed trust) and the human potential (the freedom given by the divine justification of existence). This distinction saves (or can save) Christians from both biblical and doctrinal fundamentalism. This distinction can prevent Christians from either abandoning the essential communal and sacramental character of the gospel or calcifying it in rigid traditionalism. We need to release the power of the Lutheran confessions in and for another generation of students, laity, and leadership in the ELCA. This volume can do a good job of facilitating that. Walter R. Bouman Edward C. Fendt Professor Emeritus of Systematic Theology Trinity Lutheran Seminary Columbus, Ohio Scholar in Residence Lutheran Theological Seminary Gettysburg, Pennsylvania 5