In the late 1520s, Martin Luther wrote a letter to Henry VIII of England in which he responded to the king’s charges of “detestable heresies.” Henry was particularly outraged by Luther’s notion of “evangelical liberty,” by which he thought Luther was calling for a freedom from all law. To Henry VIII, Luther was the “man […]
In my previous article (January/February 2022), I made the case that in Hebrews 12:14, the “holiness” required to see God does not refer to our personal sanctification or holiness, but to the consecration obtained by faith in Christ’s substitutionary sacrifice. The point of that discussion, as well as this one, is to illustrate how one […]
translated by Casey Carmichael Georg Aemelius—or Oemler in German—(1517–69) was a Lutheran theologian and botanist. His father was a friend of Hans and Margarethe Luder, Martin Luther’s parents. After studying theology at Wittenberg, Georg worked in school administration in various places throughout Germany. The following translation is a portion of his Biblicae Historiae, magno articifio […]
Late in 1538, Martin Luther wrote to his Wittenberg colleague Philip Melanchthon. He had just finished reading Melanchthon’s latest manuscript, On the Authority of the Church and the Writings of the Ancient Fathers, which would be published in 1539. As he thumbed through it, he told Melanchthon that his head swirled with thoughts of Aristotle […]
Should a hermeneutical approach in a Western (or other) context be transferred to an African audience without taking the differences in context into account? Or is there room for philosophies and methods of interpretation to be contextualized to meet the needs represented in that part of the world? Given the specific needs on the continent—needs […]
“Woe Is Me If I Preach Not the Gospel!” (1 Cor. 9:16) St. Paul’s heartfelt exclamation of his calling before God has echoed down through the ages. The Christian church in all its many forms is called to preach the gospel—that is its purpose. There are many subsidiary activities that the church engages in, such […]
The bad news, as Martin Luther continually reminded himself and others, is that I am a sinner. Inevitably, I intractably doubt, disregard, or dismiss God’s speaking to me from the pages of Holy Scripture, defying his will and demanding to go my own way. That, Luther knew, leads only to death. The good news is […]
The English Puritan search for the New Testament’s pattern or blueprint of how to “do church” formed the matrix of Baptist origins in the first half of the seventeenth century. Of the two Baptist communities that emerged in this era—the General Baptists, who were Arminian, and the Particular Baptists, who were Calvinistic—the latter were far […]
*** If I stand still enough, I start to hopeI’ll make myself an empty space—once girl,now gone. I’ll be no threat, no haunting ropeor loaded gun. I want to live unfurled and light, a soft and hurtless thing, no sledgeto wield against the world. I paint myselfin plumes—but even feathers have their edges.The blades are […]
Invited to give a plenary address in Wittenberg on the weekend of the Reformation’s quincentenary (October 31, 2017), I took my teenage son on a tour of Martin Luther sites along the way. I’ll use this travelogue as a way of exploring what it means—or at least meant—to be an “evangelical.” *** We visited the […]
*** When angels come to comfort in the night—eternal constellations on display—the darkest time beholds a guiding light that those who grieve in solitude mightimagine white wings wafting tears away.When angels come to comfort in the night redemption overcomes a pauper’s plightand redemption is an easy price to pay.The darkest time beholds a guiding light […]
*** I can imagine believing that IWill see you again in all of your ways,Will know the grace of God in which you died, Will feel angelic arms in which you lie;But cannot believe it, as doubt betrays—So I imagine. Believing that, I Trace my disbelief to lack of proof and tryTo recollect, again recount […]
