Martin Luther's lectures on Genesis, delivered at the University of Wittenberg during the last decade of his life and later published by his students, allow modern readers to view a sixteenth-century professor engaging his students with the text of scripture and using that text to form them spiritually. The lectures show how Luther attempted to form in his students a new identity, an Evangelical identity, enabling them to make sense of the rapidly changing society and church in which they ...

This New York Times bestseller from Dennis Lehane is a gripping, unnerving psychological thriller about the effects of a savage killing on three former friends in a tightly knit, blue-collar Boston neighborhood.When they were children, Sean Devine, Jimmy Marcus, and Dave Boyle were friends. But then a strange car pulled up to their street, a moment of childhood trauma that would define their lives. One boy got into the car, two did not, and something terri...

This volume offers a unique approach to the study of the great German reformer, Martin Luther. Robert Kolb and Charles Arand offer an introduction to two significant themes that form the heart of Luther's theology.The first theme concerns what it means to be truly human. For Luther, "passive righteousness" described the believer's response to God's grace. But there was also an "active righteousness" that defined the relationship of the believer to the world. The second theme involv...

John Calvin (10 July 1509 27 May 1564) was one of the most influential Christians of the last millennium. An influential French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation, Calvin was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later named after him. Originally trained as a humanist lawyer, he broke from the Roman Catholic Church around 1530, and after religious tensions provoked a violent uprising against Protestants in France, Calvin fled to Basel,...

Saint Cyprian (died September 14, 258) was bishop of Carthage and an important Early Christian writer, many of whose works are still extant. He was born the beginning of the 3rd century in North Africa. He was of a wealthy and distinguished pagan background. In fact, the site of his eventual martyrdom was his own villa. Before becoming a Christian, he was an orator, "pleader in the courts", and a teacher of rhetoric. The date of his conversion is unknown, but after his baptism about 245248 h...

A Thousand-Mile Pilgrimage with Martin LutherIn 2010, Andrew Wilson and his wife, Sarah, walked in the footsteps of Martin Luther, re-creating his famous pre-Reformation pilgrimage from Erfurt to Rome. Their trek was well publicized, with coverage in the Christian Century, First Things, the Wall Street Journal, and Books & Culture. They were also interviewed by travel expert Rick Steves on his popular radio program. As they w...

In the five hundred years since the publication of Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses, a rich set of traditions have grown up around that action and the subsequent events of the Reformation. This up-to-date dictionary by leading theologians and church historians covers Luther's life and thought, key figures of his time, and the various traditions he continues to influence.Prominent scholars of the history of Lutheran traditions have brought together experts in church history...

Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt played a key role in the development of the evangelical understanding of the Lord's Supper. In 1521 he wrote several pamphlets urging a reform of the Mass. In 1524 he broke with Martin Luther and published a second group of pamphlets rejecting the traditional belief in Christ's corporeal presence in the Eucharist. Despite the importance of Karlstadt's tracts, they are little known today, and his understanding of the Lord's Supper is often reduced to a caric...

What terms would early Christians have used to address one another? In the first book-length study on this topic, Paul Trebilco investigates the origin, use and function of seven key self-designations: 'brothers and sisters', 'believers', 'saints', 'the assembly', 'disciples', 'the Way', and 'Christian'. In doing so, he discovers what they reveal about the identity, self-understanding and character of the early Christian movement. This study sheds light on the theology of particular New Te...

Many contemporary theologians seek to retrieve the concept of beauty as a way for people to encounter God. This groundbreaking book argues that while Martin Luther's view of beauty has often been ignored or underappreciated, it has much to contribute to that quest. Mark Mattes, one of today's leading Lutheran theologians, analyzes Luther's theological aesthetics and discusses its implications for music, art, and the contemplative life. Mattes shows that for Luther, the cross is the lens th...

In 1517, an unknown Augustinian monk, informed by his growing belief that salvation is by faith alone, published and distributed a stark criticism of papal abuses in the Catholic Church. In doing so, Martin Luther lit the spark for what would become the Protestant Reformation.What became known as the “95 Theses” was a series of statements expressing concern with corruption within the church, primarily the selling of “indulgences” to the people as a means of releasing them from acts...

Since the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, the United States and Western Europe's paths to modernity have diverged sharply with respect to religion. In short, Americans have maintained much friendlier ties with traditional forms of religion than their European counterparts. What explains this transatlantic religious divide? Accessing the topic though nineteenth and early twentieth-century European commentary on the United States, Thomas Albert Howard argues that an 'Atlantic gap' in relig...