Gerhard O. Forde has stood at the forefront of Lutheran thought for most of his career. This new collection of essays and sermonsmany previously unpublished makes Forde's powerful theological vision more widely available.The book aptly captures Forde's deep Lutheran commitment. Here he argues that the most important task of theology is to serve the proclamation of the gospel as discerned on the basis of the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone. For Forde, th...

On its publication nearly 40 years ago, Christian Dogmatics, a two-volume survey of the twelve major loci of Christian doctrine, seemed destined to become a classic. It rapidly took its place among the top multi-volume theologies and became a foundational text for generations of theological and ministerial students.Each loci, treated from the perspective of the Lutheran tradition and deeply examined in terms of its biblical foundations, historical tradition, and contempora...

No twentieth-century American understood Luther's law-gospel distinction better than Gerhard O. Forde, who was professor of theology at Luther Theological Seminary in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Because Forde kept this Lutheran distinction razor sharp, his theological writings are an essential inheritance for us today. This volume, The Essential Forde, aims to provide the essence of Forde's writing centered upon Luther's and Scripture's essential distinction, that is, the distinction between la...

This book about Luther's theology is written out of a twofold conviction: first, that many of our problems have arisen because we have not really understood our own traditions, especially in the case of Luther; and second, that there is still a lot of help for us in someone like Luther if we take the trouble to probe beneath the surface. In this ground-breaking book, Forde interprets Luther's theology for our own day.The fundamental theme of the book is the "down-to-earth" characte...

Although preachers often question their effectiveness, no task of the church is more important than proclamation. Only the gospel liberates sinners from guilt, despair, and death and grants them freedom, hope, and new life. Few have grasped this truth better than Martin Luther. This volume features contributions by contemporary theologians whose work is shaped by Luther's conviction that God's justification of the ungodly comes through preaching: Gerhard Forde, Oswald Bayer, and their stud...

The Captivation of the Will provocatively revisits a perennial topic of controversy: human free will. Highly esteemed Lutheran thinker Gerhard O. Forde cuts to the heart of the subject by reexamining the famous debate on the will between Luther and Erasmus. Following a substantial introduction by James A. Nestingen that brings to life the historical background of the debate, Forde thoroughly explores Luther's "Bondage of the Will" and the dispute between Erasmus and Luther...

The Preached God speaks directly to preachers, calling them to deliver the truths of forgiveness, life, and salvation through both word and sacrament to all who listen.

Martin Luther's theological revolution depended in a significant part upon the distinction between law and gospel. Within the last hundred years, several authors have reevaluated the reformer's understanding of this paradigm in light of its development within the Lutheran orthodox tradition. Some authors have argued that the Lutheran scholastic view of God's law departs from that of Luther. Specifically, it is contended that the Lutheran orthodox argued for a definition of the law which de...