The Gift of Grace: The Future of Lutheran Theology.

The Gift of Grace: The Future of Lutheran Theology. Edited by Niels Henrik Gregersen, Bo Holm, Ted Peters, and Peter Widmann. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004. xvi and 368 pages. Paper. $30.00.

What an ambitious work! 28 essays from 28 theologians about the past, present, and future of God's experiment that we call the Lutheran Reformation. The Gift of Grace gathers a variety of voices and viewpoints to paint a broad picture of Lutheran scholarship today. The authors' consistent emphasis on justification and justice merits high praise. The topical essays are worth reading individually, while the book grows even more thought-provoking when taken as a larger vision of what God is doing in our times through Lutheran Christianity.

The Gift of Grace contains eight sections in the following sequence: grace, cross, justification, justice, comparisons [to Luther], ecumenics, world, and science. This order highlights the historic doctrinal core of Lutheranism and moves from there. Yet it struck me that it might also be helpful to read the collection backward. Why not begin as Luther did: with a serious analysis of the world around us that drives us to justice, justification, the cross, and ultimately God's grace? Chapter 1, Robert Jenson's "Triune God," then becomes apowerful conclusion. Thus we move from observation and reflection to proclamation and mission, rather than waiting for the world to come to our fixed doctrines. David Truemper's suggestion to view our confessional writings as "problem-solving literature" speaks to this tension of being a mission-minded church with a confessional tradition.

An awareness of the global church rightly permeates this collection; the authors recognize that North Atlantic theology has itself been a contextual theology. The essays that focus on sharing Reformation heritage in non-European and post-Christendom settings are without exception excellent pieces of faithful and creative theology. Sometimes, though, the collection does fall into North Atlantic biases. The section "comparisons" relates Luther to Aquinas, Calvin, Grundtvig, and Kierkegaard. Placing Paul Chung's chapter on Martin Luther and Asian Spirituality or Fidon Mwombeki's "The Theology of the Cross: Does It Make Sense to Africans?" in that same "comparisons" category may have more forcefully highlighted how relevant and vibrant a sixteenth-century Thuringian monk remains on the global scale.

Finally, as laudable as this collection of essays is, it will never be a popular book; it is not written for the populace. The authors and editors have aimed at a graduate-level audience. Though academic discussions do need to challenge the mind, a work like this could easily be more reader-friendly. Also, for a theological tradition rooted in Scripture, the use of the Bible as a primary source was minimal. This is tragic at a time when the Lutheran encounter with God's Word is such a vital necessity. Maybe we forget that readable theological and biblical scholarship is not "dumbing-down." When our mission is Christian proclamation, a clear telling of Jesus' grace is a gift to all of God's people.

Martin J. Lohrmann

Epiphany Lutheran Church

Toledo, Ohio