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My colleague at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Dr. Robert Kolb, has ably presented readers of Word by Word a helpful introduction to the chief features of Lutheran theology. I would recommend his article before I recommend any book.
Nevertheless, allow me a word about a slice of my own tradition that binds itself to the confessional documents of the Lutheran Church. (Spoiler alert: The Lutheran confessions will be my top Lutheran book.) What follows may also help readers understand why I include the books I do.
What is Lutheranism?
The Lutheran theological tradition is an enigma to many. When Lutherans talk about the Bible and the authority of Scripture, some get the impression that we are fundamentalists. Lutherans are not—or, at least, we have never intended to be—fundamentalists. Rather, we seek to be biblical and confessional.
Lutherans are also not Catholics—though American evangelicals suspect we are because of our view of the sacraments and our commitment to our liturgical heritage. However, we do regard ourselves as catholic—that is, part of the universal, holy, and apostolic church.
Lutherans are not American Protestants, but we were, in fact, the first Protestants. At the Diet of Speyer in 1529, four Lutheran princes and fourteen of the imperial free cities issued a “protestation” on April 19, 1529, against the Holy Roman Emperor that rejected any effort by the secular authorities to legislate faith with threats of punishment. Hence, the name “Protestant.”
In the strictest sense, Lutherans are evangelicals. Our interpretation of Scripture, doctrine, worship, preaching, and pastoral care center on the person and work of Jesus Christ. We believe that, through his perfect life, atoning death, and resurrection, Jesus alone has won for us salvation, has reconciled sinners to God, and made us righteous, not by any work that we’ve done, but as a free gift that is received by faith alone.
Unlike most modern American evangelicals and Protestants, Lutherans maintain that the sacraments of baptism, holy absolution, and the Lord’s Supper are God’s effective means to deliver grace and forgiveness to his people. We see the sacraments as God’s work and not a human work or an outward sign of inward faith. Therefore, we believe in baptismal regeneration. We also believe the true body and blood of Christ are offered to us in Holy Communion to forgive the sins of penitent sinners. We retain the practice of both private and corporate confession and absolution as a great comfort and blessing for Christians who daily struggle with sin after baptism. In summary, we believe the Word and the sacraments are the Holy Spirit’s means of distributing the forgiveness that Christ won on the cross here and now through his church.
In contrast to Rome, Lutherans maintain that Scripture alone and not human ordinances or institutions (which Lutherans regard the papacy and the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church to be) is the basis for Christian doctrine and life. We maintain that we are saved by grace alone without any human choice or efforts, that faith alone without human works justifies, and that all of this God does for us on account of Christ.
Notable books from the Lutheran tradition
My list of the top Lutheran books is aimed to introduce someone outside of the Lutheran tradition to the riches of its theology. This list could go a number of ways, but I chose those things which have personally helped me best understand my own tradition.
1. The Book of Concord
For anyone who wants to know what Lutherans have believed, taught, and confessed from the Reformation to today, they can find it in the Lutheran confessions in The Book of Concord. In its completed form in 1580, The Book of Concord included the ecumenical creeds, the Augsburg Confession of 1530 and its Apology (1531), the Smalcald Articles of Martin Luther, the Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope (in which Lutherans established their position on the papacy), the Small and Large Catechism, and the Formula of Concord (which brought doctrinal clarity to a number of doctrinal disputes that arose after Luther’s death).
Pastors, teachers, and all church workers in confessional Lutheran church bodies pledge themselves to these confessions and promise to teach them publicly.
The Small Catechism is the most important document for most Lutheran congregations because it is the basis for teaching the faith to young and old. It includes the texts, with brief explanations, of the Ten Commandments, the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and biblical texts concerning baptism, confession and absolution, and the Sacrament of the Altar.
2. Martin Luther, by Martin Brecht
The history of the Lutheran Church, like any history, is complex. But that history really begins with Martin Luther’s life and work. There are many excellent Luther biographies, but the most comprehensive is Martin Brecht’s Martin Luther. Brecht’s research in these three volumes is the gold standard.
If you don’t have time for three volumes, Roland Bainton’s classic biography, Here I Stand, is an excellent introduction to Luther. It’s the one I have my teenage children read.
3. The Bondage of the Will, by Martin Luther
Since we are on the subject of Luther, some primary reading beyond what is found in the Lutheran confessions would be instructive.
At the end of his life, Luther said that all of his books should be destroyed save the catechisms and The Bondage of the Will (De Servo Arbitrio), his great treatise written in response to Erasmus of Rotterdam’s The Freedom of the Will. This work is “heavy lifting” for those not versed in theology, but it puts on display the strength of Luther’s evangelical theology and his clarity about the distinction between God’s Law and Gospel. A very helpful version, which includes Erasmus’s text, is available here.
4. The Church Postils, by Martin Luther
The Lutheran Reformation advanced into cities and towns in Germany and throughout Europe through preaching. Many preachers in smaller towns were not equipped to consistently write their own sermons. To help them, Luther, with the help of his colleagues and students, put together sermon collections. These collections, known as postils, were used to educate both clergy and laity, and they served as a powerful medium to spread Lutheran teaching on the whole council of God.
Luther’s postils were some of his most influential work, if one considers the frequency of republications. Besides his translation of the Bible, Luther’s sermon collections were his most widely read books. The Lutheran tradition cannot be very well understood without these, because they demonstrate how Luther taught others to interpret Holy Scripture. These sermons follow the traditional lectionary or set readings for the liturgical calendar of the Western church.
5. Letters of Spiritual Counsel, by Martin Luther
Luther is well-known as a firebrand: the great Reformer who dismantled opponents and inaugurated a new epoch of the church centered on grace alone. To know him well, however, one must meet Luther the pastor and the Seelsorger, the caretaker of souls. His Letters of Spiritual Counsel, edited by Theodore Tappert, are a fabulous collection of Luther’s letters to the despondent and depressed. They allow people to get to know the real Luther, who is tremendously funny and singularly wise in giving counsel from Holy Scripture.
6. Examination of the Council of Trent, by Martin Chemnitz
Because Lutheran theology emerged out of the theological conflict with Rome, there is no better way to know the details of that conflict (which remains still today) than to read the Lutheran response to the Council of Trent. Martin Chemnitz, one of the architects of the Formula of Concord and a member of the second generation of Lutherans in the sixteenth century, wrote in these four volumes arguably the greatest presentation of Lutheran theology in contrast to Rome.
7. Commonplaces of Theology, by Johann Gerhard
Another great light of the Lutheran Church and arguably the greatest theologian in the Age of Orthodoxy is Johann Gerhard (1582–1637). At the age of twenty one, he wrote the bestselling devotional book of the seventeenth century, titled Sacred Meditations. (I will say more about that below.) In the dogmatic tradition, Gerhard’s Loci Theologici or Commonplaces of Theology are a standard in Lutheran polemical theology.
Polemical theology was really an attempt by theologians to understand their own theology over and against other confessions. Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists were all involved in this project. Gerhard, with extreme learning, shows the ways that Lutherans confess the faith in contrast to other confessions.
I consider his Loci Theologici to be a “top Lutheran book” because it is difficult to understand Lutherans without a full appreciation for their insistence on doctrinal clarity and the authority of Holy Scripture. Concordia Publishing House has recently made this collection available in English. If you have to read just one, I suggest Gerhard’s volume On the Nature of Theology and on Holy Scripture.
8. Seventeenth-Century Lutheran Meditations and Hymns, edited by Eric Lund
Many have thought that seventeenth-century orthodoxy was a stuffy expression of Christianity: dry, doctrinaire, and boring. If you get through Gerhard’s Loci, one may see how the erudition of Lutheran theology could be perceived as overly exact.
Eric Lund’s collection of primary texts from Johann Gerhard, Heinrich Müller (1631–1675), and Christian Scriver (1629–1693) proves otherwise. Gerhard’s Meditations are beautiful, rich expressions of Lutheran theology. In them, he weds doctrinal clarity and heartfelt piety that found reception not only in Germany and continental Europe, but also in England. Lund also includes samples from Müller and Scriver, who represent, like Gerhard, a combination of doctrinal clarity and concern for true faith and personal piety.
9. Law and Gospel: How to Read and Apply the Bible, by C. F. W. Walther
This is a collection of C. F. W. Walther’s Friday-evening lectures to his students at Concordia Seminary. Walther shows how Lutheran theology is to be communicated in the proclamation of Law and Gospel from the pulpit and in the care of souls. Walther clearly aims at training his seminarians to be faithful and winsome preachers. But the broad scope of his lectures addresses nearly all aspects of Lutheran theology.
10. The Lonely Way, by Hermann Sasse
One of my professors at seminary told me that if you read more Sasse, you will become more Lutheran. He was right.
Sasse was a tireless defender of the Lutheran confessions in ecumenical dialogue and in world Lutheranism. These essays and letters to pastors (volume 1, volume 2) deal with a variety of topics in New Testament studies, Lutheran confessional theology, church fellowship questions, and the Lutheran liturgical heritage. His deep understanding of the Lutheran tradition and its history made him a most competent commentator and guide to confessional Lutheran theology in this past century.
11. Hammer of God, by Bo Giertz
Swedish Bishop Bo Giertz shows how Lutheran theology is both intellectually demanding and applicable to everyday life.
In his beautifully written collection of three novellas about a country parish in Sweden, he shows how God’s Word endures in every age. His book series follows a Lutheran parish across the major movements that influenced the Lutheran Church of Sweden and the rest of Europe (i.e., Rationalism, Pietism, and Liberalism). Giertz’s book is a classic of Lutheran fiction that shows God’s faithfulness to his people and his pastors, and the power of his Word to produce repentance in sinners by the hammer of the Law and to create in them faith in Christ by the sweet promise of the Gospel.
12. Life Together, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Written during Bonhoeffer’s leadership of an underground seminary during the Nazi regime, Bonhoeffer instructs readers in what it means for a community to live under the Word of God.
Lutherans are sometimes associated with a kind of individualism, as if the only thing that matters is the believing individual before God. Bonhoeffer shows how Lutheran doctrine impacts God’s people in community, which to be a Christian community must live by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
13. The Spirituality of the Cross, by Gene Edward Veith
Following the model of C. S. Lewis, Gene Edward Veith, a Lutheran professor of English literature, gives readers a very accessible introduction to Lutheran theology. I would give this book, along with the Small Catechism, to anyone who is looking for a primer to the Lutheran faith. If readers knew next to nothing about what Lutherans believe, I would urge them to begin here. (Note: Logos only carries the audio of this resource. You can buy the book from CPH.)
14. The Care of Souls, by Harold L. Senkbeil
This book is really for pastors. Time will tell if it becomes a Lutheran classic. But it expresses so well what is at the center of pastoral care and the life of a Lutheran congregation. Senkbeil deals with hard and real pastoral situations that arise in the care of souls and applies the balm of God’s Word to them.
English (US) · 