If I were to write about the burdens of the preacher as I have experienced them and as I know them," declared Martin Luther, "I would scare everybody off."
A glance at 21st-century headlines about religion and the church would not have made Luther feel any better than he did in the 16th. We live in a context of ominous bulletins about the value and place of religion in society. Many people still believe in the classic secularization theory, that modernity inevitably entails the steady decline of religion.
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