In 2009, my colleague Theodor Dieter and I started teaching a two-week course every November on Luther’s theology, for Lutheran pastors from all over the world, in no less venerable a location than Wittenberg itself. We approached the first year with post-Christendom and post-colonial qualms. Did Luther have anything to say to people anymore? Was it pure anachronistic antiquarianism on our part still to love him? Did we have any business inflicting Luther on Africans struggling with malaria and tremendous political violence, or on Asians negotiating a level of religious plurality unimaginable to North Atlantic Christians like ourselves?
Over the past six years, we have been astonished—and certainly relieved—to find that Luther sounds as contemporaneous as ever. The force of the response is the same year after year. Some participants meet afresh a Luther who cuts through the obfuscating fuddle of five centuries of Lutheranism. Others discover a new guide to ancient religious problems that took shape outside the orbit of European culture. Luther’s way of speaking the gospel—of Christ as gift and sacrament before he is example and teacher—transgresses the obstacles of the centuries with astounding ease.
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