Lutherrenaissance Past and Present ed. by Christine Helmer and Bo Kristian Holm (review)

This volume collects papers presented at recent conferences in Denmark and the USA dedicated to appraising the stature and role of Luther in the academy. The conference leaders, Christine Helmer and Bo Kristian Holm, think that if Luther is to receive greater public voice then he must have a presence in the academy and not merely churches. To that end, these essays assess the Lutherrenaissance in German and Scandinavian universities in the early twentieth century and what can be taken from that movement in today’s academy. Scholars associated with the Lutherrennaissance included Germans such as Karl Holl, Carl Stange, Emanuel Hirsch, Paul Althaus, Rudolf Hermann, Werner Elert, and Scandinavians such as Anders Nygren, Gustav Aulen, Ragnar Bring, and others. Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Hans Joachim Iwand also participated in these circles.

A persistent theme is the debate between Karl Holl and Ernst Troeltsch about whether or not, or to what degree, Luther’s theology contributed to modernity; Holl affirmed while Troeltsch denied the alleged contribution. In the first essay which offers an overview of the original Lutherrennaissance, Heinrich Assel notes that Karl Holl’s work sought a close reading of early Luther writings, especially the Lectures on Romans, in order to determine the nature of Luther’s Reformation “breakthrough.” For Holl, it was crucial to show that Luther’s affirmation of the conscience makes him a proto-modern thinker. Iwand built on Holl’s work by showing that the “theology of the cross” is a public theology which holds church and society accountable to one another (48). While some interpreters of the early Luther sought to find in him a forerunner to Nazi ideology, Iwand and others rejected this. Instead, they found in Luther a voice favorable to contemporary communitarianism, but not the individualism of a John Rawls (53). A theme examined by Christine Svinth-Vaerge Pöder and iterated in the essay by Bo Holm deals with the question of anti-eudaimonism (challenging that right action leads to well-being) in Holl’s Luther-interpretation. Holm thinks Holl has exaggerated the anti-eudaimonistic thrust of Luther since the “economy of exchange” that Luther employed assumed a level of mutuality even if it is Christ assuming human debts. Pöder’s claim is less ambitious, simply showing the Kantian roots of Holl’s interpretation of Luther’s ethics.

Peter Widmann offers an interpretation of Albrecht Ritschl for whom justification by grace through faith is to lead to reconciliation, not only between God and humans, but also humans with their fellow humans. Ritschl somewhat predates the Lutherrenaissance, but he was a premier Kantian theologian well-known to all Lutherrenaissance scholars. Else Marie Wiberg Pedersen shows how Lutherrenaissance scholars raised the question of the role of mysticism in Luther, particularly how Luther appropriated Tauler’s resignatio ad infernum, resigning oneself to damnation in light of God’s accusation against sin, but that such self-sacrifice allows one to be united to God’s will since it is akin to Christ (91). Peter Grove shows that Adolf von Harnack tended to see Luther as “Janus faced” with respect to modernity. Insofar as Luther centered his work in religious experience he is modern, but insofar as he appealed to Chalcedonian Christology and the real presence in the Lord’s Supper, he is medieval (113). By contrast, Holl presented a Luther for whom autonomy is even more important and more consistent than Kant since Luther’s ethics can affirm “freedom and joy of volition” (119) and not merely conforming to duty.

The second series of essays explores the relevance of the Lutherrenaissance for today’s academy. Jörg Lauster indicates that while Troeltsch found Luther to be thoroughly medieval, he was still loyal to Luther over Erasmus since Luther realized that there is a fragility in the harmony between human autonomy and grace (153). The late Ronald Thiemann shows that Charles Taylor’s figuration of Luther as a forefather of secularity is to be...