Gift and Promise: The Augsburg Confession & the Heart of Christian Theology by Edward H. Schroeder (review)

With three chapters written by Seminex retiree Schroeder, and nine others from his students, this volume robustly and unguardedly presents the theology of the Augsburg Confession through the lens of Luther’s theology of the cross for today. It is a contemporary presentation of the theological legacy of the “promising tradition,” influenced by Werner Elert and articulated by the late Robert Bertram and his student Ed Schroeder. Appealingly, each chapter has a pastoral dimension. Six of the authors are pastors, including one ELCA bishop, four are teaching theologians, and one a law professor. Ever in these authors’ minds is the question: What makes Christ necessary? As long as humans believe that they have something to contribute to God, then Christ is not necessary. Hence, Schroeder begins with articulating the theology of the cross that describes how sinners “despair of themselves” when they realize they can claim no merit before God. Nothing other than God’s grace is left for them, and it is abundant in providing them new life (6).

With respect to the atonement Schroeder notes that against Anselm’s law-based theory, Christ simultaneously fulfills the law and abrogates it. Jesus dies for sinners but in executing Jesus the law opposes its own liege Lord. In so doing, it too must die, that is, suffer the consequences of its own sin (51). Refreshingly, Schroeder highlights Luther’s thinking that the resurrection is already beginning in human life: Christians are already “more than half” resurrected since they have a “defiant comfort” in Christ (57). For Arthur Repp, the triune God is not an expression of the hidden God (deus absconditus) but instead the God of the gospel since the trinity has made human salvation its mission (68). Feminist theologian Kit Kleinhans notes that whether humans sinfully establish themselves as the center of their world or whether they demurely establish someone else in that role “God is still displaced.” Hence, “When our loves are disordered, we fail to love God as God should be loved, and we also fail to love ourselves and our neighbors appropriately, whether too much or too little” (76). With respect to the oft-repeated charge that the atonement is “divine child abuse,” Kleinhans writes, “If our redemption could have been accomplished another way, if sin could have been cured by any other treatment plan, would not a wise and loving physician have done so?! Read backwards, from the perspective of faith, the death and resurrection of Christ witness that no other solution to the problem of human sin was possible” (79). With pastoral sensitivity, Marcus Felde examines the practice of ministry by a case study of marriage preparation. Leading pre-marriage counseling is not a task that many pastors relish, but Felde finds it an opportunity to teach justification by faith alone: “Christian righteousness, even within marriage, is not an endpoint but a starting point, a gift given us in our baptism” (94).

Steven Albertin highlights baptism as a way to revitalize mission and illustrates his stance with what he does best, offering a sermon on Mark 1:4–11. Bishop Marcus Lohrmann looks at Christology through the lens of the Gospel of Matthew accentuating that Christ is the Host at the Lord’s Table, noting that Jesus ate with tax collectors and sinners and that this holy meal ought to empower people to do their vocations in the world. Marie Failinger examines the ethics of the Augsburg Confession in light of the contemporary concerns for affirmative action. She concludes that human need, not sin, must be foremost in shaping secular law. To yield to racism in the long run is more damaging to humans than matters like murder (139). Michael Hoy notes that one does not need to be a Christian to be moral in society since ethic is grounded in reason, though works apart from faith cannot claim the “freedom...