Encounters with Luther offers in one volume original primary research from an international and ecumenical pool of scholars. It examines Luther and Lutheran theological traditions along with their historical foundations and with a focus on relevant contemporary issues and ecumenical collegiality. Topics range from sacraments and marriage to violence and gender and sexuality to spiritual care, politics, and suffering. Chapters are based on the annual Luther Colloquy proceedings at Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg. The articles represent a diverse range of authors and methodologies that reward readers with relevant and genuinely contemporary and practical applications of Luther's thought. Contributors: B. A. Gerrish, Mary Jane Haemig, Douglass John Hall, Stanley Hauerwas, Kurt K. Hendel, Hans J. Hillerbrand, Eero Huovinen, Denis R. Janz, Peter D. S. Krey, Volker Leppin, Carter Lindberg, Anna Madsen, Mickey L. Mattox, Surekha Nelavala, Brooks Schramm, Kirsi I. Stjerna, Deanna A. Thompson, Vitor Westhelle, and John Witte Jr.

The place and significance of Martin Luther in the long history of Christian anti-Jewish polemic has been and continues to be a contested issue. The literature on the subject is substantial, and diverse. While efforts to exonerate Luther as merely a man of his times who merely perpetuated what he had received from his cultural and theological tradition have rightly been jettisoned, there still persists even among the educated public the perception that the truly problematic aspects of Luthers anti-Jewish attitudes are confined to the final stages of his career. It is true that Luthers anti-Jewish rhetoric intensified toward the end of his life, but reading Luther with a careful eye toward the Jewish question, it becomes clear that Luthers theological presuppositions toward Judaism and the Jewish people are a central, core component of his thought throughout his career, not just at the end. It follows then that it is impossible to understand the heart and building blocks of Luthers theology (justification, faith, liberation, salvation, grace) without acknowledging the crucial role of the Jews in his fundamental thinking.

In several places in Isaiah 56-66 a group of Israelites is accused of engaging in various forms of aberrant religious practice: the sacrifice of children, the eating of swine, participation in fertility rites, the practice of necromancy, offering sacrifice to deities known as Gad and Meni, and a host of other things. Who are these people? Certainly not the Zadokite priesthood, as Paul Hanson claimed in his The Dawn of Apocalyptic. More likely argues Schramm, they are simply traditional syncretistic Yahwists.>

This is an important study of spirituality in a world of confused and conflicting definitions of “ the spiritual.” Christian spirituality flows from an understanding of who God is and how God acts in creation. It is a personal and communal recognition of God in one's life and a life awareness and celebration of that presence of God. Anyone who wonders how the Christian faith shapes life will find a great value in this book.