Jesus' particular Jewish existence (his human nature) and his universal transcendence (his divine nature) are brought together here in the construction of a Christology that proposes the equality, unity, and full participation of both natures. Using frameworks from multicultural theory, it identifies the processes by which Christologies have historically negotiated difference in the Incarnation, and explains why uniting the two natures of Christ consistently and problematically supplants Jesus' Jewishness. This conceptual framework unites the two natures without sublimating their differences, by proposing a contextual universalism. 'Overlapping membership' offers the means whereby the particular, Jewish, human nature and the universal, divine nature of Jesus Christ engage in an ongoing dialogue and formation in the one person of the Incarnation. This work offers a new way of understanding the two natures of Christ that brings together historical understandings with contemporary contextual Christologies, enabling us to find a way to understand Christ as both truly human and fully divine.

Contributors to this book analyze areas of Martin Luther’s and Lutheran theology that have otherwise been neglected or under-represented in the five hundred years since the Reformation. They widen the scope of Luther and Lutheran theology by viewing both from the perspectives of the “subaltern,” those whose voices are barely or rarely heard. The book formulates an inclusive Lutheran theology that reaches out but does not close out. The book’s sections address “Precarious Life,” from Luther’s own precarious existence as an outlaw under a death sentence; “Body and Gender,” addressing different aspects of gender and sexuality; “Women and Sexual Abuse,” focusing on Luther’s exegesis of biblical “texts of terror”; and “Economy, Equality, and Equity,” addressing Lutheran views on economy and equality that break new ground regarding common goods and the Anthropocene.

Jesus' particular Jewish existence (his human nature) and his universal transcendence (his divine nature) are brought together here in the construction of a Christology that proposes the equality, unity, and full participation of both natures. Using frameworks from multicultural theory, it identifies the processes by which Christologies have historically negotiated difference in the Incarnation, and explains why uniting the two natures of Christ consistently and problematically supplants Jesus' Jewishness. This conceptual framework unites the two natures without sublimating their differences, by proposing a contextual universalism. 'Overlapping membership' offers the means whereby the particular, Jewish, human nature and the universal, divine nature of Jesus Christ engage in an ongoing dialogue and formation in the one person of the Incarnation. This work offers a new way of understanding the two natures of Christ that brings together historical understandings with contemporary contextual Christologies, enabling us to find a way to understand Christ as both truly human and fully divine.