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.

The title of this book plays upon the central place a theology of the cross holds in Lutheran theologies, especially potent in Luther's Heidelberg Disputation (1518). The 500th anniversary of this document coincided with the 70th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations wherein the preamble points to a global aspiration of a common good shaped by freedom, justice and peace. This book is located at the intersection of these two themes, asserting that the cross has material content in being the means by which Christ in suffering solidarity with individuals, communities, and the cosmos advances freedom, justice, and peace. Employing a variety of methods, and exploring a broad range of geographic locales, the contributors illumine the misuse of Reformation themes and offer a corrective in service of a common good that is publicly accountable and theologically sound. The book thereby explores how contemporary Lutheran theology has utility both for analyzing injustice and for advancing justice in local as well as global contexts.