Many scholars assume that Luther advocates for a Christian life in which human beings are always passive recipients of God’s grace as it is delivered in preaching, and mere instruments through which God works to serve their neighbors. The Work of Faith: Divine Grace and Human Agency in Martin Luther's Preaching offers a different reading of Luther’s views on human agency by drawing on a fresh source: Luther’s preaching. Using Luther’s sermons in the Church Postil as a primary source, Justin Nickel argues that Martin Luther preached as though Christians have real, if secondary, agency in the lives they lead before God and neighbor. As a result, Nickel presents a Luther substantively concerned with how Christians lead their lives.
Оглавление
Justin Nickel. The Work of Faith
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter Outline and Brief Comments on Genre
Notes
Ethos unto Death
A Common Picture
Lutheran Confirmation
Widening the Circle: Lutheran Responses
The Moral Life and its Terms
Conclusion
Notes
These Divine Words
Language: Human and/or Divine
Luther the Preacher
Notes
A Believer’s Agency
Weak Disciples, Strong Desires
Rhetorical and Faithful Agency
How to Recognize a Preacher
Is Not That a Masterpiece?
Rhetoric and the Grace of Agency
Conclusion
Notes
Of Prisons and Palaces
A Relentless Good
The Law’s Power and Our Own
Prisons Turned to Paradise
Sweeping Out Sin
The Law and Love
The Example of Self Love
Crooked Hearts and Bending Roads
Conclusion
Notes
Ethos unto Life
Luther as Forgiven Rhetorician
Christian Lives and Graced Agency
Sin’s Endurance and Preaching as Social Critique
Conclusion
Notes
Epilogue
Note
Bibliography. Abbreviations of Major Works
Primary Texts by Martin Luther
Secondary Texts
Index
About the Author
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I owe a great many people my gratitude for their help and support on this book. John Bowlin offered detailed comments on two different manuscript drafts. Lois Malcolm, Stacy Johnson, and Kenneth Appold commented on the first manuscript and pushed it forward in helpful directions. Jeffrey Skaff, Cambria Kaltwasser, and Daniel Pedersen commented on specific chapters. Anthony Bateza mentored and encouraged this work. My mother, Mary Nickel, copy-edited the whole manuscript. My editor, Neil Elliott, has been incredibly supportive throughout the publishing process. Robert and Blanche Jenson, the former now of blessed memory, supported me with weekly conversation, to say nothing of the coffee and cookies. I was able to test out some of this and related material in the Christian Spirituality section of the American Academy of Religion, the Society for Christian Ethics, and the New Jersey Synod of the ELCA. Thanks to all for your reception of these ideas. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for helping me sharpen my argument. There were many friends whose love and kindness help me along the way, Luke Zerra and Stephanie Mota-Thurston in particular: thank you. Finally, my most heartfelt gratitude to my wife, Mary, and my son, Max. Mary is my toughest critic and fiercest advocate. Max is my heart. Their love makes it worth it.
I have quoted numerous passages from volumes 76 and 77 of Luther’s Works, both volumes copyright 2014 Concordia Publishing House, with kind permission of the press.
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Ernst Troeltsch, The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches v. II, trans. Olive Wyon (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), pp. 515–544. Stanley Hauerwas, Character and the Christian Life: A Study in Theological Ethics (San Antonio, TX: Trinity University Press, 1985), pp. 3–10; H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ & Culture (New York: Harper & Row, 1951), pp. 149–189; Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man, v. 2 (New York: Charles Schribner's Sons, 1949), pp. 185–198.
