Concordia Theological Monthly
Article Title
Publication Date
5-1-1947
Document Type
Article
Keywords
luther, melanchthon, german, doctrine, humanistic, lutheran, reuchlin, humanism
Submission Type
Bible Study; Lecture; Sermon Prep
Abstract
Luther's Reformation was a movement of truly spiritual vitality. He restored to light some of the most powerful impulses of the Christian religion - salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, the royal priesthood of all believers, the divinity of the Christian calling. Somewhere around 1525, however, this vitality seems to wane. The German princes begin to dominate in the Lutheran movement, and they retain most of the pagan characteristics of their contemporaries. Theologians expend their best efforts in many decades of acrimonious controversy. The German people lag behind their neighbors in cultural and political progress, almost succumb to the ravages of the Thirty Years' War, in subsequent centuries embark on intellectual and political programs which have little relation to the heart of Luther, and in our time undergo a collapse against which the nominal Lutheranism of their nation offered little resistance.
Disciplines
History of Christianity
Submission Cost
Free
Submission Audience
Laity; Ministers; Scholars
Recommended Citation
Craemerer, Richard
(1947)
"The Melanchthonian Blight,"
Concordia Theological Monthly: Vol. 18, Article 28.
Available at:
https://scholar.csl.edu/ctm/vol18/iss1/28
