 | Gift and Promise: The Augsburg Confession and the Heart of Christian Theology Gift and Promise shows how the theology of the Augsburg Confession is a gift for the world today. In the first three chapters, Edward Schroeder traces the "hub" of the Augsburg Confessionthe promise of justification by faith aloneto its source in Luther's theology of the cross. The subsequent nine chapters demonstrate how that central hub is articulated in the various articles of faith that comprise the Augsburg Confession. Each of the nine chapters is written by a distinguished theologian, historian, or scholar who was a student of Schroeder. In his foreword, Matthew Becker points to the significance of Schroeder's insights for theological study today as well as for the observance of 500th anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation. In the course of these pages, the Trinity, sin, ethics, mission, and other topics are thus illumined as arenas in which the gospel promise is a gift for ministry and life today. Edward H. Schroeder is a professor and teacher of theology at Valparaiso University, Concordia Seminary and Christ Seminary-Seminex in St. Louis. From 1983-1993 he directed the Crossings Community, an ecumenical, international theological educational venture dedicated to "Christian ministry in daily life." Ronald Neustadt is an ELCA parish pastor who teaches systematic theology at the Lutheran School of Theology in St. Louis, Missouri. Stephen Hitchcock is the senior manager of special projects for Bread for the World. |
