God's Masks

I just posted my book God's Masks on the doctrine of the two kingdoms as taught by Martin Luther in the documents sections of this site. Feel free to download and read it. This book summarizes my research on this highly important doctrine and its place in Luther's theology. The research summarized in this book will serve as the basis for future blog posts and discussions on what it means to be a Christian in the United States today.

If you want to read the book but are not familiar with Luther's theology, I'd recommend that you start at the end of the book where I summarize what Luther says on the doctrine of the two kingdoms on a few pages.

If that's piqued your interest, you can use the pretty detailed table of contents as a roadmap to find the parts that interest you and go there next. Perhaps that's the historical context in which Luther formulated the basic distinction of the two kingdoms. Perhaps that's the basic distinction itself as Luther laid it out in his 1523 treatise on the origin, role, and limits of political government. Perhaps that's the section where I discuss how Luther defined what a "virtuous government" should look like. Perhaps it's the part where I talk about the importance of love, prudence, and equity when it comes to living in the world. Perhaps that's the part where I discuss a couple important German Lutheran theologians from the 20th century to see how they grappled with the challenges posed by National Socialism.

As you can see, there's plenty of material in this book! The longer I worked on it, the more helpful I found Luther's approach when it comes to navigating today's society as a Christian. Perhaps you'll come to the same conclusion.

A complementary way of approaching this big topic is to get a copy of Luther's 1523 treatise and read that for yourself before coming back to my book. You can get a free copy of this seminal treatise in an accessible translation from my friends at Lutheran Press by clicking here. If that makes you want to know more about this topic from Luther's perspective, my book would be a good way to proceed.

Anyway, I'll be blogging on individual parts and topics in this book in a way that's more accessible to those who are not too familiar with Luther's theology or who are perhaps intimidated by footnotes, German, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.

So, stay tuned! More to come soon.