Søren Kierkegaard denounced nineteenth-century Danish Lutheranism for exploiting Martin Luther's doctrine of justification "without works" as justification for an antinomian easy life. Kierkegaard saw his own writing as a corrective: “I have wanted to prevent people in ‘Christendom’ from existentially taking in vain Luther and the significance of Luther's life.” In 1847, Kierkegaard began an eight-year reading of Luther’s sermons, forking through them for extracts to confirm his theological corrective rather than to comprehend the breadth of Luther’s thought. While he found much to laud, Kierkegaard also found much to lance, privately commenting that Luther was partially responsible for what he considered the problematic Lutheranism of his own day. Furthermore, David Coe argues, Kierkegaard was unaware that his copy of Luther's church and house postils was a heavily abridged edition of extracts from those postils. Therefore, his appraisal of Luther begs to be investigated. Kierkegaard and Luther examines the Luther sermons Kierkegaard read, what he praised and criticized, missed, and misjudged of Luther, and spotlights the concord these two Lutheran giants actually shared, namely, the negative yet necessary role that Christian suffering (Anfechtung/Anfægtelse) plays in Christian faith and life.

Journalist and spiritual seeker Philip Yancey has always struggled with the most basic questions of the Christian faith. The question he tackles in What Good Is God? concerns the practical value of belief in God. His search for the answer to this question took him to some amazing settings around the world: Mumbai, India when the firing started during the terrorist attacks; at the motel where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated; on the Virginia Tech campus soon after the massacre; an AA convention; and even to a conference for women in prostitution. At each of the ten places he visited, his preparation for the visit and exactly what he said to the people he met each provided evidence that faith really does work when what we believe is severely tested. What Good Is God? tells the story of Philip's journey -- the background, the preparation, the presentations themselves. Here is a story of grace for armchair travelers, spiritual seekers, and those in desperate need of assurance that their faith really matters.

This important work not only contributes to understanding the origins and character of John's christological tensions, but it also outlines a new set of theories regarding several innovative dialogical approaches to the Johannine text. In his new introduction to this edition, Anderson engages constructively the responses of his reviewers and outlines his own theories regarding John's dialogical autonomy. Posing a comprehensive new synthesis regarding John's composition, situation history, relations to Synoptic traditions, agency Christology, historicity, and theological tensions, Anderson here summarizes his most significant theories published since it first appeared. In so doing, advances suggested by this pivotal text are laid out in a new set of paradigms addressing the Johannine riddles in fuller detail.