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Lutheranism: Centuries
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Lutheranism did not and could not live only by the teaching of its professors. In the late 17th century its more gentle side, which grew out of the piety of Luther, appeared in the form of a movement called Pietism. Nominally orthodox in belief and practice, the Pietists stressed Bible reading, circles of prayer and devotion, and the works of love. This pietism was somewhat unstable; in its downgrading of doctrine it helped prepare Lutherans for the age of Enlightenment, when many leaders and some of the faithful turned to rationalism. Subsequently, theology under Lutheran influence has often taken on a radical character, especially in Germany. As a result, there is often a considerable gap between intellectual expressions of Lutheranism and the liturgy and preaching of its congregations.
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Lutheranism remained a conservative force in the 1920s and Lutherans remained rural-oriented, though there was a shift in mission work toward recovering unchurched Lutherans in the cities and the Northwest. After disputes within the National Lutheran Council, moderate midwestern synods formed the American Lutheran Conference, banning cooperation with other Protestants and restricting altars and pulpits, and in 1930 they merged into the American Lutheran Church. The Great Depression of 1929 dramatically reduced budgets and prompted calls for collective social responsibility. The Lutheran Home Missions Council of America was formed to transcend ethnic boundaries and allow for a degree of altar and pulpit fellowship, but most Lutheran churches in the mid– twentieth century remained committed to the confessional viewpoint. The outbreak of war in 1941 gave new life to the National Lutheran Council, which recruited chaplains, supported orphan missions, and ministered to armed forces personnel.
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These doctrines of Lutheranism were subject to a variegated history in the centuries following the Reformation era. In the seventeenth century they were elaborated in a scholastic mold. Lutheran orthodoxy, whose classical period began about the year 1600, was an extension of the tradition represented by the Lutheran confessional writings. It was... profoundly influenced by the neo Aristotelianism which had secured a foothold in the German universities. This German scholastic philosophy accented the intellectual strain which characterized Lutheran orthodoxy and prompted a more pronounced scientific and metaphysical treatment of theological questions. However, scholastic methodology did not lead to the surrender of Lutheran emphasis on the Bible.
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Lutheranism did not and Could not live only by the teaching of its professors. In the late 17th century its more gentle side, which grew out of the piety of Luther, appeared in the form of a movement called PIETISM. Nominally
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Lutheranism in the main experienced the same fate as most other branches of Christianity during the early modern period. By the end of the eighteenth century, true religion had retreated from the public sphere into the private. Whereas the "two kingdoms" through which God ruled his creation—the world of daily affairs in politics, society, and business, and the world of faith—had once served one another, by the end of early modern times, the kingdom of the world had come to dominate. Lutheranism in both its Orthodox and Pietist forms ... abandoned the public sphere to a heretofore-unknown realm of religious indeterminacy, and it did so well before the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. By their own doing, Lutherans turned true religion into a private matter that was by and large excluded from the "real world" of politics, business, and society. Christendom had died.
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Author Werner Elert analyzes Lutheranism's theology and philosophy of life during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He combines historical criticism and analysis as he examines Luther's theology and emphasizes its stability throughout his early and later life.
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