Luther in English

The Influence of His Theology of Law and Gospel on Early English Evangelicals (1525-35)

Whiting

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2010
• eBook ISBN: 9781498271868
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Recent studies have increasingly downplayed, and in a few cases even wholly denied, the influence of Martin Luther's theology of Law and Gospel on early English evangelicals such as William Tyndale. The impact of a late medieval Augustinian renaissance, Erasmian Humanism, the Reformed tradition, and Lollardy have all but eclipsed the more central role once attributed to Luther. Whiting reexamines these claims with a thorough reevaluation of Luther's theology of Law and Gospel in its historical context spanning twenty-five years, something entirely lacking in all previous studies. Based on extensive research in the primary sources, with acute attention to the larger historical narrative and in dialogue with secondary scholarship, Whiting argues that scholars have often oversimplified Luther's theology of Law and Gospel and have thus wrongly diminished his very significant, even principal, influence upon first-generation evangelicals William Tyndale, John Frith, and Robert Barnes during the English Reformation of the 1520s and 30s.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction: Luther and the English Evangelical Reformers in Retrospect
• Chapter 1: “Lex Sola Accusat”?
• Chapter 2: Law and Gospel in Luther’s “Breakthrough Years” and Early Lectures on the Bible (1513–1519)
• Chapter 3: Combating Legalism and Lawlessness
• Chapter 4: Law and Gospel in Luther’s Later Years and His Dispute with the Antinomians (1530–1540)
• Chapter 5: After Lollardy and Humanism
• Chapter 6: Law and Gospel in the Theology of William Tyndale
• Chapter 7: Law and Gospel in the Theology of John Frith
• Chapter 8: Law and Gospel in the Theology of Dr. Robert Barnes
• Conclusion: Reassessing the Influence of Luther’s Theology of Law and Gospel on Early English Evangelicals
• Bibliography