Senkbeil, Harold L. “Engaging Our Culture Faithfully.” Concordia Journal. 40.1 (2014): 292-314.
Seventeen years ago, I delivered a set of Reformation lectures on Luther and the Fanatics, tracing that theme from the tumultuous years of the Reformation to the era of Pietism and the influence of American Evangelicalism on twentieth-century Lutherans. In my first lecture I said that due to the inroads of American Evangelicalism, confessional Lutheranism was looking death in the face. Now whatever you may think about the validity of that brash statement, I believe you will agree that while the Lutheran Church is not exactly dead, it is starting to look a little pale around the gills…