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

by Michael S. Whiting (Author)

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.

Author Biography

Michael S. Whiting received his PhD in theology from the University of Wales, Lampeter. He has taught courses on the Reformation and the global history of Christianity as an adjunct professor in the United States and Africa. He is a regular contributor to Reformation and Renaissance Review: Journal of the Society for Reformation Studies.