The debate over the Lord's Supper had momentous consequences for the Reformation, causing the division of the evangelical movement, influencing the formation of political alliances, and contributing to cultural differences among the Protestant territories of Germany and Switzerland. Karlstadt and the Origins of the Eucharistic Controversy is the first full-length study of the beginning of that debate. Going beyond the traditional focus on Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli, it emphasizes the diversity of the "sacramentarian" challenge to traditional belief in Christ's corporeal presence in the bread and wine of the Eucharist, and it re-evaluates the significance of Luther's colleague, Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt, for the debate. Burnett describes Luther's earliest criticisms of the mass and the efforts in Wittenberg to reform liturgical praxis to correspond with his ideas. She then looks at pamphlets written by other reformers to show how Luther's understanding of the sacrament was adapted and modified outside of Wittenberg. Ultimately, Burnett shows how Karlstadt's eucharistic pamphlets introduced into the public debate arguments that would become standard Reformed criticisms of the Lutheran position. The book also demonstrates the influence not only of Erasmus but also of John Wyclif and the Hussites for discussions of the sacrament, highlights the role of the reformers of Basel and Strasbourg for developing the "Zwinglian" understanding of the Lord's Supper, and draws attention to the early eucharistic theology of the Silesians Kaspar Schwenckfeld and Valentin Krautwald. This book will be an indispensable guide for readers seeking to understand the issues surrounding the outbreak of the eucharistic controversy in the sixteenth century.

In the five hundred years since the publication of Martin Luther's Ninety- Five Theses, a rich set of traditions have grown up around that action and the subsequent events of the Reformation. This up-to-date dictionary by leading theologians and church historians covers Luther's life and thought, key figures of his time, and the various traditions he continues to influence. Prominent scholars of the history of Lutheran traditions have brought together experts in church history representing a variety of Christian perspectives to offer a major, cutting-edge reference work. Containing nearly six hundred articles, this dictionary provides a comprehensive overview of Luther's life and work and the traditions emanating from the Wittenberg Reformation. It traces the history, theology, and practices of the global Lutheran movement, covering significant figures, events, theological writings and ideas, denominational subgroups, and congregational practices that have constituted the Lutheran tradition from the Reformation to the present day.

Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt played a key role in the development of the evangelical understanding of the Lord's Supper. In 1521 he wrote several pamphlets urging a reform of the Mass. In 1524 he broke with Martin Luther and published a second group of pamphlets rejecting the traditional belief in Christ's corporeal presence in the Eucharist. Despite the importance of Karlstadt's tracts, they are little known today, and his understanding of the Lord's Supper is often reduced to a caricature. For the first time, Amy Nelson Burnett translates his thirteen pamphlets into English, illuminating Karlstadt's importance for the Reformation debate over the Eucharist and his contribution to what would become Reformed sacramental theology.

When Martin Luther mounted his challenge to the Catholic Church, reform stimulated a range of responses, including radical solutions such as those proposed by theologians of the Anabaptist movement. But how did ordinary Anabaptists, men and women, grapple with the theological and emotional challenges of the Lutheran Reformation? Anabaptism developed along unique lines in the Lutheran heartlands in central Germany, where the movement was made up of scattered groups and did not centre on charismatic leaders as it did elsewhere. Ideas were spread more often by word of mouth than by print, and many Anabaptists had uneven attachment to the movement, recanting and then relapsing. Historiography has neglected Anabaptism in this area, since it had no famous leaders and does not seem to have been numerically strong. Baptism, Brotherhood, and Belief challenges these assumptions, revealing how Anabaptism's development in central Germany was fundamentally influenced by its interaction with Lutheran theology. In doing so, it sets a new agenda for understandings of Anabaptism in central Germany, as ordinary individuals created new forms of piety which mingled ideas about brotherhood, baptism, the Eucharist, and gender and sex. Anabaptism in this region was not an isolated sect but an important part of the confessional landscape of the Saxon lands, and continued to shape Lutheran pastoral affairs long after scholarship assumed it had declined. The choices these Anabaptist men and women made sat on a spectrum of solutions to religious concerns raised by the Reformation. Understanding their decisions, therefore, provides new insights into how religious identities were formed in the Reformation era.

Called: Recovering Lutheran Principles for Ministry and Vocation explores vocation and the call to ministry from a Lutheran perspective and reveals their promise for the wider church. It offers a foundation and clarity for those considering the office of rostered ministry, while encouraging all believers to live their spiritual priesthood and faith vocation by responding to the gospel's call to love and serve the neighbor. The book has two main parts: The first part provides a historical overview of the inner call to ministry in the European and American contexts. This inner call in Lutheranism was encouraged by pietist leaders and later required by orthodox writers. In the American context, nineteenth-century Lutherans in the Muhlenberg tradition gave unprecedented emphasis to inner call, and Midwest confessionalists continued the tradition of encouraging inner call while treating it separately from the "regular call." Both streams flowed into the twentieth century as the church experienced mergers and addressed the ordination of women. The second part of the book provides a Lutheran theology of vocation and ministry, with chapters on vocation, ministerial call, and lay ministry. The importance of external factors is applied to the calling to the office of ministry, with applications for clergy commitment and mission, and to the priesthood of all believers, with applications for the mission of the church in an era of institutional decline. The book aims to support pastors and others considering rostered ministry and helps thoughtful lay readers support ordained ministry while discovering their own rights and duties to minister. Called will be especially helpful for congregational call committees and denominational ministry candidacy committees.

Susan Schreiner’s students and colleagues explore the themes of Scriptural exegesis, authority, and the certainty or doubt of salvation in the early modern era and beyond.

Bryan Spinks is one of the world’s leading scholars in the field of liturgy and to have a comprehensive work by him on the Eucharist is a major catch for SCM. Like the author’s previous work on Baptism, this will become a standard work about the Eucharist and Eucharistic theology worldwide. The book, a study of the history and theology of the Eucharist, is the fifth volume in the SCM Studies in Worship and Liturgy series and will help to establish the series as a place for landmark books of liturgical scholarship.