A More Radical Gospel: Essays on Eschatology, Authority, Atonement, and Ecumenism

Like many others, I read Forde's _Where God Meets Man_ back in college, and it blew my mind. His unmistakably Lutheran critique of Lutheranism showed me how the truth that never changes still speaks across the centuries. Here is a guy who takes the "difficult" topics from the tradition (eg. Law/Gospel - Justification - Predestination - Theology of the Cross) and shows how they can still and should still inform our thought today. Most importantly, Forde shows this in closer to natural English than almost any other theologian. That book was published back in the early 70's, and he has not stopped his work at all, and in this book two of his students have gathered together some of his best essays, talks, and sermons from the last thirty years. They are grouped topically into various categories and together with the introduction, provide a good one book overview of his thought. Since the essays are meant to stand by themselves, there can be significant overlap between them, but this often helps the reader see how these topics can and do overlap and gives hints of how to treat other topics from the same Christocentric perspective. Forde's Eschatology seems to have particularly developed since the 70's. I was aware of some of this from his sections of Braaten/Jenson _Christian Dogmatics_, but was not fully aware of how this had bloomed in his thought. While I do not view this book as quite as important as _Where God Meets Man_, it is still a powerful witness to an often ignored voice - namely our tradition. The essays are small enough and self contained enough that they stand on their own, but after reading them in book form, it turns into a Gospel voice that crys out to world the good news of our savior. Very much recomended. Thanks to Lutheran Quarterly, Eerdmans, and Professors Mattes and Paulson for this much needed book.