Letters to Lutheran Pastors - Volume 2

Sasse’s letters challenge Lutheran churches to let their confession shape preaching, worship, and fellowship.

Written between 1951 and 1956, the letters and essays collected in Letters to Lutheran Pastors: Volume 2 address critical questions facing Lutheran churches in an era of doctrinal uncertainty and growing ecumenical activity. Engaging developments within the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, the Lutheran World Federation, and the wider church, Sasse evaluates contemporary debates in light of Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions.

In this volume, Sasse explores:

• The church’s unity in relation to the Gospel and the Sacraments
• The authority of Scripture and the enduring significance of the Lutheran Confessions
• Church fellowship, ecumenism, and confessional integrity
• Christ’s real presence in the Lord’s Supper and its implications for worship and fellowship
• Baptism, the ministry, the creeds, and the church’s witness in the modern world

Combining historical analysis with careful doctrinal argument, Sasse examines the challenges confronting confessional Lutheranism while warning against both doctrinal accommodation and legalistic orthodoxy. Again and again, he calls pastors and church leaders to repentance, renewed study of God’s Word, and confidence in the Gospel through which Christ preserves His church.

Edited and translated by Matthew C. Harrison, this volume provides pastors, seminarians, theologians, and students of Lutheran history with a significant collection of Sasse’s reflections on the church, its confession, and its life around Word and Sacrament.