Abstract
This is a challenging book for an academic to review, for one of its fundamental premises is the denial of any privileged reading to professional interpreters or historians. In their collaborative work (chapters 1, 3, 5, and 7 are by García, and chapters 2, 4, 6, and 8 by Nunes), García and Nunes draw on Martin Luther’s work to affirm the theological power and significance of the experience of the marginalised, which in this case means primarily the so-called Latino population in the USA. Their intention, as becomes clear towards the end of their book (in a passage which might usefully have been placed much earlier), is to engage with ‘an epistemological and ontological challenge: deliberation about diversity should be rooted in material from within one’s own tradition; interpreters keen for a convivial future should be redemptive re-translators of their own theological heritage spoken anew in application to today’s pluralistic context’ (pp. 141–2). For both García and Nunes, that tradition and context is Lutheran. They seek here to draw on Luther’s theology to give voice to the marginalised, whom the mainstream churches, including the Lutheran churches, all too often stifle or silence.
This wholly admirable aim inevitably speaks primarily into its own context, which is far from that in which I write. Moreover, although Scotland—like the UK in general—is certainly home to many marginalised groups with whom the mainstream churches are largely failing to engage, it is not clear that Luther’s theology will be of much help. To apply the principles set out by García and Nunes, it would be necessary in the Presbyterian Scottish context to rediscover the inclusive core of Knox’s theology, or of the theology of the Westminster Confession, and in the Church of England or Scottish Episcopal context to delve more deeply into the Anglican tradition. García and Nunes would probably argue that this is a feasible proposition, as shown by the burgeoning growth of Anglican and Presbyterian churches in the two-thirds world, but I was left with the suspicion that it might prove even more challenging—and feel even more forced—than their own explication of Luther’s theology of justification by faith for those one the margins.
There are some important insights here, including García and Nunes’s appeal to Jaroslav Pelikan’s distinction between ‘tradition (the deceased’s living faith) and traditionalism (the dead faith of those who are alive)’ (p. 34), and, most importantly, their explication of the close relationship between justification and justice: ‘To know the justice God has fully accomplished in Christ’s redemption is to know the person of Christ and his justification’ (p. 36). In order to embrace justification, therefore, ‘we must address and seek to dissipate our present atmosphere of exclusion’ (pp. 48–9). Communion and community are central to this vision: a community in which all people are welcomed and recognised to be made in God’s image. I remained (and remain) unconvinced that this was how Luther understood justification: his focus was on the God-given order of society in which each had his or her place, and woe betide any who sought to change that. Read not as a commentary on Luther, but rather as a theological vision for a more inclusive world, this slim volume has much to offer.