Lutheran Orthodoxy

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Lutheran orthodoxy was an era in the history of Lutheranism, which began in 1580 from the writing of the Book of Concord and ended at the Age of Enlightenment. Lutheran orthodoxy was parallelled by similar eras in Calvinism and tridentine Roman Catholicism after the Counter-Reformation.

1 Theology
2 Worship and spirituality
3 Evaluation of Lutheran orthodoxy
4 References
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Theology

The Book of Concord gave inner unity to Lutheranism, which had many controversies, mostly between Gnesio-Lutherans and Philippists in Roman Catholic outward pressure and in hidden crypto-Calvinistic influence. Theology became now more like stable theoretical defining. Scholastic paradigm was gradually adopted again for theological argumentation against Jesuits and it was finally established by Johann Gerhard. Abraham Calovius represents the climax of Lutheran scholasticism. Other orthodox Lutheran theologians were e.g. Martin Chemnitz, Leonhard Hutter, Jesper Rasmussen Brochmand, Salomo Glassius, Johann Conrad Dannhauer, Johannes Andreas Quenstedt, Johann Friedrich König and Johann Wilhelm Baier. Theological heritage of Philip Melanchthon rose up again in Helmstedt School and especially in theology of Georgius Calixtus, which caused Syncretistic Strife. Other theological issue was Crypto-Kenotic Controversy.^[1] The last famous orthodox Lutheran theologian before Enlightenment and Neology was David Hollatz. Late orthodox Valentin Ernst Löscher took part in controversy against Pietism.

[edit] Worship and spirituality

Congregations maintained the full Mass rituals in their normal worship as suggested by Luther. In his Hauptgottesdienst (Main Service of Worship), Holy Communion was celebrated on each Sunday and festival. The traditional parts of the service were retained. Services were conducted in vernacular language, but in Germany, Latin was also present in both the Ordinary and Proper parts of the service. This helped students maintain their familiarity with the language.^[2] As late as the time of Johann Sebastian Bach, churches in Leipzig still heard Polyphonic motets in Latin, Latin Glorias, chanted Latin collects and The Creed sung in Latin by the choir^[3]

Church music flourished and this era is considered as a "golden age" of Lutheran hymnody [1]. Some hymnwriters include Philipp Nicolai, Johann Heermann, Johann von Rist and Benjamin Schmolck in Germany, Haquin Spegel in Sweden, Thomas Hansen Kingo in Denmark, Petter Dass in Norway, Hallgrímur Pétursson in Iceland and Hemminki Maskulainen in Finland. The most famous orthodox Lutheran hymnwriter is Paul Gerhardt. Prominent church musicians and composers include Michael Praetorius, Melchior Vulpius, Johann Hermann Schein, Heinrich Schütz, Johann Crüger, Dieterich Buxtehude and Johann Sebastian Bach^[4]^[5]

Orthodoxy produced numerous postils, which were important devotional reading and with hymns conserved orthodox Lutheran spirituality later in age of Pietism and Neology. E.g. Johann Gerhard and Christian Scriver wrote also other kind of devotional literature. Mediaeval mystical tradition continued in works of Martin Moller, Johann Arndt and Joachim Lütkemann. Pietism became rival of orthodoxy but adopted some orthodox devotional literature like Arndt's, Scriver's and Prätorius' which have later often been mixed with pietistic literature. Generally 17th century was more difficult age than the age of reformation, e.g. due to Thirty Years' War. This can be seen often also in hymns and devotional writings.

[edit] Evaluation of Lutheran orthodoxy

The era of Lutheran orthodoxy is not well known, and it has been very often looked at only through the view of neo-protestantic Liberal theology and Pietism and thus underestimated. Also the wide gap between theology of orthodoxy and rationalism has sometimes more or less limited later theological neo-Lutheran and confessional Lutheran attempts to understand and restore Lutheran orthodoxy. Most significant theologians of orthodoxy can be said to be Martin Chemnitz and Johann Gerhard. Lutheran orthodoxy can also be reflected in such rulers as Ernst I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Altenburg and Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden.