The Luther Renaissance

The rediscovery of Luther was a significant theological current in the 1920s. One pioneer was Karl Holl, church historian at the University of Berlin, whose interpretation of Luther constituted a departure from the imperial German bourgeois portrayal of the Reformer. Holl returned the doctrine of justification to the center of theology.

A generation of young Lutheran theologians, including Heinrich Bornkamm, Hanns Rückert, Carl Stange and Rudolf Hermann, discovered ways out of the paradoxes of their own day in the young Luther. Efforts to restore national life to health by applying a conservative spirit played an important role in the theological concerns of the Luther Renaissance.