A spiritual resource and compelling reading for the general reader from a riveting selection of Martin Luther's collected works.  Faith and Freedom: An Invitation to the Writings of Martin Luther is the first selection in decades for the general reader from the many dozens of volumes that constitute Martin Luther’s collected works. The selections included here, chosen for their pastoral tone, speak across the centuries and inform the spiritual concerns of today. Drawing on Luther’s Bible prefaces and commentaries, his treatises and sermons, his letters, his “table talk,” and his enduring hymnbook, Faith and Freedom will provide a spiritual resource for anyone seeking the heritage of modern Christian spirituality. Moreover, it requires no specialized knowledge of Reformation theology or Church history. Rich in language, direct, powerful, fresh in ideas, and often disquieting in their effect, the writings of Luther provide compelling reading. Despite his genius, Luther is more respected than read by most Christians; he is famous for his single gesture of defiance far more than for his many accomplishments. Thornton and Varenne, general editors of the "Vintage Spiritual Classics" series, hope to change that situation through the careful selection and presentation of his writings. Collected here for the general reader are substantial excerpts from Luther's prefaces to and exegesis of the Bible, his sermons, table talk, and hymns. He is, as ever, a stern taskmaster in faith, but his thought is indispensable and challenging. For most collections. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. Faith and Freedom: An Invitation to the Writings of Martin Luther is the first selection in decades for the general reader from the many dozens of volumes that constitute Martin Luther?s collected works. The selections included here, chosen for their pastoral tone, speak across the centuries and inform the spiritual concerns of today.Drawing on Luther?s Bible prefaces and commentaries, his treatises and sermons, his letters, his ?table talk,? and his enduring hymnbook, Faith and Freedom will provide a spiritual resource for anyone seeking the heritage of modern Christian spirituality. Moreover, it requires no specialized knowledge of Reformation theology or Church history. Rich in language, direct, powerful, fresh in ideas, and often disquieting in their effect, the writings of Luther provide compelling reading. Faith and Freedom: An Invitation to the Writings of Martin Luther is the first selection in decades for the general reader from the many dozens of volumes that constitute Martin Luther's collected works. The selections included here, chosen for their pastoral tone, speak across the centuries and inform the spiritual concerns of today.Drawing on Luther's Bible prefaces and commentaries, his treatises and sermons, his letters, his "table talk," and his enduring hymnbook, Faith and Freedom will provide a spiritual resource for anyone seeking the heritage of modern Christian spirituality. Moreover, it requires no specialized knowledge of Reformation theology or Church history. Rich in language, direct, powerful, fresh in ideas, and often disquieting in their effect, the writings of Luther provide compelling reading. RICHARD LISCHER is the author of Open Secrets: A Spiritual Journey Through a Country Church , an account of his first assignment as a young Lutheran pastor in the tiny farming town of New Cana, Illinois, in the 1970s. For the past twenty years he has been a professor at Duke Divinity School. He lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I "Here I Stand" It has been well observed that revolutions are not freely created by one individual's will but rather involve setting loose larger forces that have accumulated and await their chance to pour forth. If ever there was a test of such a hypothesis, surely it was the day a Bible professor and monk, one Martin Luther, tacked his Ninety-five Theses on the door of the castle church of Wittenberg, an upstart university town in a backwater district of the Holy Roman Empire. Though, in fact, such an act, calling for yet another academic debate, was if anything routine, and though, in the end, no one ever came and the debate was never held, the effects of this one act by one man produced a sea change in Europe. In the end what happened was not a revolution; it would properly be termed the Reformation. Although he challenged his colleagues and students in vain, within days, weeks, and months Luther's call had set loose an ever-widening debate. It would be difficult to conceive a better protagonist for it. One Franciscan prior, on receiving news of his friend Martin Luther's theses, told his monks, "He is here who will do the task." These selections from the writings and sermons and letters and even the prayers and intimate conversations of Martin Luther do not include this most famous and notorious document, the Ninety-five Theses. Their highly compressed and