S.S. Schmucker was not the only figure in "American Lutheranism". He was probably the major intellectual force for it, but the popular mouthpiece was Benjamin Kurtz. In 1843 he released a book called Why are you a Lutheran? in which he explains his view of Lutheranism in largely non-technical, popular terms. This book was a major seller, even after Kurtz himself died in 1865.
At first glace, this is just an apology for Lutheranism. The fact that so many significant figures endorsed the book (listed in the front) as well as how well it sold for over 20 years testifies to its historical significance. But the "Lutheranism" this book confesses is not what keeps me Lutheran. This editor is much more sympathetic to those figures who followed, like Mann and Krauth, as well as what Walther and others were doing in German at the time. I have tried to not let my bias overflow into the edition.
Source for this edition is http://archive.org/details/whyareyouluthera00kurt Thanks to both the Internet Archive as well as Princeton for all the scanned books.
SDG
Ken McGuire
