William Julius Mann - "Lutheranism in America"

Ken McGuire

Back in 1529, a group of German Princes wrote an official protestation to a decision of the Diet of Speyer to enforce the condemnation of Luther as a Heretic and Outlaw.  There Protest was to give an alternate history of the events - highlighting the reasons they had been, in their opinion, legally, protecting Luther.  This is the root of the term "Protestant".

In the debate over the "Definite Platform" and all the historical reasons Schmucker gave for his changes, Pastor Mann wrote this Protest.  It is a retelling the story of Lutheranism, and by widening the story, he has a quite different story to tell - One in which Lutheranism isn't really about individual freedom to read the Bible any way the individual wants, but rather as a telling of God's Love, as well as telling the Gospel as a new life rather than a new law.  In addition, he highlights how important doctrine was to the patriarchs of American Lutheranism, as well as our Lutheran fathers over in German.  He also tells the stories of multiple Lutheran communities, including those of some groups VERY new to North America, and concludes with a vision of the mission for the Lutheran Church . And he manages to do this in a bit over 150 very readable pages.

The main textual source for this was http://www.archive.org/details/lutheranisminam00manngoog .  I have inserted a few links to the Book of Concord as well as one to Luther's Works.  I had a link to one of Schmucker's works in there as well, and while I know it doesn't work for you, I decided to not remove it.

Give this one a try.

SDG

Ken McGuire