485 - The Rise of World Lutheranism, An American Perspective

The Rise of World Lutheranism,
An American Perspective
By E. Clifford Nelson
Philadelphia, Fortress, 1982. 421 pp. $24.95.

How the "spiritual" unity represented by the Augsburg Confession and Luther's Catechism, after centuries of separation in language and ethos, received worldwide associative form is the theme of Nelson's illuminating account. With a nod to antecedents, the book spans the years 1918 to 1947 and runs from the formation of the Lutheran World Convention (1923) to the creation of the far

486 - The Rise of World Lutheranism, An American Perspective

stronger Lutheran World Federation. The intense demands for mutual assistance after two world wars gave confessional unity a practical turn. Nowhere was the unitive vision seen more clearly than in North America. Here, through immigration, what remained separated in Europe was uniting and had become Englishspeaking. Hence the subtitle, "an American perspective." Thorough research and clear narration, as usual, mark Nelson's account. From it, we can also see how the coalescing of a confessional family-the largest among Protestant world communions-affects the simultaneous rising of the ecumenical movement.

E. Theodore Bachmann
Princeton Junction, N.J.