Becoming Lutheran: New book from LCC professor

EDMONTON – Rev. Dr. John Maxfield, professor of history and religious studies at Concordia University of Edmonton, is the author of a new book from Concordia Publishing House: Becoming Lutheran: The Community of Brunswick from Evangelical Reform to Lutheran Culture. 

“This book is about how one particular community in north central Germany took up evangelical reform very early and during the course of two decades become a Lutheran community,” Dr. Maxfield writes in the introduction to the book. “The town of Brunswick… provides a fascinating lens through which we can observe how a particular community became Lutheran in its beliefs, in its practices (especially is ways of worship and organizing church life), and in its mentality or broader worldview.”

“My focus is… on how the Reformation, in particular the Lutheran Reformation, stimulated a process of cultural change which shaped the Christian religion and European society in an era when Christianity as a faith was more intensely believed and more broadly practiced than it had been throughout the era of medieval Catholicism,” Dr. Maxfield continues. “I am even more hopeful that the armchair historian and casual reader will take up this book and read it as an analysis of how people living five hundred years ago first became captivated by Martin Luther’s ideas and vision for the reformation of Christianity and over time became Lutheran.”

In addition to serving as a professor at Concordia University of Edmonton, Dr. Maxfield is the editor of the 2017 book Defending Luther’s Reformation and the author of the 2008 book Luther’s Lectures on Genesis and the Formation of Evangelical Identity.

Dr. Maxfield’s new book was released by Concordia Publishing House in September 2024. You can order it, as well as Dr. Maxfield’s 2017 book, from CPH’s website.

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