Liberating Luther

Book excerpt: Until his untimely death in 2018, Vitor Westhelle's incisive and probing thought on the church, Luther, and theology shaped a generation. As a continuation of that rich legacy, presented here for the first time in English, is a collection of Westhelle's finest Portuguese-language essays. As a dedicated theologian of the cross, he was committed to saying things as they are, and that meant fearlessly cutting to the heart of complex matters. In this collection, Westhelle addresses important issues such as the cross of Jesus and its relation to death today; the difficulty (even impossibility) of human communication; the ecological crisis as a fundamentally religious problem; the ecumenical movement and its complicity with class interests; the church's misuse of mission and power; Lutheranism's misunderstanding of Lutherås law-gospel dialectic; and the role of European theology in making the conquest of the Americas such a disaster.