Lutheran CORE continues to provide monthly video reviews of books of interest and importance. Many thanks to Maurice Lee 
for doing this month’s video review. Dr. Lee is the pastor of Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Santa Barbara, California (NALC), a lecturer in theology for the North American Lutheran Seminary, and a member of the NALC’s Commission on Theology and Doctrine. His review is about the book, Loci Communes (1521) by Philip Melanchthon. A link to his review can be found here.
This year 2021 represents the 500th anniversary of the publication of this book, which can be translated “Common Places” or “Common Topics.” This is the book that launched Melanchthon’s reputation as a theologian in the Lutheran tradition. According to Dr. Lee, it “stands in the headwaters of specifically Lutheran theology. This work seeks neither to be exhaustive nor to draw attention to itself, but the themes it takes up — among others, law and gospel; faith and works; human nature and human sinfulness — and the ways Melanchthon explores them continue to be resonant and relevant today, 500 years after the original publication.”
This review, as well as seven others, have been posted on our YouTube channel. A link to the channel can be found here. Many thanks to those who have made the reviews.
Our plan is to publish a new video book review during the first week of every month. Many of the books that are being and will be reviewed are described in the List of Confessional Resources on the Seminarians page of our website. That list can be found here. When you look at a video review for the first time, please click on the Subscribe button. As enough people do that, it will eventually help us to get a channel name that will include our organization’s name.
