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A More Radical Gospel: Essays on Eschatology, Authority, Atonement, and Ecumenism. By Gerhard O. Forde. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004, 223 pp., $22.00.

As I begin this review, a mere four weeks separates me from Gerhard O. Forde’s passing. After almost four decades of teaching, this revered Professor of systematic Theology at Luther Seminary in St. Paul succumbed to pneumonia on August 9, 2006 after a long struggle with Parkinson’s disease, Personal gratitude for the help I have received across the years from Forde’s writings, combined with an instinct to protect and propagate his legacy, tempts me to abandon the review in favor of eulogy. Happily, this particular collection of essays provides an excellent entrée into the Forde’s major contributions to the church. Academics, ministers, or students looking for an introduction to Forde’s thinking will find A More Radical Gospel representative of the themes that dominated his interest, the impressive incisiveness of his theological vision and the special humor that endeared him to so many. Those seeking in-depth engagement with Forde’s thinking should look to his weightier and more comprehensive monographs. While this volume fairly represents Forde’s thinking, the lack of indices and dearth of footnotes do not facilitate the kind of scholarly engagement the impressive content tends to invite.

Lutheran Fundamentalist
At his retirement in 1998 Forde expressed the aim that had sustained him for so long as a minister and a teacher in this way: “I have tried through the years to present the integrity and truth of the tradition, especially as found in Martin Luther, in a way that is interesting, compelling, and exciting.” Forde assumed the role of prophet within his own Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, calling her back to her own roots, to the radical apprehension of the only gospel worthy of the name by Martin Luther.

Certainly radical Lutheranism can boast no more clear and persistent advocate than Forde. The essays included in the atonement section rehearse in bold and penetrating fashion Luther’s own insistence upon a declarative, imputed righteousness enjoyed by faith together with the concomitant relegation of the law to the negative role of accuser. No third use of the law for Forde. Only grace through faith produces works pleasing to the God who died for sinners. Box-checking holiness programs begone!

Starting All Over Again
Several essays revisit a fixation precious to many contemporary Christians that Forde loved to despise—progressive sanctification. Luther once said that sanctification is just beginning again with justification, with the gospel, with the proclamation that one’s sins are forgiven. Forde defined sanctification as “the art of getting used to justification.”
Like Luther, Forde understood that the slightest drop of works righteousness mixed with the pure gospel of grace poisons the whole pot. Next thing you know forgiven sinners turn away from the gospel toward their own navels where they gaze and gesticulate in the quest to achieve and earn what they once received as a gift—forgiveness of sins, membership in the family of God and the hope of eternal life. For Forde, preoccupation with some traceable increase in personal holiness amounts to an abandonment of the gospel Paul identified among the Galatians and undercuts the attractiveness of Paul’s desire to “be found in [Christ] not having a righteousness of [his] own.” Perhaps no one in recent memory has expressed more pointedly and with such humor as Forde the ironic impotency of the law to produce what it demands.

Substitutionary Atonement Gone Wild
Forde was less a creative theological constructionist but more the flamboyant defender of the traditions. If he contributed something new to the theological lexicon it may be his notion of the “continuously existing subject” wrongly imagined by non-Lutheran construers of the Christian life. Forde is referring to the “old man,” the “man of the flesh” who has been crucified with Christ. “I no longer live,” Paul could say. Some falsely imagine that the buried man lives. He died. God has not fixed us so that we can get on with getting better. Instead, Forde reminds us, God kills us, buries us with Christ and raises us up to new life. Walking by the Spirit continues to be a walk apart from the law (Galatians). Our lives continue to be hidden in Christ. Christ’s substitutionary role extends beyond the cross and defines the very character of the Christian life, not just entry into that life.

Persnickety Contrarian
Forde’s utter commitment to the radical Lutheran heritage he believed had been abandoned by its rightful heirs sometimes resulted in his identification as a bit of a contrarian. Just as Lutheran chins began to quiver with that peculiar happiness only ecumenical activity produces, there was Forde to rain on everyone’s parade. The essays included under the ecumenical section provide adequate exposure to Forde’s instinct for confessional faithfulness in the face of the mirage of unity purchased by compromise. Forde shines his search light on how thin is the payoff when ecumenical activity attracts those least committed to the distinctive convictions of the traditions they would ostensibly represent at the negotiating table. Only confessional loyalists are equipped to identify where bases for unity appear and where the ways must part.

Pillar of Fire
Not unlike Luther, Forde’s unique contribution is not a broad and systematizing grasp of many things, but a clear, penetrating vision of a few things, vital things without which the character of the whole faith would be endangered. Forde is the man who saw a narrow pillar of fire descending from heaven to earth. Its name is justification by grace through faith alone. It is enough for this one man to stand guardian of what he can no longer pretend he has not beheld rather than venture out into things less certain and perhaps less essential. A More Radical Gospel offers a platform from which to observe this gospel guardian at work