Martin Luther and Global Lutheran Traditions Unit

Open Call: Our 2025 Call for Papers firstly reiterates an Open Call for paper, roundtable or panel proposals related to the research interests of this unit.

Our unit’s interests and topics range widely—from important recurring themes in the study of the historical Martin Luther to his theology, from historical movements and contexts to crucial figures in ongoing and contemporary Lutheran histories.  As such, the unit engages current intersectional, theoretical, and ethical analysis. It welcomes engagement with recently released books or research projects, new theological critique and construction, aspirations of research horizons, global contexts, and emergent movements.  The Martin Luther and Global Lutheran Traditions Unit considers any papers or panel proposals related to the research interests of this Unit. We welcome proposals from scholars who wish to share their current research. In panel or roundtable proposals, the Unit strongly encourages organizers be attentive to diversity in global context, race, gender, and sexuality.

2025 marks a number of significant commemorations in Lutheran history and theology, so the Martin Luther and Global Lutheran Traditions Unit welcomes proposals on the following themes:

1. EcoActivist Testaments: The Ecotheology of H. Paul Santmire and Its Legacy

We seek papers, panels, or roundtable proposals that constructively engage the ecotheological work and legacy of the Lutheran theologian H. Paul Santmire. 2025 marks the 40th anniversary of Santmire’s pathbreaking The Travail of Nature: The Ambiguous Ecological Promise of Christian Theology (Fortress Press, 1985). There, Santmire argued that, “It seems clear that Christian theologians have a public responsibility to respond to [the environmental crisis] in terms of both a critical appropriation of their own tradition and a constructive exploration of the possibility of new ways of valuing nature, along with new ways of affirming the values of human history.” Honoring his own critical and constructive call, we seek proposals that constructively engage Santmire’s writings—especially their impact and scope in theology, biblical studies, history, liturgy, and spirituality. How has Santmire’s work helped in the emergence of ecotheology, interrogations of the concept of “nature,” or ecological justice? How might Santmire’s work help us in thinking alongside new global ecological problems and promises?

2. Lutherans and pathological theologies: self-criticism for the sake of freedom

Taking its point of departure from Hanna Reichel’s theory of theology as affordances, this panel seeks to critically examine the ways in which theological frameworks and ecclesial practices can unintentionally perpetuate or even instigate trauma, thereby undermining their capacity to foster freedom and flourishing. By considering Lutheran theology specifically, the panel will engage with the ambiguities inherent in religious thought and practice—ambiguities that can either support healing and liberation or exacerbate existing pathologies. Lutheran theology, with its core doctrines on sin, atonement, and justification, often serves as a source of profound spiritual insight and personal transformation. However, the same theological constructs may also inflict harm, particularly when applied rigidly or without sensitivity to individual and communal contexts. These ambiguities reflect the broader complexities of religion, where the interplay of doctrine, authority, and lived experience can yield vastly different outcomes depending on how they are navigated.  By exploring how the affordances of Lutheran theology—its capacity to shape human understanding and action—might be recalibrated to mitigate their potential for harm. How can the Lutheran tradition address the darker side of its theological legacy? What specific elements within its discourse or practice could be leveraged to counteract the risk of fostering pathological theologies and provide chances for freedom? In addressing these concerns, presenters may bring perspectives from systematic theology, practical theology, the psychology of religion and other related disciplines.  

3. The 2025 Presidential Theme: Freedom

AAR President Leela Prasad aska, “Who decides who or what is free; for how long? Where is freedom preserved, where is it lost? Do we agree with Kris Kristofferson’s line, made famous by Janis Joplin: “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose?" Can there be freedom without justice? Does, or should, freedom equal material and emotional well-being? How does one reconcile competing senses of freedom? We can ponder how freedoms and un-freedoms are entwined: Am I free if my freedom has come from the silencing or persecution of others (who, too, seek the freedom to worship, to earn a wage, to live with dignity, to love whom they choose, to laugh, to grieve, and so on)? What makes me believe I am free when not all of us are free? How is the human claim to freedom entangled with other life-forms—are there consequences to this entanglement? Relatedly, is freedom the right of all species? If freedom is temporal, when does a subject feel free? What, in the end, is the lived meaning of freedom?”  The MLGLT Unit calls for proposals that seek to address these questions and more through the lens of Luther studies or Global Lutheran Traditions.  How might Luther’s understanding of Christian Freedom as “freedom from” and “freedom for” be problematized or reimagined for theology, ethics, and politics? How have global histories of Lutheran freedom been complicit in violence or intersectional forms of oppression? How do Global Lutheranisms speak variously about freedom, liberation, justice? How does a Lutheran theology of freedom speak with or transform in interreligious, ecumenical, or ethical dialogue?

4. The Nicene Creed in Global Lutheran Theologies and Traditions

2025 marks the 1700th anniversary of the first Ecumenical Council at Nicaea. A number of church and academic bodies are marking the 325 CE event with gatherings, commemorations, conferences, and reflections. The MLGLT Unit seeks proposals that engage the council at Nicaea’s place in Global Lutheran Traditions—particularly the reception, deployment, and transformation of the Nicene Creed in diverse global contexts. How has the Nicene Creed shaped Global Lutheranism? How has the deployment of the Creed contributed to connection or separation, identity and difference, ecumenical agreement and disagreement on orthodoxy and heresy, missiology, or settler colonialism? How has the Creed been received, transformed, reworked, translated, negotiated, or reimagined in Global Lutheran Traditions in Asian, Latin and South American, and African contexts? How do Lutherans engage controversies over the so-called ‘Filioque” clause of the Creed and its ecumenical fallout?  What impact has the diverse reception of the Nicene Creed had on Lutheran theological ethics and imaginations? Is credal Christianity helpful or harmful to belonging and connection?

5. The German Peasants’ War: 500 Years Later (Potential Co-sponsorship with the Religion in Europe Unit)

500 years later, new historical and theological perspectives on the legacy of the German Peasants’ War of 1524-25 are needed. Scholars have begun such important work on a range of subjects and figures (E.g., Andrew Drummond’s recent The Dreadful History and Judgement of God on Thomas Müntzer, Verso 2024, and Lyndal Roper’s important Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasants’ War, Basic Books 2025). Alongside these, Martin Luther’s own complicated legacy in the historical moment—often signified by his treatise “On the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants—is ever being evaluated anew.  Luther’s own legacy often signals a complicated Luther on forms of resistance, rebellion and reformation-a connection to violence, nonviolence, mysticism, class and social order. The MLGLT Unit, for a potential co-sponsorship with the Religion in Europe Unit, calls for paper proposals that re-engage, interrogate and reimagine the historical and theological legacies of the Peasants’ War, Luther’s theological responses, and their contemporary legacies.

Again, the MLGLT Unit welcomes any proposals on Martin Luther and Global Lutheran Traditions, alongside themes noted above.