The faculty at the North American Lutheran Seminary

Selected Publications

• “Our Joy That Has No End: On Why the Resurrection of Jesus Matters,” Connections (Sola Publishing) March/April 2016.
• “Song and Hymn Selection: Singing the Faithful into Life,” in A Teaching Hymnal Ecumenical and Evangelical, Eugene, OR: Cascade Books/Wipf and Stock, 2016.
• “Knowing the Bible Through the Liturgy: The Holy Scripture as Doxology,” in Rightly Handling the Word of Truth: Scripture, Canon, Creed, ed. Carl E. Braaten, Delhi, NY: 2015.
• “Living Together in Sacred Time: North American Lutherans and the Liturgical Year,” Currents in Theology and Mission, vol. 42, no. 4 (Oct. 2015): 298-303.
• “Learning to Pray,” Lutheran Forum, vol. 49, no. 3 (Spring 2015): 19-21.
• “Life for Families of Criminals and the Convicted” LifeDate, Winter 2013.
• “Praying Psalm 139 through the Resurrected One,” Lutheran Forum, vol. 47, no. 3. (Fall 2013): 14-17.
• “A Primer for Presiders: Your Body in Worship,” Let’s Talk: Living Theology in the Metropolitan Chicago Synod, Easter 2013, Volume 18, Issue 2.
• “A Resurrection Hermeneutic: Law and Gospel in Preaching and Worship,” in Preaching and Teaching the Law and Gospel of God, ed. Carl E. Braaten, Delhi, NY: American Lutheran Publicity Bureau, 2013, 141-162.
• “Song and Hymn Selection: Singing the Faithful into Life,” in A Teaching Hymnal Ecumenical and Evangelical, Eugene, OR: Cascade Books/Wipf and Stock, 2012.
• “Preaching the Lectionary,” Selected Homilies, University of Mary, Center for Christian Leadership, http://www.clcumary.com/ and Gottinger Predigten, http://www.predigten.uni-goettingen.de/.
• “Womb: the Sanctuary of Mercy,” in The Lake Louise Commission: The Sacred Family, Delhi, NY: American Lutheran Publicity Bureau, 2011, 59-80.
• Book Review of Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary: A Guide by Gail R. O’Day and Charles Hackett, Abingdon, 2007. Sacramental Life, Volume 22, Number 1 (Winter 2010).
• Give Us Lips to Sing Thy Glory: The Performative Exegesis of the Word through Preaching and Hymnody, VDM: Germany, 2010.
• Book Review of Treasury of Daily Prayer, Edited by Scot A. Kinneman, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2008. Worship, Volume 84, Number 1 (January 2010).
• “Bodies and the Body,” Lutheran Forum, November 2009.
• “Delight, Design, and Destiny: Toward a Doxological Ethics of Sexuality,” Let’s Talk: Living Theology in the Metropolitan Chicago Synod, Pentecost 2009, Volume 14, Issue 1.
• “Meanings of Music,” Review of A New Song for an Old World: Musical Thought in the Early Church by Calvin R. Stapert, Lutheran Forum (Winter 2008).
• “Holiness is God’s Alone: The Heritage of Luther’s Use of Hymns in the Western Rite,” The Cresset, Valparaiso University (Lent 2008).
• Lectionary Worship Workbook, Series III: Cycle A, CSS, Lima: Ohio, 2001; 2^nd ed. 2007.
• “Response to (Gwen) Sayler—Liturgical Texts, Ritual Power, and God’s Glory: The Deconstruction of a Homosexual Identity through the Lens of a Doxological Anthropology,” dialog, Vol. 44, no. 1 (Spring 2005): 90-92.
• “A Sacramentality of Design: The Marriage Rite as Performative Exegesis,” Lutheran Forum, Vol. 38 (Winter 2004): 16-20.
• “Ritualizing Life or Ritualizing Death,” in Christian Sexuality: Normative and Pastoral Principles, ed. Russell Saltzmann, Minneapolis: Kirkhouse Publishing, 2003, 59-72.
• “On the Eve of All Saints: Celebrating the Reformation in an Ecumenical Age,” Word and World, Vol. XXI, no. 4 (Fall 2001): 425-427.
• “Thunder and Trumpets: Preaching Helps for the Easter Season,” Currents in Theology and Mission, Vol. 25, no. 1 (February 1999): 68-82.
• “Light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome her: women and wisdom,” Word & World, Vol. VII, no. 3 (Summer 1987): 292-297.

Selected Publications

• The Apostolic Faith: A Catholic and Evangelical Introduction to Christian Theology to be published by Eerdmans.
• Knowing the Triune God: The Work of the Spirit in the Practices of the Church (edited with James J. Buckley). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001.
• “Modern but Not Liberal,” First Things: A Journal of Religion and Public Life, June/July 2012.
• “Grace and the Good Life: Why the God of the Gospel Cares How We Live,” in Michael Root and James J. Buckley, eds., The Morally Divided Body of Christ: Ethical Disagreement and the Disunity of the Church. Wipf & Stock, 2012.
• “Re-Entering the Scriptural World,” contribution to a symposium on Luke Timothy.
• Johnson and William S. Kurz, S.J., The Future of Catholic Biblical Scholarship. Nova et Vetera, Winter 2006.
• “Martin Luther on Renewal and Sanctification: Simul Justus et Peccator Revisited,” in Sapere teologico e unità della fede: Studi in onore del Prof. Jared Wicks, ed. by Carmen Aparicio Vallis, Carmelo Donato, and Gianluigi Paquale. Rome: Editrice Pontifica Università Gregoriana, 2004.
• “The Presence of Mary in the Mystery of the Church” in Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson (eds.), Mary, the Mother of God.Eerdmans, 2004. Also published in Nova et Vetera, Spring 2004.​
• “The Papal Office and the Burdens of History: A Lutheran View,” in Carl Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, eds., The Papal Office and the Unity of the Church. Eerdmans, 2001.
• “The Church as Polity? The Lutheran Context of Robert W. Jenson’s Ecclesiology” in Colin Gunton, ed. Trinity, Time, and Church. Eerdmans, 2000.
• “Seeking the Body of Christ: Sacramental Lutherans at the End of the Modern Age.” Lutheran Forum, Christmas 2000.
• “Ecclesia Sancta, Ecclesia Peccatrix: Martin Luther on the Holiness of the Church.” Pro Ecclesia. Summer 2000.

Selected Books by the Rev. Dr. Gordon Isaac

The intention of Prayer, Meditation, and Spiritual Trial is to help readers enter into the world of Luther the Augustinian monk and Reformer who prays, meditates, and suffers spiritual trial within the community of faith that extends over the centuries. Ever the teacher and pastor himself, Gordon Isaac invites readers into the reality of living a theology of the cross, which helps make sense of our present struggles in this world and shows us how we can live in the love of God as revealed through Jesus Christ.

Selected Publications

• “The Multifaceted Presence of Christ According to Sacrosanctum Concilium” Lutheran Forum 48 (Summer 2014), 25–28.
• “Self-Denial and Its Discontents: Toward Clarification of the Intrapersonal Conflict Between ‘Selfishness’ and ‘Altruism’ ”Evolution, Games, and God: The Principle of Cooperation, ed. M. A. Nowak and S. Coakley (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013), 186–197.
• “The Spirit and the Church” (with Miroslav Volf) Advents of the Spirit: An Introduction to the Current Study of Pneumatology, ed. B. E. Hinze and D. L. Dabney (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2001), 382–409.
• “Evolution and Epiphany: Language in Biological and Theological Perspective” Journal of Faith and Science Exchange 3 (1999), 37–54.
• Review of H. David Baer, Recovering Christian Realism: Just War Theory as a Political Ethic Lutheran Quarterly 30 (2016), 76–78.
• “Irreducibly Embodied” — review of James K. A. Smith, Imagining the Kingdom (with Jesse Covington, Sarah Skripsky, and Lesa Stern) Books and Culture (January–February 2014), 25–27.

Selected Books by the Rev. Dr. Mark Mattes

These collected essays engage the reality of believers’ death and resurrection in Christ, and how that bears upon the life of faith while also attending to a wide range of relevant theological topics such as scriptural authority, apologetics, a critique of contemporary mainline Protestant and Evangelical Catholic ethics, a critique of Lutheran-Reformed ecumenism, and the church’s mission and outreach. The collection concludes with several sermons based on Old Testament lessons seeking to show how the theology embedded in the essays can be used for proclamation.

Many contemporary theologians seek to retrieve the concept of beauty as a way for people to encounter God. This groundbreaking book argues that while Martin Luther’s view of beauty has often been ignored or underappreciated, it has much to contribute to that quest. Mark Mattes, one of today’s leading Lutheran theologians, analyzes Luther’s theological aesthetics and discusses its implications for music, art, and the contemplative life. Mattes shows that for Luther, the cross is the lens through which the beauty of God is refracted into the world.

Adjunct Professor of Christian History, North American Lutheran Seminary
Berkshire Professor of Church History and Advent Christian Studies, Gordon-Conwell Seminary

PhD, Marquette University
MTh, Luther-Northwestern Theological Seminary
MDiv, Western Evangelical Theological Seminary
BA, Seattle Pacific University

Selected Publications

• “The Multifaceted Presence of Christ According to Sacrosanctum Concilium” Lutheran Forum 48 (Summer 2014), 25–28.
• “Self-Denial and Its Discontents: Toward Clarification of the Intrapersonal Conflict Between ‘Selfishness’ and ‘Altruism’ ”Evolution, Games, and God: The Principle of Cooperation, ed. M. A. Nowak and S. Coakley (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013), 186–197.
• “The Spirit and the Church” (with Miroslav Volf) Advents of the Spirit: An Introduction to the Current Study of Pneumatology, ed. B. E. Hinze and D. L. Dabney (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2001), 382–409.
• “Evolution and Epiphany: Language in Biological and Theological Perspective” Journal of Faith and Science Exchange 3 (1999), 37–54.
• Review of H. David Baer, Recovering Christian Realism: Just War Theory as a Political Ethic Lutheran Quarterly 30 (2016), 76–78.
• “Irreducibly Embodied” — review of James K. A. Smith, Imagining the Kingdom (with Jesse Covington, Sarah Skripsky, and Lesa Stern) Books and Culture (January–February 2014), 25–27.