The Alternative Luther

This book analyzes Martin Luther and Lutheran theology from the perspective of the subaltern, particularly in the areas of gender and sexuality, economics, and social justice.

Contributors to this book analyze areas of Martin Luther’s and Lutheran theology that have otherwise been neglected or underrepresented in the five hundred years since the Reformation. They constructively widen the scope of Luther and Lutheran theology by viewing both from the perspectives of the “subaltern,” those whose voices are barely or rarely heard. The book formulates an inclusive Lutheran theology that reaches out but does not close out.



The book’s sections address “Precarious Life,” from Luther’s own precarious existence as an outlaw under a death sentence to other precarious life situations seen from various Lutheran perspectives; “Body and Gender,” addressing different aspects of gender and sexuality from new angles; “Women and Sexual Abuse,” focusing on present-day problems of abuse in an encounter with Luther’s exegesis of biblical “texts of terror”; and “Economy, Equality, and Equity,” addressing Lutheran views on economy and equality that break new ground regarding common goods and the Anthropocene.

ForewordMusimbi Kanyoro

List of Abbreviations

Introduction Else Marie Wiberg Pedersen



Section 1: Precarious Life

1.Luther as the Subaltern Precarious: The Banned, Excluded, and Outlawed Eleutherius Else Marie Wiberg Pedersen

2.Luther against Luther: Freedom Theology and anti-Jewish exegesis

Kirsi Stjerna

3.Eschata, the Kin-dom of God in a Time of Presentism, Patriarchy, and Neo-Nationalism: Writing back to Luther through Hannah Arendt and Judith Butler

Elisabeth Gerle

4.Theology Behind the Wall

Peter Lodberg

5.The Heterotopic Creation: A Short Contribution to a Subaltern Ecclesiology

Trygve Wyller



Section 2: Body and Gender

6.A Word of the Word for Our Hearts: Embracing Multiple-Gendered God-Language with Luther

Mary Streufert

7.The Queer Body-Mind in Luther’s Theology: From Subaltern Sodomite to Embodied Imago Dei

Mary Elise Lowe

8.Manly Women, Feminine Men: Mere Exceptions or Signs of Inclusive Thinking? Alternative Readings of Martin Luther’s Anthropology

Sini Mikkola

9.Wild Spaces of Neighbor-Centered Christian Freedom in Subaltern Contexts of Gender, Race, and Illness

Deanna A. Thompson

10.Theology by Demand: A Queer and De-Colonial Perspective on Lutheran Theology

André Musskopf



Section 3: Women and Sexual Abuse

11.Making Connections: Dinah, Luther, and Indian Women

Monica Jyotsna Melanchthon

12.Let’s Be Loud! God in Context of Sexual Violence and Abuse of Power

Arnfridur Gudmundsdottir

13.Grace Alone! But Her Sins Are Neither Forgiven Nor Forgotten: An Alternative Indian Feminist Reading of the Muted-Sinful Woman in Luke 7

Surekha Nelavala

14.The Subaltern’s Witness: Examining Luther’s Explanation to the Eighth Commandment in Light of Clergy Sexual Abuse Claims

Kayko Driedger Hesslein



Section 4: Economy, Equality, and Equity

15.God against God: Cross as Tribulation

Vitor Westhelle

16.Cracking the Ice: Subaltern and Lutheran Principles of Knowledge

Marit Trelstad

17.From “the Common Good” to “Common Goods:” Unearthing a Community Chest of Cosmological Consequence

Allen Jorgenson

18.Genus precarious: Luther in the Anthropocene

Terra Rowe