The Holy Spirit's Strange Witness

Luther's Countercultural Narratives for the Church in North America

Abstract

North American Christians are not immune to the influence of cultural narratives that promote values at odds with a biblical vision of life in the Spirit of Christ. The author describes the problems raised by the turn to therapeutic individualism, Christian nationalism, and tribalism as competing narratives for Christian identity and witness in the United States. The essay argues that a pneumatological reading of Martin Luther’s countercultural narratives offers Christians a theological framework for embodying a strange yet winsome witness among North American neighbors today. Images of the church as a community of gracious exchanges, the house of Abraham in the world, and theologians of the cross who love the unlovable present a hopeful vision of life in the Spirit that fosters the formation of Christians shaped by community and sacrifice, an inclusive catholic hospitality, and a cruciform love beyond the love of affinity.