Confession and Absolution

The Reformation of the Keys. Confession, Conscience, and Authority in Sixteenth-Century Germany. Ronald K. Rittgers. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003. 318 pp.

This just came to the desk and seemed like another note to put up. Long ago on this blog (can we point back to old posts in new blog entries?) we discussed the articles of the Augsburg Confession that deal with confession and forgiveness (11, 12, 25). There we wondered quite a bit about confession. This book does not answer many of our questions, especially those facing the restoration of confession and absolution in Lutheran churches today, but it does give the dirty detail. I have not closely examined this book but it appears to be a study of the practice of it by focusing on Nuremburg. There is a bit about Luther but the theology does not get in the way of the history.