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It seems ever clearer to lue that the controversy that Luther says "has existed from the begiluung and will continue to the end" is indeed the controversy over the true worship of God. But it seems equally clear that all religions, including the Christian religion, are ever in danger of winding up on the wrong side of this controversy, i.e., the side of the "psueudopseudo-saints," rather than the "true saints."
( I wonder, by the way, whether there isn't an instructive convergence between what Luther lueans by "pseudo-saints" and what H. Richard Niebuhr calls "henotheists.")
Jesus, for Paul, is of decisive significance because he is the liberating judgnl.ent judgment of God upon Jews as well as gentiles and, therefore, "the end of the law." But to feel the full force of Paul's point requires saying that Jesus is also the liberating judgluent judgment of God upon Christians as well as non-Clu·istians Christians and, therefore, "the end of religion," of all religions, including the Christian, as the way of salvation.
29 January 2008