About Us
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Beginning in 2015, the Forgotten Luther Project features the little known but far-reaching effects on society of Martin Luther’s insight into the breadth of the biblical understanding of grace. It moves beyond the strict individualism that has at times proved to be limiting to reclaim the social justice dimension of the reformer’s work. His revolutionary program functioned in collaboration with government to ensure wealth-sharing through the Common Chest (Gemeinsame Kasten) and to provide community healthcare and financial security for the elderly and community-sponsored education for girls as well as boys.
Luther’s sense of the freedom of the Christian as well as his protest of state control of the church would contribute in later years to the principle of the institutional separation of church and state as well as to the development of democracy.
The Forgotten Luther project has produced three books by Fortress Press and sponsored four symposia to encourage public discussion. The most recent symposium, The Forgotten Luther IV: Discipleship in a Democracy – Responding to the Threat of Christian Nationalism, now continues with a website, www.ReclaimingTheHeritage.US, and this Declaration, which is a call to action.
The planning team is as follows:
The Rev. Conrad A. Braaten, an ELCA parish pastor for over four decades, is responsible for co-initiating the Forgotten Luther Project. He has worked in congregations and social ministries in Florida, where he was also involved with the Florida-Bahamas Synod’s companion church program in the Caribbean and South America. While serving on the Board of World Mission of the American Lutheran Church (ALC), he was active with program initiatives in Central America and for a decade was a member of the USA Steering Committee of the LWF’s Caribbean-Haiti Program. Prior to retiring in 2012, after serving for 10 years as senior pastor of Lutheran Church of the Reformation in Washington, DC, Braaten was on the churchwide staff of the ELCA’s Division for Congregational Life in the program areas of urban ministry and congregational social ministry. He has developed and resourced congregational leadership programs, served on many non-profit boards, and coordinated numerous educational immersions to countries in the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. With Ryan P. Cumming, Braaten is co-editor of The Forgotten Luther III: Reclaiming a Vision of Global Community.
The Rev. Connie A. Miller is the senior pastor of Saint Luke Lutheran Church and School in Silver Spring, MD. The congregation includes a multi-faceted ministry, including a Christian Day School, a Conference and Retreat Center, Hallowood, and an outreach to the Latino community, La Sagrada Familia. Pastor Miller has served the church-at-large as well in several capacities in Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa: congregational ministry, campus ministry, hospital chaplaincy, assistant to the bishop, and dean of the community at one of our seminaries.
In Metro DC, for many years she has been very involved in the Forgotten Luther Series, featuring the social teachings of Luther, and along with colleagues just produced a new series, The Folly of the Cross: Untold Stories of Global Transformation. This series helps the church celebrate the sheer “foolishness of the cross,” God’s grace filled with surprise and wonder!
The Rev Elizabeth A. Platz was the first woman in North America ordained by a Lutheran church body, the Lutheran Church in America, in 1970. She graduated from Gettysburg Lutheran Seminary in 1965 and began serving as chaplain for the Lutheran Campus Ministry at the University of Maryland, College Park.
She continued that work for 47 years, retiring in 2012. Since then, Pastor Platz has served many interim positions and for many years has been a member of the staff family at Saint Luke Lutheran Church, Silver Spring, MD.
Deacon Kyle Warfield serves at Saint Luke Lutheran Church and School in Silver Spring, MD. He works in the area of church administration as well as High School and Young Adult ministries and outreach. Deacon Warfield is a graduate of Gettysburg Lutheran Seminary (now United Lutheran Seminary), Gettysburg, PA. Before this second career as a deacon, he was the director of the worldwide SAP Competency Center for the Unisys Corporation. He specialized in complex information technology solutions.
Dr. Paul Wee was senior representative of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) in Berlin during the Cold War period and served as assistant general secretary for International Affairs and Human Rights with the LWF Geneva-based organization. His work has centered primarily on conflict resolution in Africa and Central America. He was a member of the UN Observer Mission to South Africa (UNOMSA), which provided oversight of the first democratic election in that country.
Dr. Wee was adjunct professor at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University, Washington DC, and earlier served as senior pastor at Reformation Lutheran Church, on Capitol Hill. Dr. Wee is the author of American Destiny and the Calling of the Church and co-editor, with Carter Lindberg, of The Forgotten Luther: Reclaiming the Social-Economic Dimension of the Reformation.
