The Augsburg Confession of 1530 was the first great confessional statement of the Reformation, yet like many historic confessions it is underappreciated today.
If we are to revive the spirit of confessionalism, we need to remove the barriers to engaging with the confessions themselves. One of these barriers is the harsh language of sixteenth century doctrinal and sectarian disputes.
If one looks past this language, the core becomes highly relevant again. To demonstrate this, I have focused on the first 21 articles which are the positive expressions of belief (the last seven articles focus on correcting errors of the Roman Catholic church). I have also removed the rhetorical “condemnation" of various Christian groups at the end of each article, which mainly serves to contrast with the positive articulation in the main part of the article.
I am not suggesting we sweep the original text away, but rather that we consider new ways to express a positive and powerful vision of our faith. Hopefully we can then restore the relevance and power of these confessions in the modern context.
I've posted my abridged version of the Augsburg Confession here.
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