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In this impressive study, a revised version of his 2007 theological dissertation at the LMU Munich, Tim Lorentzen focuses on the Pomeranian reformer Johannes Bugenhagen and his attempts to reform the system of public social care on the basis of Reformation theology. The author wishes to show that Bugenhagen aimed towards, and organised, a system of public care that covered not only poor relief, but also care for the sick, for students, for mothers and delinquents, as the task of a Christian community. Lorentzen follows a decidedly theological approach and highlights Bugenhagen's social care 'under the primacy of Christian love' in contrast to more governmental concepts in southern Germany. He describes the development of Bugenhagen's theology and its practical dimensions on the basis not only of the normative sources like Bugenhagen's well-known church ordinances for cities and territories all over northern Europe, but also by analysing selected archival...