ABSTRACT
Gustaf Wingren (1910–2000) is one of the central figures in twentieth-century Swedish, Scandinavian, and European theology. His bibliography runs to 750 items, and many of his monographs have been translated into English and German, as well as several other languages. He was the last in the line of theologians who created what international theological scholarship tends to call “the Swedish Luther renaissance.” Before him came Nathan Söderblom, Einar Billing, Gustaf Aulén, Anders Nygren, Herbert Olsson, and Ragnar Bring. Wingren was influenced by these theologians, but also by the dialectical theology on the Continent, including Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann, and by Danish theology, especially by Grundtvig and K.E. Løgstrup. One of Wingren’s most important instruments was polemic, not least against several of the theologians who had impressed him (for example, Nygren, Barth, and Bultmann), but also against his high-church and Pietist predecessors. The fundamental starting points for the elaboration of his own theology were Irenaeus, Luther, and above all the biblical texts and the situation of modern people. This combination gave him a voice all of his own, and it is still worth listening to him.
