“The distinctive character of current Lutheranism, however, is largely the result of its continuing search for its own roots in the Reformation and Luther’s thought itself. Beginning in about the 1840s, when J.C.K. von Hofmann appealed to Luther in the argument over atonement, Luther was for the first time set against Lutheran orthodoxy on a substantive doctrinal issue (Hirsch, 1954, vol. 5, p. 427) and the uniqueness of Luther’s own thought began to emerge as a viable alternative.”[1]
[1] Forde, “Lutheranism,” Blackwell’s Encyclopedia of Modern Christian Thought, Ed. Alister McGrath (Cambridge, MA; Blackwell, 1993) 357; emphasis added.