Friedrich Bente (1858-1930) was the author of: American Lutheranism (1919), Historical Introductions to the Book of Concord (1921) and Following the Faith of Our Fathers (1923). "Essentially, Christianity is the special divine faith in the truth revealed by the Bible that we are saved, not by our own efforts, works, or merits, but alone by the pure and unmerited grace of God, secured by Christ Jesus and freely offered in the Gospel. And the Christian Church is the sum total of all those who truly believe, and therefore confess and propagate this truth of the Gospel. "