Mindy Makant is Professor of Religious Studies, the director of the Youth and Family Ministry Program, and was the founding director of the Living Well Center for Vocation and Purpose at Lenoir-Rhyne University in Hickory, North Carolina. She also works with the NC Synod (ELCA) as director of the Lilly grant: “And God Says it is Good!” Makant is the author of two books: The Practice of Story: Suffering and the Possibilities of Redemption, (Baylor University Press, 2015) and Holy Mischief: In Honor of Women in Ministry (Wipf & Stock, 2019) as well as numerous articles. Makant is also an ordained deacon in the ELCA and certified Spiritual Director. She recently served on the ELCA’s Task Force on the Social Statement on Church, Government, and Civic Participation.
Liturgy, Prayer, Power, and the Public Church
April/May 2026: Ethics and Democracy (Volume 26 Issue 2)
[1] I was invited to ponder the following questions for this essay: What might be the contours of a Lutheran liturgical ethic that shapes our civic engagement? How do worship or prayer equip Lutherans to re-define political power? What roles do liturgy, prayer, and preaching play in fostering, strengthening, or supporting justice and democracy? I […]
Women Preachers: An Apocalyptic Image of the Kingdom of God
August/September 2020: Women’s Leadership in the Church, State, and Academy (Volume 20 Issue 5)
[1] Perhaps it is easy to imagine that providing a theological and scriptural rationale for women in ministry is no longer necessary. Perhaps it is easy to imagine that in 2020, fifty years after the Rev. Elizabeth Platz was ordained, the first female pastor in a Lutheran body in the United States and one year […]
Review: I Can Do No Other: The Church’s New Here We Stand Moment, by Anna Madsen
June/July 2020: Book Review Issue (Volume 20 Issue 4)
[1] Anna Madsen’s new book, I Can Do No Other: The Church’s New Here We Stand Moment, is not explicitly about the relationship between church and state. It is, rather about discipleship, about taking the promise of the Gospel that though “death is real, life is realer” and the message of the Reformation that justification means that injustice threatens […]