Laurie A. Jungling, Ph.D, was an Associate Professor of Religion and Ethics at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and is in the process of returning to parish ministry.
Review: Bible and Ethics in the Christian Life: A New Conversation by Bruce C. Birch, Jacqueline E. Lapsley, Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, and Larry Rasmussen
June/July 2021: Book Review Issue (Volume 21 Issue 4)
[1] This book is not simply a third edition of the foundational text used in many college and seminary classrooms over the years (including by this author) to study the use of Scripture as a source for doing Christian Ethics. (Bible and Ethics in the Christian Life, by Birch and Rasmussen, 1978, 1989) Instead, it […]
Disruptive Christian Ethics: When Racism and Women’s Lives Matter (WJK Press, 2006)
May 2015: End-of-Life Ethics II: European and American Perspectives (Volume 15 Issue 5)
West, Traci C. Disruptive Christian Ethics: When Racism and Women’s Lives Matter. Lexington, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006, 216 pages, paperback, $29.95.
A Brief Case Study on Compromise
The Scene of the Compromise [1] The recommendations on ministry policy made by the Task Force for the ELCA Studies on Sexuality and coming before the 2009 Churchwide Assembly have provoked disparate responses from differing constituencies within the ELCA. The report of the task force itself includes as an appendix two dissenting positions from members […]
Practicing What We Preach in Lutheran Sexual Ethics
[1] In many ways, the Draft Social Statement on Human Sexuality (DSSHS) represents a better theological foundation for a Lutheran approach to sexual ethics than its predecessors, both contemporary and historical. In this essay I discuss some of the theo-ethical benefits of this draft for the ELCA. Yet this draft also has some problems, two […]
Conscience-Bound or Conscience-Liberated: What’s best for the ELCA?
July 2005: Conscience and Community (Volume 5 Issue 7)
[1] Since the release of the ELCA Task Force recommendations in January 2005, the focus of the conversation has shifted in part toward the concept of conscience. In its recommendations, the Task Force refers on numerous occasions to “conscience-bound positions” as the focal point of differences concerning the blessing of same-sex unions and the ordination […]
A “New” Vision of Marriage as Vocation for the Lutheran Tradition
February 2007: Discussing Human Sexuality (Volume 7 Issue 2)
[1] In the Lutheran tradition, the concept of vocation has been an important one in defining and understanding marriage. Marriage is one primary place in society where persons are called to serve the neighbor. This connection between marriage and vocation has been historically both helpful and harmful to persons living in and outside of the […]