Marie Failinger is a Professor of Law at Mitchell Hamline School of Law, St. Paul, MN. She is a lifelong Lutheran, and earned her B.A. and J.D. at Valparaiso University and her LL.M. at Yale Law School. She was the long-time editor of the Journal of Law and Religion, and has co-edited Lutheran Theology and Secular Law: The Work of the Modern State and On Secular Governance: Lutheran Perspectives on Contemporary Legal Issues with Rev. Ronald Duty, along with other articles on Lutheran theology and secular law.
As We Consider the Witness of the Lutheran Church on Church and State
[1] In my experience as a scholar and teacher of American constitutional law, I have frequently resorted to our Lutheran tradition as a guide for understanding why we place emphasis on, and how we distinctively understand, concepts such as the rule of law and the separation of church and state. In American constitutional classes, we […]
Indivisible Day and the Pledge of Allegiance: One Nation Under God?
[1] In Minnesota, the ever-controversial Governor Jesse Ventura is under fire for declaring this 4th of July “Indivisible Day” at the suggestion of the Atheists of Minnesota for Human Rights. In the wake of a federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel decision declaring that the language “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance violates […]
Introduction to “What about Taxes”
September 2007: Economics (Volume 7 Issue 9)
[1] The September issue of Journal of Lutheran Ethics is devoted to issues that Christians have debated since Christ turned over the Tiberian coin: How should Christians respond to taxation by their secular governments? This month’s contributors approach the question “What about Taxes?” from various angles. [2] William Ross probes what is distinctively Lutheran in […]
“Render unto Caeser”
November 2005 (Volume 5 Issue 11)
Preaching and Politics at All Saints Episcopal Church According to news reports, the Internal Revenue Service has threatened All Saints Episcopal Church (Pasadena, CA) with revocation of its tax-exempt status under 26 U.S.C. section 501(c)(3) because of a sermon preached by the church’s former rector, Rev. George F. Regas, on October 31, 2004, just before […]
Preaching and Politics at All Saints Episcopal Church, Pasadena, California
November 2005 (Volume 5 Issue 11)
[1] According to news reports, the Internal Revenue Service has threatened All Saints Episcopal Church (Pasadena, CA) with revocation of its tax-exempt status under 26 U.S.C. section 501(c)(3) because of a sermon preached by the church’s former rector, Rev. George F. Regas, on October 31, 2004, just before the Bush-Kerry presidential election. [2] Rev. Regas’ […]
A Foolish Vocation
[1] During my freshman year in college, four college students were shot to death by National Guardsman in an incident now only known as Kent State. In the days that followed, college students around the country experienced the anger, anxiety, and confusion that my own students experienced after 9-11. Many asked, how could death happen […]
Self Defense?
September 2001 (Volume 1 Issue 1)
[1] The American law of self-defense, as a general rule, requires that a defender who kills show that she reasonably feared that she was in imminent threat of serious bodily injury or death. This rule embodies two important understandings consonant with Christian views of human nature and violence. One is implicit in the requirement that […]