Author: Mary Gaebler

Professional Sexual Ethics: A Holistic Ministry Approach, Patricia Beattie Jung and Darryl W. Stephens, Editors. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013. 256 pages, $24.00

[1] She knocks a little tentatively on my office door; and at my invitation she comes in and sits down. I’ve not seen Sarah (not her real name) for some time, and I’m delighted she has come to talk. One of the most capable students I’ve ever taught, she is just back from a semester […]

[1] On the first page of Meilaender’s book, The Way that Leads There, he dedicates the work to Jonathan, Charlotte, Miriam, and Veronika, and just beneath their names he offers a quotation from Augustine-Ibi vacabinums et videbimus, videbimus et amabimus, amabimus et laudabimus[1]–“We shall be still and see, shall see and love, shall love and […]

[1] “The church,” writes John Stumme, “is about speaking and listening. For those who believe the church has responsibility in and for society, it follows quite naturally that Christians should talk together about the relationship of the faith to their responsibilities. Christians have done so for centuries in a variety of ways, and in a […]

[1] Lutherans, insofar as they derive their theology from Luther, should welcome Pope Benedict’s Encyclical, Deus Caritas Est. Luther, I think, would find this latest word from the Vatican surprisingly congenial. [2] Benedict argues from Scripture and presents his ideas pastorally, making the encyclical accessible to those with no formal theological training-both points that should […]

[1] This Study takes as its starting point the conviction that “the vulnerability and defenselessness of humankind are the precondition for its capacity for openness and solidarity.” The study also identifies and rejects a second concept of vulnerability, which the authors apparently hope to defeat by way of reasoned argument. Insofar as they proceed as […]

[1] It is not an original thought. I heard one of the TV pundits discussing the point after the last debate; but it struck home. Over these past weeks of campaigning, the middle class has been front and center. People are losing jobs and health care. The elderly can’t get the prescription drugs they need. […]

[1] John Witte, Jr. in his book Law and Protestantism notes that “many legal historians have tended to deprecate the 16th century in general and Lutheran theology in particular.” Some “have dismissed the ‘Reformation’ altogether as a historian’s fiction and a historical failure.”[1] But this book invites us to take a second look at the […]

[1] Reinhard Hütter has argued eloquently for a double center to Luther’s theology, suggesting that an Enlightenment view of “freedom” has badly distorted our understanding of the law in Luther’s work. George Lindbeck has similarly identified a kind of rabbinic appreciation for the law in Luther’s thinking, especially in his Catechisms, which represent the pastoral […]