Author: Jane E. Strohl

[1] It is fitting, if frustrating, to find myself working on this article while my pre-adolescent child is throwing a prolonged fit over her mother’s inability to accommodate one more companion animal in the household. I am a divorced single parent, currently getting a snootful about my maternal shortcomings. It comes with the territory of […]

[1] I like books that confirm my considered judgments, but I have come to like even more books that compel me to litter the margins with observations, questions and challenges. Transformative Lutheran Theologies, a collection of sixteen essays presenting feminist, womanist and mujerista perspectives, offers reading experiences of both types. My first question concerns the […]

[1] I am currently teaching a course entitled “The Relation of Man and Woman in Luther’s Theology.” The students, who are of varying ages, are mostly disappointed and sometimes appalled by Luther’s views. They recognize that his ideas must be read in their historical context. They wish the material had more obvious import for the […]

[1] In recent months I have had several conversations with colleagues in various aspects of church work about their experiences balancing family life and vocational obligations. Two particular scenarios stand out sharply. In one instance a friend and I discussed exhortations (or was it reprimands?) we had received from childless persons about not allowing our […]

[1] The January 13, 2003 issue of The New Yorker published an article about a manufacturer of artificial limbs from Staten Island. He wanted to help the victims of the civil war in Sierra Leone, in which amputation had been a key form of terrorist activity. [2] He had difficulty finding a way to carry […]