Articles

[1] This month’s issue focuses on human sexuality. Forty-five Lutheran ethicists, pastors, presenters, and others assembled for the 14th Annual Gathering of Lutheran Ethicists at the Catholic Conference and Formation Center in Dallas on January 3-5 to discuss this topic. They gathered with a self-conscious eye to the ELCA’s process to develop a social statement […]

[1] Is it ethical for an employee to accept a new job knowing he will leave it as soon as a better one appears? Is it ethical for an employer to hire a new employee knowing the position will be eliminated as soon as the human resources department can find a suitable outsource? These were […]

[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 […]

The following is a version of an article that Don Browning has published in the Spring, 2007, issue of the Emory Law Journal. Reprinted by permission. [1] In this essay, I will review and critique Linda McClain’s important new contribution to family law in her The Place of Families (2006).[1] In the process, I also […]

[1] Financial stewardship is not only a matter of faithful giving but of faithful living. In response to the gospel, we submit our lives to the rule of God, to the lordship of Christ, and to the direction of the Holy Spirit, so that we may be the people God wants us to be and […]

[1] People never tire of quoting the late Tip O’Neill’s famous statement that “All politics is local.” Perhaps it is not entirely amiss to borrow this idea by stating that “All economic ethics is local.” That is to say, while there is considerable ethical discourse concerning mega concerns of economic justice and monumental failures of […]

[1] On February 1, 1941, Eberhard Bethge wrote to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, his best friend, for Dietrich’s birthday on February 4: I offer my hearty congratulations and wish you a good and fruitful use of your powers, success in articulating your new insights, good stimulating friends, and good coffee and tea in your new year. Along […]

1] With Lisa Dahill’s lyrical exposition of Bonhoeffer’s spirituality, we find a contemporary Lutheran theology working within a critical appropriate of virtue and character. Bonhoeffer has too long been labeled a “command of God” theologian, whose work confronts Christians with Jesus’ words “Follow me.” Certainly an “ethic of command drives the first part of his […]

[1] This October was the first time my grandmother witnessed me in the role of pastor. I was baptizing my first grandson. Around the baptismal font stood five generations of my family. Why were we all standing there? Well, I would say that it was because of my grandmother. My maternal grandmother has heard me […]

[1] In 1960 I enrolled in the Ph. D. program at Princeton Theological Seminary. To my incredible delight and surprise Dr. Gerhard von Rad was to be a guest professor at Princeton for two quarters in the school year. I had been introduced to von Rad’s teachings my senior year at Trinity Seminary in Dubuque, […]