Articles

Jus Post Bellum—Seeking Peace in Iraq

[1] On January 26, 2007 Bishop Mark S. Hanson called the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) to conversation on Iraq: “Our country is engaged in a divisive debate about the nature and the direction of this war… As the war in Iraq escalates and the way to a lasting peace seems unclear, how shall […]

What it Means to Be “Disabled”: Theological and Ethical Reflections

[1] As someone who teaches and writes about disability and theology, I have been increasingly intrigued by the assumptions that people make about my own disability status. On the one hand, people who have not met me but yet are familiar with my work often assume that I have a disability-or, perhaps, am closely related […]

Wrestle A Blessing

[1] A biblical image that comes to mind when I think of raising a child with special needs, is that of Jacob wrestling a blessing from God in Genesis 32:22-32. In the story Jacob was returning to his homeland after being gone for many years. He had left home because he had tricked his brother […]

Living in Paradox: Female Identity in Early and Medieval Christianity

[1] Gender and sexuality present two of the most basic and intimate forms of difference, differences that inescapably pervade familial and social relationships. For this reason, how people conceive of differences between male and female affects their fundamental perception of the world and their place in it. In the history of Christianity, women generally have […]

In the midst of things we cannot understand…

[1] Her eyes were red and puffy and dried out from all the tears she had shed. Her head was swimming from all the information and terminology she had heard these last few days. She asked the nurse in the clinic, “Do you have somebody who can come and help me understand what I’m supposed […]

Children of God and Mental Illness

[1] I recently completed a research project[1] which sought to identify characteristics of congregations in which people with chronic mental illness[2] were full participants. In this article I will briefly describe the project, present the theological reflections of the participants, report the research findings, and offer my own theological reflection on the research project and […]

A Radical Lutheran Response to My Reviewers

[1] Allow me first to express my gratitude to the Journal of Lutheran Ethics and particularly the efforts of Book Review Editor, Michael Shahan, for assembling these courteous and thoughtful responses to The Role of Justification in Contemporary Theology. I am honored that the Journal of Lutheran Ethics would find this book important enough to […]

Mark C. Mattes’ The Role of Justification in Contemporary Theology

[1] Mattes offers a well-written and well-organized examination of the use of the Lutheran doctrine of justification in the work of five contemporary Protestant theologians. The reader who approaches Mattes’s work from a non-Lutheran theological background will find the work rewarding because the issues which Mattes addresses are universally relevant to the present concerns of […]

Mark C. Mattes, The Role of Justification in Contemporary Theology

[1] Mark Mattes offers an assessment of the role of the doctrine of justification in five contemporary Protestant theologians: Eberhard Jüngel, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jürgen Moltmann, Robert Jenson and Oswald Bayer. These theologians are not just expounded and described but also rigourously assessed. By what criterion? This is explained in the first chapter. Mattes shares the […]

Review of Mark C. Mattes, The Role of Justification in Contemporary Theology

[1] Every time I read Mattes’s Justification I am struck by its freshness, newness and, well-since there is no better word-promise. This remarkable little book starts by categorizing what has gone before, as theology must. Mattes’s ordering of the great, recent Lutheran or Lutheran-like theologians will no doubt be its most controversial aspect, since theologians […]