Articles

[1] Every once in a while I pull a slim volume from my shelf and leaf through it. The book is Helmut Thielicke’s A Little Exercise for Young Theologians, translated into English and published in the United States in 1962.[1] This go round, I turned my attention to Martin E. Marty’s introduction to Thielicke’s work. […]

[1] I worked with John Stumme only since 1999, during the six years that I was on what until recently was called the Division for Church in Society board. Our biannual meetings gave me brief but striking glimpses into the workings of the Division, with its overwhelming polyphony of projects and agendas. Add to this […]

[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] Because Lutherans tend to emphasize that even the best of our achievements will be corrupted and tainted by what Helmut Thielicke called our “Babylonian heart,” they should, one might think, be modest in their expectation of any government’s ability to shape and foster a virtuous life among its citizens. [2] Moreover, politics is not […]

[1] The ELCA is fast approaching its twentieth year and, having been there from the beginning, John Stumme is fast approaching his twentieth year of ELCA leadership, first as the Associate Director for Studies of the ELCA’s division for Church in Society and eventually as the Director for Studies. His imminent retirement provides an opportunity […]

[1] Is there a Lutheran intellectual tradition?[1] [2] When my academic dean, Bill Craft, invited me to answer this question I decided to run some quick keyword searches in a couple of databases. The results were not very encouraging. When I searched for “Lutheran” and “intellectual” in an on-line database for periodical literature in religion, […]

[1] The greatest challenge for Lutheran theological ethics in the coming years will not be how adequately they address the myriad contemporary issues the modern world faces. Rather, it will concern whether or not ethics done by ELCA Lutherans will flow from genuine Lutheran theological sources.[1] The Lutheran theological resources I am thinking about are […]

[1] During discussions by JLE’s editorial council this past summer, I rashly suggested that contributors to this focus section might want to articulate one global challenge, one local challenge and a hermeneutic challenge to Lutheran ethics. Swallowing my own medicine, therefore, let me identify three such challenges from the admittedly limited vantage point of the […]

[1] One of the fields continuously raising ethical questions is the fast development within biotechnology. Constantly new possibilities arise and lead to ethical questions. For a Lutheran ethic the challenge is twofold – it is both a challenge to determine the key ethical questions in general and a question whether or not there is a […]

[1] Journal of Lutheran Ethics was originally scheduled to be launched on September 15, 2001. The pages were all set to go, only our web editor had a vacation in California in early September. This meant that when airline traffic was shut down after 9/11, he had to make his way back via rental car […]