Articles

[1] I hadn’t thought much about tax exemption and its implications for our organization and our society until asked to do this reflection. I had basically taken it for granted, even though in recent years our organization has joined others in protesting what seemed like assaults on this status from the IRS and Congress. [2] […]

[1] Ethical concerns about taxation typically cluster around two distinct questions. The first concerns the right of the government to tax individuals in the first place, while the second considers the ethical desirability of alternative tax schemes. Obviously, the first question needs to be settled, and in a particular manner, before proceeding on to the […]

[1] All Christians think about eating. I’m contemplating the preparation of a mid-morning snack even as I write this. Many Christians say grace before they eat, in this way locating the act of eating doxologically. And some may practice certain vestigial forms of fasting, like eating fish (fry!) on Fridays, or foregoing chocolate during Lent. […]

[1] In an article in JLE in March 2003, I argued that the looming invasion of Iraq was justified under just war criteria. Some Christian public intellectuals had taken that stand, but very few academic Christian ethicists did-at least not publicly. Most American and international church bodies spoke out against the war. Starting in summer […]

[1] This is the third JLE piece that I have been invited to write on the war in Iraq, the first two being written in October, 2001 and September, 2002. As I look back on the contents of those earlier articles in light of what has transpired since then, I am inclined to say (with […]

[1] As a prognosticator, I’d guess I have about a 50-50 track record in life. Looking back over what I published in JLE in December of 2002 as the Bush Administration beat the drums of war, though, I think I can claim to have nailed this one. I concluded my essay: “In this light the […]

[1] I supported the President and Congress in their decision to invade Iraq. It is now three years after that invasion. How does that decision stand up? (I have given reasons in other essays for my support of the war and will not rehash them here. Suffice it to say that those reasons draw upon […]

[1] If truth is the first casualty of war, cynicism must be its last-and most enduring. Sadly, we have seen both in the war in Iraq. No one found WMDs, the stated reason for entering the war. Nor were there any discovered links between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. The majority of Americans who believed […]

[1] This year, my three-year-old granddaughter wanted a doll for Christmas – but a very special kind of doll. “I want a doll just like me,” she instructed the family. “Only better.” [2] My granddaughter was not envisioning a doll manufactured by cloning her genetic material, or generated by cultivating an embryonic stem cell line, […]

“The science of alchemy I like very well, and indeed, ’tis the philosophy of the ancients. I like it not only for the profits it brings in melting metals, in decocting, preparing, extracting and distilling herbs, roots; I like it also for the sake of the allegory and secret signification, which is exceedingly fine, touching […]