Articles

[1] The two-realm teaching in Lutheran social ethics is something quite different from the notion of separation of church and state as it has evolved in the United States political tradition. It is Luther’s attempt to translate his law and gospel distinction to the public realm featuring the complex life of society – the province […]

[1] In our upcoming elections, these are three broad commitments that I would like all candidates to make. [2] Let’s talk about real issues: restoring a politics of substance Politics within our present context has been debased. Real policy alternatives are often not discussed or debated. It sometimes seems that “image” is almost everything. Candidates […]

[1] Jean Bethke Elshtain opens Just War against Terror by asking a simple, but crucial question. “What Happened on September 11?” is the title of the opening chapter, where she challenges her readers with two different interpretations of that terrible day in New York, Washington, D.C. and western Pennsylvania. The first is Pope John Paul […]

[1] This book was a disappointment to me, and therefore a missed opportunity. It is a disappointment in the sense that those looking for a sustained and informative treatment of the struggle against terrorism illuminated by the just war tradition will be let down- a conclusion confirmed for me by both civilians and soldiers (one […]

[1] Jean Bethke Elshtain’s Just War against Terror is her response to the attacks of September 11, 2001. The original publication date was 2003, and the most recent edition also contains analysis of the initial prosecution of the Iraq war. Elshtain’s analysis is pursued from the perspective of “just war theory,” a theory that finds […]

[1] The coming decade looks to be a time of testing for the United Nations and for the U.S. relationship to it. In the current political debate period discussion about this occurs only in coded, veiled, and vague speech revolving around unilateralism and multilateralism or global leadership and “no ‘global test’ under my watch,” and […]

[1] My observations of this political season leave me in despair. My thesis here is drawn from my observations-truth is not any longer either the goal or expectation in American politics. What I am pointing to here is a general public perception that we are unable to expect public discourse and public leaders to be […]

[1]If property is a relation among persons with respect to things, as Morris Cohen says,[1] possession in the human realm is a relation among persons and things commonly called having. The distinction is as important as their connections. Both notions and their relations are explored in this welcome collection of essays coming out of a […]

[1] In the July 2004 issue of the Lutheran, John Hoffmeyer, a theologian at the Lutheran seminary in Philadelphia, comments on the Abu Ghraib scandal by posing a quandary of the sort that ethicists used to love: what if by torturing one person you might extract information that would prevent a major terrorist attack? Hoffmeyer […]

The following article was given as a graduation address to Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary. [1] In Hans Christian Andersen’s fable, “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” a vain Emperor has a reputation for only caring about dressing in elegant clothes. Knowing of the emperor’s vanity, two scoundrels come to the Emperor claiming to be good tailors, having […]