Articles

[1] Our heated summer-time debates over human embryonic stem cell research were all but forgotten until we were jolted over the sleepy Thanksgiving weekend by an announcement from researchers at Advanced Cell Technology (ACT), a small biotech company in Massachusetts. On TV screens, in the pages of “U.S. News & World Report,” and online in […]

[1] “Beginning the Journey” was the title given by the students at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg this spring as a request to the faculty for gathering information. The information they wanted to know specifically dealt with topics that concerned homosexuality and human sexuality. They believed they needed to know this information to prepare […]

[1] The recent announcement by Advance Cell Technology seems to confirm what most people thought was sadly inevitable when almost five years ago a sheep named Dolly was created with cloning techniques. Cloning humans would be attempted, and it was. This effort – unremarkable as it was in its so-called success – is given the […]

Luther did not base his doctrine of the two kingdoms or the two governments on his own speculative thinking. He felt that in this matter too his position was wholly determined by Scripture. He distinguishes two types of statements. One type is characterized by Jesus’ statements in the Sermon on the Mount and the apostles’ […]

What is the role of the law in the Christian life? This has been and remains today an issue that lies close to the heart of Christian ethics, as may be seen, for example, in the recent conversations between Lutheran and Reformed theologians in America. Superior biblical exegesis and improvements in historical research have facilitated […]

[1] Raised in a parsonage in Michelsdorf in Germany, situated in the hills of Silesia – the son, grandson, and great-grandson of Silesian pastors, I was immersed in the Christian faith and its proclamation. My paternal, non-theological grandparents had died before I was born. My paternal uncles and aunts appeared only rarely in my life. […]

[1] What do I think about the first successful (albeit short-lived) cloning of human embryos for the purpose of deriving stem cells? Readers with a low tolerance for ambivalence are advised to ‘quit’ now because my answer will neither condemn nor celebrate the news from Worcester. At the risk of making matters worse I must […]

[1] Upon hearing that both houses of Congress approved legislation to allow the use of the Capitol Rotunda for their prayer session, the ubiquitous-and by now frenetic-Barry Lynn, Executive Director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AUSCS), complained: “If members of Congress want a religious service, they can go to their houses […]

[1] On a recent flight to Pittsburgh, several professors from a near-by university sat behind me discussing the danger of mixing religion and politics, particularly if the mixing is done by the likes of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, whom my fellow academicians compared to Islamicists like Osama Ben Laden. That outrageous and false comparison […]

[1] Osama bin Laden and his mentor Sayyid Qutb are fundamentalists. So are Jerry Falwell and, in a slightly more complicated (because also pentecostalist), Pat Robertson. [2] Bin Laden & Co. are Muslims, who would rather kill you than let you connect them in any way with Protestant fundamentalists. Jerry Falwell & Co. are Christians, […]