Articles

[1] It was a year ago September during U.S. Senate hearings on embryonic stem cell research. Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) took out a blank piece of paper, placed a pencil dot in the center of it, and held it up to Mary Tyler Moore. “This,” he declared, “is the size of the thing we’re talking […]

[1] I am shocked by today’s apparent terrorist attacks upon the people in the Eastern United States. I join with all of you in mourning these enormous human tragedies. Congregations, pastors and members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) are praying for the comfort of all people affected by these incredible acts. We […]

[1] Dreadful disasters such as we have just experienced create a renewed sense of solidarity among people. Certainly we have seen our nation come together in prayer, in mourning, in determined resolution, and in many acts of self-giving service on behalf of the victims. What other manifestations of solidarity may we hope for and pray […]

[1] The American law of self-defense, as a general rule, requires that a defender who kills show that she reasonably feared that she was in imminent threat of serious bodily injury or death. This rule embodies two important understandings consonant with Christian views of human nature and violence. One is implicit in the requirement that […]

[1] Six years ago our church adopted a social statement, “For Peace in God’s World,” intended to reflect the consensus view of how we as a Community for Peace should pursue that goal. As we reflect upon the horrible disaster of September 11, 2001, I believe it would do us all good to re-read that […]

[1] Reinhard Hütter has argued eloquently for a double center to Luther’s theology, suggesting that an Enlightenment view of “freedom” has badly distorted our understanding of the law in Luther’s work. George Lindbeck has similarly identified a kind of rabbinic appreciation for the law in Luther’s thinking, especially in his Catechisms, which represent the pastoral […]

[1] My aims in this essay are two. The first is to expose dangers presented by the model of economic globalization shaping our world today. Secondly, in light of those dangers, I will offer rays of hope for the moral-spiritual power to forge new forms of economic life. As a source of that moral-spiritual power, […]

[1] For many places around the world, being vulnerable to devastating attack is not a new historical experience, 20th century Europe being just one case in point. But we who are Americans have been conditioned throughout our national history to feel our nation is invulnerable to attack, and certainly not by airplanes with “American” or […]

[1] I cried for a time, thinking about the horrible deaths of all of the innocent people trapped in the World Trade Center, and of the rescuers who gave their own lives to save others. But as I cried I became increasingly angry, not only at the terrorists, but also at the root cause of […]

A Special Calling in History [1] In 1998, in a series essay on the 21st century in Atlantic Monthly, Bill McKibben examines the population question and concludes as follows: The bottom-line argument goes like this: The next fifty years are a special time. They will decide how strong and healthy the planet will be for […]