Articles

Select Bibliography on Christian Nationalism Recommended Books that Challenge Christian Nationalism (Including books written by evangelicals)   Ajoy, April. Star-Spangled Jesus: Leaving Christian Nationalism and Finding a True Faith, Worthy Books, 2024. (Written by a former Christian Nationalist who has repudiated it) Alberta, Tim. The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age […]

[1] The ELCA social statement Faith and Civic Life: Seeking the Well-Being of All defines Christian Nationalism as:  A cultural framework that idealizes and advocates fusion of highly selected Christian beliefs with U.S. civic life. This nationalistic ideology holds, among other   things, that the U.S. Constitution was divinely inspired, that Christianity should be a […]

[1] Richard Lischer invites us into a compelling story told by a wonderfully diverse cast of storytellers. Readers of the JLE would likely have already met many of the folks here, but probably not in this way, with the types of questions Lischer poses for them (and us) to ponder. As we read their stories, […]

[1] Esteemed readers of the Journal of Lutheran Ethics, this “Summer Books Issue” contains four reviews and recommendation of readings on the issue of Christian Nationalism. We include book reviews from a broad range of topics including travel, philosophy, ethics, and spirituality. It is our hope that these diverse reviews resonate and influence a decision […]

[1] Alarmed at the perceived creep of authoritarianism in the present U.S. Administration, especially at the enforcement tactics of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, this declaration written by a California pastor and modeled on the Barmen Declaration of 1934 in Germany, aims to stiffen and clarify the Church’s public witness as a check against a creeping […]

[1] Four years after its inception, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America issued its first teaching document, The Church in Society: A Lutheran Perspective at its second Churchwide Assembly in 1991.[1] This statement, which passed by a two-thirds majority, signified that the newly constituted ELCA would “commit itself to serve God and neighbor in its […]

Introduction [1] Alliances between conservative religious movements and authoritarianism are not historically anomalous, nor uniquely Christian. But with democracy and its legitimacy on the wane in the West,[1] Trumpism’s overwhelming mobilisation of, and sustained appeal to, evangelical Christianity has spurred a re-examination.[2] Trumpism shows that the conservative-religious/authoritarian alliance promises moral and national restoration without the […]

A Story from Malaysia: Standing Together Against Violence [1] When I started as a church planter in the year 2000, I never set a goal to be a prophet or social activist. I do not think my Malay-Muslim friend Ali, who was a businessman, not a religious leader, saw himself as my fellow comrade for […]

[1] I was invited to ponder the following questions for this essay: What might be the contours of a Lutheran liturgical ethic that shapes our civic engagement? How do worship or prayer equip Lutherans to re-define political power? What roles do liturgy, prayer, and preaching play in fostering, strengthening, or supporting justice and democracy? I […]

[1] I am Rev. Dr. Laurie Jungling, and I was born and raised in Great Falls, MT. I have been a Lutheran all my life, though I came close once to becoming a Presbyterian (USA). After spending a few years as a full-service gas station attendant in far-north North Dakota searching for myself, I found […]