Articles

19   [1] The Barmen Theological Declaration was crafted and adopted in May 1934 by a scholarly team whose guiding figure was Karl Barth. The context for this theological statement included the increasing machinations by the German Christians, supported in their efforts by the Nazi regime, to control and dominate the Protestant churches in Germany […]

19   [1] I pastor a congregation in which the immigration crisis hit so close to home that we were no longer able to live unaware. We did not even realize that this crisis was a potential reality in an Appalachian city, let alone expect to have to respond to this crisis ourselves. Very few […]

[1] Johana Medina Leon was taken into ICE custody in El Paso, TX after presenting herself to border security to request asylum. Leon, a trans woman, was facing violence and persecution in her home country of El Salvador and believed that the US would offer her the kind of protection and security she needed to […]

[1] We face a country increasingly riven by racial, ethnic, and religious conflict, conflict that often revolves around the figure of the immigrant. The incarceration of children on the border and President Trump’s call for four U.S. congresswomen of color to “go back” to their countries (even though all are U.S. citizens and three of […]

  [1] Kyle Korver, a shooting guard and small forward for the NBA’s Utah Jazz, drew some attention in April 2019 with an essay simply entitled “Privileged,” addressing racial inequalities in the NBA and American society generally. The essay discusses statistics regarding poverty, incarceration, and unemployment, but its motivation and energy arise from Korver’s friendships […]

[1] My “awakening” to the poor and oppressed of Central America and Mexico and the relationship of that to U.S., policy, is easily traced to my travel with the Augsburg College Center for Global Education to Mexico and Nicaragua, in 1982.  Almost immediately after, I sought a Tex-Mex border experience, and then found the local Overground […]

[1] Four new films offer penetrating and personal looks into various aspects of migration, deepening our understanding of migrant worker vulnerability, environmental destruction from continued wall building, the courageous work of Dreamers, and the shocking and complex violence driving families to flee Guadalupe, Mexico. [2] The Infiltrators is the provocative and uplifting story of Dreamers who courageously […]

[1] In an age of conflict and division between political parties and within political parties, between churches and within churches, American Christians often mourn disagreement, regret the diversity of opinion, and sigh for unity. This issue looks into the reality of disagreement in our nation and in our churches without rebuke. Disagreement, even radical and […]

[1] The Journal of Lutheran Ethics hopes to provide reading material to stimulate thinking and conversation among academics, clergy, and laity. To this end, this new section will be included in each issue of JLE in order to encourage constructive discussion within congregations about the topics discussed in JLE.  Consider using this section in formal […]

[1] Martin Luther wrote his Small Catechism after traveling and observing how little of Christian teaching most people knew. Four hundred years later, one of us (Amy) had a Missouri Synod Lutheran grandmother who was not permitted to move from lower to upper Michigan with the rest of her family until she had finished memorizing the Small […]