Articles

In 2016 the ELCA publicly repudiated the “doctrine of discovery”–the idea that Europeans “discovered” the Americas, when in fact they stole it from peoples who had discovered it thousands of years earlier. Blackfox reflects on what the ELCA has committed itself to do and the fruitful possibilities that could come from such actions, while also questioning if it will happen.

Tinker provides an incredibly valuable history of the ways in which the doctrine of discovery was used during the colonization of what is now the United States. Though today this mindset is reinforced through U.S. culture, Tinker examines how part of its major impact has come from how it was used in government to “legally” allow native land to be stolen. As Christians, it is even more important for us to note the role that Christianity played in the process.

Everybody knows that in the late 15th century Christopher Columbus arrived at what is now known as the Americas and that he proceeded to take possession of such lands on behalf of the Spanish crown. What is not widely known, however, are the legal and theological rationale with which Europeans justified the often violent (at times genocidal) conquest and colonization of these lands which had already been “discovered” and populated. By the time the Spanish and English peoples arrived at Turtle Island and Avia Yala (the original names of these lands) Native American nations and empires had already been in place for thousands of years. (The current scientific consensus is that First Peoples began arriving some 14000 years ago.) So, what logic led the new arrivals to think that they had the right to take away the land from these nations?

[1] This is the second edition of Rutledge’s excellent Handbook on Politics and Religion by Jeffery Haynes. Haynes is Director of Research at London Metropolitan University in the U.K. The first volume was published after the events of September 11, 2011, looking at the implications of “religious terrorism” and “extremism.” Haynes asked some of the […]

[1] Kevin Considine’s new book, Salvation for the Sinned-Against: Han and Schillebeeckx in Intercultural Dialogue, aims at reimagining a catholic (universal) soteriology within world Christianity, with an emphasis on the ‘sinned-against’ drawn from the particularities of Korean and Korean-American theological insight. But the how within the what, or the methodological approach within his aim, are […]

Students who enter seminary typically have experienced a call to ministry. However, pursuing that call professionally can be expensive. Melissa Curtis Powell, Director of Financial Aid at Trinity Lutheran Seminary, shares her expertise on the problems of student debt and ways to prevent students from being overly burdened.

When approached about finding contributors to the Journal of Lutheran Ethics around a topic which was and remains particularly relevant to millennials, student debt emerged as perhaps the most important distinguishing criteria setting this generation apart from predecessor generations. Sure, many theological topics remain high priorities in the life and witness of most millennials, yet there remains a deep concern about the sustainability of these priorities given the immense debt that so many have accrued. I will be the first to recognize that I am not a financial expert, nor a person particularly fraught with debt myself. As I remind myself, this is not my own doing, it remains a gift from God. With that quite Lutheran recognition, I found two lenses that should be helpful in discerning this topic—though I recognize this topic is not new to many.

HIGHER EDUCATION AS A PUBLIC GOOD [1] At the 2014 Laurier University Governance Dinner, Andrew Newman, an Audit Partner with KPMG’s Public Sector Audit Practice in Ottawa, described how his grandfather had gone to school through to grade eight and then went out to work. He then recounted how his father went to school through […]

[1] The Rev. Dr. Philip Turner is a retired but clearly still active veteran of the conflicts within the Episcopal Church U.S.A. Though he does not write about those rifts with any specificity in this rich and constructive book, that discord echoes through the pages of Christian Ethics and the Church. It seems reasonable to […]

[1] In his piece in this book, Carter Lindberg quotes Luther from his commentary on Deuteronomy: “’The poor you always have with you,’” quoting John 12:8, “just as you will have all other evils. But constant care should be taken that, since these evils are always in evidence, they are always opposed.”[1] Thus, for Luther, […]