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Register now for ‘Security and Vulnerability in the Light of Global Realities:​ Living in the Shadow of Empire,” this year’s Lutheran Ethicists’ Gathering. (Registration ends December 30, 2014.) This event of the ELCA’s Theological Discernment Team (January 6 & 7, 2015 at the Fairmont Royal York, Toronto, Canada) annually brings together ethically attentive Christians whether ethicists, pastors, chaplains, teachers, or lay people. This year’s program features Canadian perspectives on security and vulnerability.

How shall we respond to the stranger knocking at our door? What should our answer be to the plight of the refugee desperate for a safe haven or to the immigrant seeking refuge among us, fleeing violence and poverty in their home country. How shall we respond when we know that we are not totally innocent from the causes that have created the humanitarian crises consuming the Middle East, Central America, and so many African countries. And what shall we do when the stranger knocking at the door is viewed with suspicion and fear by many among our own?

En este articulo la Revda. Alexia Salvatierra nos advierte que cuando las iglesias solamente se enfocan en obras de caridad sólo están atendiendo los síntomas de nuestros problemas sociales pero no sus causas. Como pastora y activista, Salvatierra nos llama la atención a la necesidad de ir más allá de las obras de misericordia, también hay que luchar por la justicia social. Ella nos presenta el modelo de “Faith Rooted Organizing” (activismo centrado en la fe) como una alternativa cristiana a los modelos seculares de activismo. Este modelo nos permite ser inocentes como palomes y a la vez astutos como serpientes para el bienhestar de los más necesitados. Es bueno darle pescado a los hambrientos, y mucho más enseñarles a pescar, dice Salvatierra, pero también hay que quitar los muros que han construido alrededor del lago donde estan los peces. Este articulo presenta un modelo para una pastoral de activismo social evangé​lico.

Heidi B. Neumark, Hidden Inheritance: Family Secrets, Memory, and Faith. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2015. 213+xviii pp. $24.99 (hardcover). $16.99 (paperback).

Less can be more. Newman’s poetry speaks from the heart of the pain of oppression in a way that an academic article could not reach, not matter the world count. ​​We know that the personal is policitcal, but Newman’s work brings home the fact that the polictical is also intensely personal for so many voices not lifted up by mainstream media.​

We live in a society whose prosperity stems from an economy infused with money from the slave trade and the labor of enslaved peoples. The effects of that on people today have not disappeared, but have gone underground where they are harder to name. White eloquently lays out how racism is a sin that we need to name and work against today along with a strategy for people of faith to work together to create a world of healing and justice.

Margaret A. Farley. Changing the Questions: Explorations in Christian Ethics. Maryknoll, NY: 2015, 376 pages, $30.00

Though we hear about events like the riots in Baltimore on the news, opportunities to hear from those on the ground are more difficult to find. The Journal of Lutheran Ethics has the honor of welcoming Bishop Wolfgang Herz-Lane to write about his experience as a member of the faith community responding to the injustice and protests in Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray while in police custody. What should the role of the church be in a society broken by racism?

That black lives matter should be obvious but unfortunately it is not. Black Lives Matter is not simply a rhetorical expression coined by a few. It is in fact an existential cry with deeply spiritual roots. Born from the depths of centuries of collective oppression (remember slavery, indentured servitude, Jim Crow,) it is an expression of the groans of the Spirit of which Paul spoke, the collective prayer of a people demanding their right to exist, their inalienable right to be.

Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung, Vainglory: The Forgotten Vice. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2014, 167 pages, $14.00