Articles

Benjamin Taylor offers a theological and ethical reflection on the “Stand Your Ground” law, examining its legal ramifications and its relation to Christian ethics. Taylor observes, “…although our country may stand divided for the moment, we do believe in the power of the reconciling love of the cross, the power which defeats death and gathers the people of God together once more.”

In the aftermath of Trayvon Martin’s death and George Zimmerman’s acquittal, Cheryl Pero uses the framework of Luther’s catechism to ask: “will we use this opportunity to expose, explore, and exorcize our racial problems or continue to pretend that we live in a “post-racial” society, in a state of denial?”

The tragic death of Trayvon Martin has raised many issues for Americans in particular. The authors of the two articles in this edition of the Journal of Lutheran Ethics explore a couple of these issues in light of the Christian faith.

In this short and readable text, authors Helen Cameron, John Reader, and Victoria Slater summarize the results of an action learning event held at Ripon College in Cuddesdon, United Kingdom, in April of 2010. Participants reflected on moments of decision, when a person’s faith was compromised; moments of cross-cultural confrontation, when a person’s identity was in question; or moments of crisis, when a particularly difficult decision created conflict.

The book presents what Stassen calls “Incarnational Discipleship”; part one gives the basic foundations, and part two shows how Incarnational Discipleship meets seven challenges of secularity. Throughout, Stassen is making the argument that Incarnational Discipleship meets four specific criteria for a valid theological ethic.

Christine Gudorf’s approach in Comparative Religious Ethics: Everyday Decisions for our Everyday Lives is to focus on the practical and the experiential in an attempt to “lift up values, meanings, and interpretations from religions and also from ‘secular’ thought (most of which has been influenced by the dominant religion of the culture) that are relevant to the most basic interests and activities of contemporary human beings in North America.”

As a commissioner for equality and gender in the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Northern Germany, Thomas Schollas draws upon his experience to explore the meaning of the phrase “gender just Church.”

Caryn Riswold addresses two important concepts: the social construction of gender and the Lutheran theology of being created in God’s image. In speaking to all spheres of societal identifies, Riswold challenges the reader to think about how all gender identities can be protected and celebrated in the church as the image of God.

Niveen Sarras highlights the nameless girl and the father-son duo in Amos 2:7c and brings context to the story by examining the rest of the book of Amos, arguing that the girl was raped. Sarras then uses the Amos story to explore the rape culture in modern Palestine and narrates the deep need for change.

Evangeline Anderson-Rajkumar opens with two case studies from India that demonstrate the connection between violence and patriarchy. She uses the studies to lead into a mapping of patterns of violence in patriarchal culture that exist in societies worldwide.