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Review Essay: The Revolution Ate Its Children — Two New Essay Collections Address the Embodied Politic

“…[T]he Kingdom of God is within you.” — Luke 17:21, New International Version “…[T]he Kingdom of God is in the midst of you.” — Luke 17:21, English Standard Version [1] In the book Paul’s New Moment, Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek paraphrases Karl Marx’s comments on the French Revolution, comparing “the sublime revolutionary explosion, the Event […]

Thomas Aquinas on the Christian Life

[1] Thomas Aquinas’s theology of charity testifies throughout to Paul’s proclamation that “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Rom 5:5).1 Charity is a supernatural virtue, infused by God the Trinity in order not only to heal the fallen human will, but also to […]

Response to Paul Hinlicky’s Review of Liberation Theology after the End of History

See also Daniel M. Bell, Jr.’s Liberation Theology after the End of History: The Refusal to Cease Suffering by Paul R. Hinlicky I am grateful for the care and charity with which Professor Hinlicky read the book. I hope the comments that follow reflect the same. — Daniel Bell [1] Capitalism. Professor Hinlicky asks why […]

Daniel Rice’s Reinhold Niebuhr Revisited: Engagements with an American Original

[1] To read Reinhold Niebuhr is pure pleasure; to read his disciples less so. The book, with a forward by Martin Marty and an introduction by Daniel F. Rice, seeks, as the title says, to revisit and engage with our greatest public intellectual of the twentieth century. Given that as an ethicist, Niebuhr’s applications are […]

Introduction to Daniel Bell’s Response to Paul Hinlicky

See also Daniel M. Bell, Jr.’s Liberation Theology after the End of History: The Refusal to Cease Suffering by Paul R. Hinlicky [1] Does life in twenty-first century America involve compromises of the soul unlike anything else in the history of the Christian faith? Is being Christian more difficult in an affluent, market-driven, consumerist society […]

Patricia Beattie Jung and Aana Marie Vigen’s God, Science, Sex, Gender: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Christian Ethics

1] In the midst of Christian debates on sexuality that ultimately rest on various biblical hermeneutical schools and practices, Patricia Beattie Jung and Aana Marie Vigen have edited a multi-faceted volume on human sexuality that challenges an overriding focus in Christian theological discourse on one normative source, Scripture. As a whole, the volume’s contributors offer […]

Daniel Rice’s Reinhold Niebuhr Revisited: Engagements with an American Original

[1] When America learned the President of the United States identified Reinhold Niebuhr as a person who influenced him, I imagine many people scurried to probe more deeply into the nature of Niebuhr’s ethical and political thinking. Of course, there were people wondering who Reinhold Niebuhr is. I imagine some people saw this as an […]

Introduction to Reviews of Daniel Rice’s Reinhold Niebuhr Revisited: Engagements with an American Original

[1] Of all the dispiriting signs of the times in Lutheran pastoral circles these days, the one I find most troubling is the anti-theological bias of so many clergy. Before I go any further on this track, I must confess that my research on this matter is constricted by my own small world of contacts, […]

Response to Hearing the Cries: Faith and Criminal Justice

Other responses to Hearing the Cries James Samuel Logan Kathryn Getek Soltis Wayne N. Miller Ned Wisnefske [1] Hearing the Cries: Faith and Criminal Justice aims to “inform, challenge, and guide the church into action” in responding to crime in America. It does so by highlighting the ways that crime affects our society and the […]

Response to Hearing the Cries: Faith and Criminal Justice

Other responses to Hearing the Cries James Samuel Logan Bradley R. E. Wright Wayne N. Miller Ned Wisnefske [1] The fact that the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America has invested its time and resources into a statement on faith and criminal justice is itself worth commendation. The fruit of that labor earns further and earnest […]