Articles

[1] Both Martin Luther and Søren Kierkegaard understand Christianity primarily in terms of its impact on and relationship to the conscience. In particular, Kierkegaard explicitly agrees with Luther that Christianity cannot be understood apart from the experience of the terrified and afflicted conscience. “What Luther says is excellent, the one thing needful and the sole […]

[1] I’ve just returned from seeing Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and for the first time I understand what all the fuss is about. Well, maybe not ALL of it. [2] I understand the best seller sales. I understand how people of all ages have been captivated by the story. I understand why the […]

[1] The oracle in Isaiah 2:1–5 presents a vision of what life will be like when Zion is established as a worship place, and all the nations of the world follow God’s teaching.1 It is a picture of the world as it should be, as opposed to the world as it is. For Isaiah’s original […]

[1] Much work has been done on Martin Luther’s use of the term “conscience”1 and how the meaning of this concept has developed over the years. Journal for Lutheran Ethics has participated in this conversation.2 Its studies have ranged in their approaches, some try to systematize Luther’s views, others look into his thematic uses of […]

[1] In its nine years of publication Journal of Lutheran Ethics has become synonymous with the best characteristics of moral deliberation and an internationally appreciated tool for theological reflection. The Rev. Kaari Reierson, founding editor, has been the single most significant reason for its existence, shape and success. This fact did not preclude the elimination […]

[1] Journal of Lutheran Ethics owes its existence to the forward thinking of John Stumme and to the faithful support of the community of Lutheran ethicists. As I cleaned out my files at churchwide, I found the stub from my first paycheck, two hundred and forty dollars for compiling results from a survey of Lutheran […]

[1] Pages 18–21 of the 2009 ELCA social statement Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust, which consider same-gender relationships, have not gone unnoticed by members of the ELCA. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that, as the statement puts it, “We have come to various conclusions concerning how to regard lifelong, monogamous, same-gender […]

[1] You would think that Christians, whether Protestant or Catholic, might generally have more sympathy for one another’s cosmological views than either would for the cosmological views of an atheist. And in last year’s The Monstrosity of Christ, British Catholic theologian John Milbank does mount an elaborate defense of traditional beliefs against Slovenian critical theory […]

[1] Almost 10 years have passed since the publication of this interesting and challenging book from the pen of a theological ethicist in the “Radical Orthodoxy” circle of John Milbank. Bell’s work is at once a validation of the fundamentally Christian concerns of Latin American Liberation Theology and a penetrating theological critique of the latter […]

[1] I was recently asked by a group of Canadian college professors what “public theology” — a term that was not familiar in their intellectual world — was all about. I said that “public theology” was the engagement of theology and theological ethics with many facets of the public world — politics, economics, education, culture, […]