Articles

[1] We often take our bodies for granted. [2] As essential to our lives as air itself, it might seem that one of the few universal truths in this world that humans tend not to notice our bodies. The particular way in which an elbow bends is unappreciated until it adopts a creak in its […]

The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown: Perhaps the selfsame song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn… Excerpt from the poem “Ode to a Nightingale” by John Keats (1795-1821) [1] […]

[1] As part of its exhibit to raise awareness about human trafficking at the 2009 Youth Gathering in New Orleans, the ELCA’s program unit for Church and Society rented a U-Haul Van and opened its back doors. Youth groups were invited to jump in and read the stories of people affected such as Miya, a […]

A review of They Are Us: Lutherans and Immigration by Stephen Paul Bouman and Ralston Deffenbaugh, Augsburg Fortress, 2009. 144 pages. [1] A book this good is worth its weight in gold. Actually, the book weighs about nine ounces, which would make it worth over $9,000. However, although it’s worth its weight in gold, it […]

[1] The latest atrocious news from Haiti, thanks to a mesmerized CNN (view Child Trafficking in Haiti) seems to be that fears that the countless children orphaned or lost before and during the earthquake are not only at risk from their physical circumstances. They are also at an even greater risk than previously of being […]

[1] Confronting the possibility of a worldwide flu pandemic has a way of throwing some of our most enduring health care quandaries into sharp relief. How can we distribute limited resources equitably and morally? How do we balance care for the individual and care for the community when they are in conflict? How much power […]

[1] Johann Konrad Wilhelm Loehe (1808-1872) served from 1837 to the end of his life as a village pastor in Neuendettelsau, Germany, in the vicinity of Nuremberg. This was a call that Loehe did not covet. However, from this out-of-the way place, Loehe engaged in a ministry and mission that had monumental influence, not only […]

[1] I was once teaching Immanuel Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason[1] to a group of undergraduates. We were discussing Kant’s claim that Christ acts as a “prototype” for human morality. That is, Christ provides us with the most perfect example of how to be good, one that is worthy of our emulation. […]

[1] Eleven percent of the American public thinks President Obama is a Muslim. But another label, true only in the loosest and most attenuated sense, has been attached to him and his political allies. Back in May the state chairs of the Republican Party, meeting in Maryland, declared themselves alarmed at the Democrats’ drift toward […]

[1] What is striking about the review of materials prepared by various church organizations concerning emergency preparedness and health concerns is how amazingly secularized the response of the church (as a generic term for various denominations) has been. In an assignment for this Journal, I reviewed materials prepared by the ELCA, the churches with which […]