October 15, 2004
[1] Jean Bethke Elshtain’s Just War against Terror is her response to the attacks of September 11, 2001. The original publication date was 2003, and the most recent edition also contains analysis of the initial prosecution of the Iraq war. Elshtain’s analysis is pursued from the perspective of “just war theory,” a theory that finds […]
[1] Jean Bethke Elshtain is not a novice to the disputes surrounding our culture wars. Hers is a steady, sober, and prevailing voice in today’s debates over the trials of democracy, the relationship of ethics to international politics, and the place for patriotic allegiance in a pluralistic world. [2] She has written 17 books, 340+ […]
[1] After Journal of Lutheran Ethics invited me to consider the question above for this special election issue, I decided to frame my own reflections by way a broader conversation with a few colleagues from my institution, Goucher College in Baltimore. I gathered together Sociologist Janet Shope, Political Scientist Nick Brown and International Studies Professor […]
[1] It is not an original thought. I heard one of the TV pundits discussing the point after the last debate; but it struck home. Over these past weeks of campaigning, the middle class has been front and center. People are losing jobs and health care. The elderly can’t get the prescription drugs they need. […]
[1] A substantial number of the forgotten issues in this election involve questions of intergenerational justice. Consider the following: Both the Hospital Insurance part of Medicare (Part A) and Social Security are headed for bankruptcy-Medicare Part A in the next few years, Social Security a few years down the road. Both are financed by taxes […]
[1] Coincidentally, the U.S. election comes just two days after the 5th anniversary of the signing by the Catholic and Lutheran churches of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, when we witnessed the potential of theological doctrine to bring together and reconcile forces that had been divided for nearly 500 years. In stark […]
[1] “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” As he stood in the Ellipse, my father-in-law remembers that the only thing he was really afraid on that wintry day was frostbite. But I am not worried about the weather. What concerns me is how far this country has traveled from Roosevelt’s insight. Fear has […]
[1] A basic difficulty in the application of Lutheran theological insights to the current political scene is the fundamentally static nature of much of Luther’s thinking about the relationship of state and citizen. That is, Luther’s political writings focus much more narrowly upon the duties and powers of temporal authority in general and the individuals […]
[1] It has become commonplace to observe that in this television age political campaigns tend to be reduced to sound bytes and thirty-second ads designed to project an image of the candidate or of his or her opponent. Any serious discussion of issues thus tends to be constrained by these requirements of campaign methods. [2] […]
[1] The two-realm teaching in Lutheran social ethics is something quite different from the notion of separation of church and state as it has evolved in the United States political tradition. It is Luther’s attempt to translate his law and gospel distinction to the public realm featuring the complex life of society – the province […]
