Denise Rector

[1] During the last three decades the discussion on the role of religion in politics has attracted increasing attention. Due to both theoretical and political causes this question has become increasingly pressing – and difficult. The question is a demanding one, due not only to the implications it raises for social ethics but also for […]

[1] In 1939 Dietrich Bonhoeffer made his fateful decision to return to Germany from the United States. Within a year of his return, he became involved in the conspiracy against Adolf Hitler. [2] His involvement in the conspiracy led to his imprisonment and finally to his execution by the Nazis. Today Bonhoeffer is often celebrated […]

Interested in purchasing the movie? Click on this link to learn more about purchasing Bonhoeffer. [1] Year after year, decade after decade, the star of Dietrich Bonhoeffer seems to grow brighter and brighter. The impact of this inspiring martyr of the church struggle in Germany and throughout all of Europe in the decades of the […]

[1] “Who are you, Christ?” In her paper, “A Spoke in the Wheel,” Dr. Renate Wind has presented a compelling glimpse of a Christian whose probing of that question, that prayer, over the course of some of the most perilous years in human history can provide insight for us in our own potentially “perilous praxis.” […]

[1] On April 9, 1945, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Protestant theologian and pastor of the Confessing Church, was condemned to death on charges of high treason by an SS special court and hanged in Flossenbürg concentration camp. He was one of the millions of victims of Nazi barbarity, one who had conciously taken sides with the persecuted […]

[1] This social statement begins the public conversation within the ELCA on health and health care. If we take this statement seriously, we will be agents of change. The impact of this statement depends on the action of individual members, congregations, and institutions of the church toward improving health within their spheres of influence. This […]

[1] When theologians speak of the “mission of the Church” they usually try to describe what the Church is to do in the particular environment in which it is found. Of course, there are many biblical texts that provide direction for this: the Church is to make disciples by baptizing people from all nations and […]

[1] On the contrary, it is one of the consolations of the coming kingdom and expiring time that this anxiety about posterity, that the burden of the postulate that we should and must bear children, heirs of our blood and name and honour and wealth, that the pressure and bitterness and tension of this question, […]

[1] The January 13, 2003 issue of The New Yorker published an article about a manufacturer of artificial limbs from Staten Island. He wanted to help the victims of the civil war in Sierra Leone, in which amputation had been a key form of terrorist activity. [2] He had difficulty finding a way to carry […]

[1] This paper was originally presented as a PowerPoint based lecture at Pacific Lutheran University on February 10, 2003, for a conference titled Two Kingdoms Collide: A Lutheran Perspective on War, Peace, and Social Justice.1 [2] “Just peacemaking” Lutherans have not often used that terminology2. We have, however, engaged in just peacemaking, often even as […]