Denise Rector

[1] The parish served by the young minister was in a small town with several factories, one of which was owned by a family prominent in his congregation. The workers were poorly paid and unorganized, and the pastor helped them form a trade union. He was invited to speak at the local Workers’ Association, and […]

[1] In Minnesota, the ever-controversial Governor Jesse Ventura is under fire for declaring this 4th of July “Indivisible Day” at the suggestion of the Atheists of Minnesota for Human Rights. In the wake of a federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel decision declaring that the language “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance violates […]

In Stewart Herman’s reviews of The End of Ice and The Uninhabitable Earth he writes of our “spirits yearn[ing] to grasp the totality of what climate change means for us.” In truth, it is probably ‘ungraspable.’ But we do yearn and we must try. Our survival depends on it. As we work to study, analyze, theologize, and comprehend this complex planet, our intellects may reach into overdrive. Feeling overwhelmed, perhaps leaning toward despair, we want to shut down and simply take a walk. Or (dare I say it?) watch TV. Paradoxically, today I will recommend TV. Our Planet, the Netflix series from David Attenborough offers an immersion into the wonders of our planet as well as the perils destroying it. While stimulating our brains, the documentary’s real brilliance shines forth in its capacity to meld solid science with visual and aural sensory absorption that opens our hearts. We are enveloped in the sights and sounds of a stunning and fragile world that, to-date, still sustains us.

n this issue our book and resource reviews are focused on climate change. In an interdisciplinary approach, ethicists review works prompted by science and produced by journalists and a natural historian. Stewart Herman reviews and compares two recent books, The End of Ice by Dahr Jamail (2019) and The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace Wells (2019). Herman brings an ethicist’s eye and a theological lens to these two works on climate change written by journalists.

“No matter what your trials are, or how big your mountain seems; The Lord is there to see you through; To go to all extremes. So if your cross seems hard to bear, and you know not what to do; The One who loves you most of all will be there to see you through. We, members of the Conference of International Black Lutherans, want the Echols family to know that our hearts are with you as we gather to remember the life of our brother and man of faith, the Rev. Dr. James Kenneth Echols.”

[1] One billion human beings are hungry today. One billion people do not have enough to eat. The number alone is staggering. But what makes it scandalous is the fact that God’s abundant creation — the fertile earth and seas — can produce adequate nutrition for all. Scarcity is not the problem. The problems (and […]

“Dear colleagues and friends, the focus for this gathering is vitally important. Addressing harsh economic inequity and seeking to identify and undo the factors that cause it is – I will argue – critical to Christian witness, and therefore is at the heart of what it means to be church in the heritage of Martin Luther. Since this group spent yesterday evening examining realities of economic inequity, I will not begin there except to emphasize that for many people, extreme poverty – especially in the midst of wealth – is brutal, often deadly. ‘Poverty,’ declared Gandhi ‘is the worst form of violence.’ The data about the expanding wealth gap in the United States and around the globe is soul-searing.”

This June/July issue of the Journal ties up several threads. One of those is marked by the Resolution in loving memory of the Rev. Dr. James Kenneth Echols, who served for several years as JLE’s editor. As JLE’s “publisher” I claim a moment of privilege as part of that recognition to write a bit more than editors usually do in JLE. I also tie up a thread here as I finish my stint as guest editor. The traditional book review issue of August/September also will introduce our new editor.

[1] From the initial planning for this book, the intent was not to set forth one normative Lutheran approach, against which other approaches could summarily be dismissed as “inferior.” Nor was it to suggest that there are no distinctive commonalities and emphases among those whose moral life has been shaped by Lutheran theology, centered in […]

In his study on faith and culture, German-American theologian, Paul Tillich, claimed that religion is the substance of culture and that culture is the concrete form in which the religious dimension of the human spirit is expressed. But what happens when different religions and cultures coexist in the same society, in close proximity to each other? That is the case in many places across the world today. At an intellectual level, the challenge for people who take their faith seriously is how to balance the absolute claims of their faith tradition (they are after all claims about God or ultimacy, with universal scope) with the also absolute claims of the neighbors’ faith. The peaceful coexistence of our communities depends on the success of that balancing act.