Denise Rector

[1] Moral injury often occurs when warriors witness or participate in an act so radically contrary to their values that the bottom drops out of their moral universe and their feelings of shame and guilt are so deep that their sense of self-worth is virtually destroyed. Some would distinguish this from PTSD that usually results […]

[1] Is the constitution to be read narrowly, focusing on the intent of the framers, or is to be read more liberally, and if more liberally, why? Is religious freedom still worthy of special constitutional protection? When is it proper for an individual to disobey a law? If water flows through your property, do you […]

[1] Why Niebuhr now? That question is the title of John Patrick Diggins’s last book. Diggins was asking the question about the life and writing of Reinhold Niebuhr. His book—published posthumously—probed Niebuhr’s work in relation to the challenges facing American society in the early 21st century. Jon Diefenthaler is asking the same question about the […]

The three reviews of books dealing with the work of H. Richard Niebuhr, Lutheran perspectives on contemporary legal issues, and the discussion of moral injury in the context of just war each in their own way address concerns that are potential issue on the agenda of the church as public church. H. Richard Niebuhr’s work […]

[1] Christian Ethics at the Boundary is a splendid book! Karen V. Guth is rightly concerned that the divisions among those who identify with a particular approach to Christian ethics may create discord, which compromises our endeavors and forfeits our resources for addressing complex moral issues. Her focus in this book is the division between […]

So many wedding ceremonies contain the familiar words, “Love is patient, love is kind,” that we may not hear them anymore. However, the effect of words absorbed into a culture can be more dangerous than words heard for the first time. Goitía ​Padilla ​explores 1 Corinthians 13 through a lens of law and gospel and gender analysis. How can we hear Christ in this text while avoiding reinscribing harmful gender roles in our communities?

Love your neighbor in the Holiness Code Lev 19:18 [1] “Love your neighbor” is probably the most frequently quoted biblical directive. In part this is due to this command’s emphasis within the biblical canon in the first century AD, namely its echo in the New Testament as summary of the law in Luke 10:27 as […]

Love is at the core of the Christian faith. In fact, love is even used as the closest analogy to speak of the being of God. As we read in 1 John 4: 7-8: “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.”Therefore, given the importance of the concept of love in the Christian faith it is worth coming back again and again to examine its meaning and implications.

[1] It is a challenging task to provide a clear and fair evaluation of a volume of collected essays. This is doubly true when the volume includes contributions from more than a dozen different authors whose diverse interests coalesce around an emerging ​theme still being defined. In this instance, a reviewer more closely resembles a […]

Raye helpfully recaps the Lutheran Ethicists’ Gathering presentations–including Bishop MacDonald’s call to name and resist corporate evil through repentance and the establishing of right relationships. Raye also summarizes Dr. Sylvia Keesmaat’s analysis on Paul’s letters to the Romans as a useful model of how Empire is named and resisted in Scripture. The article asks its readers, “What is God calling those Christians benefiting from the empire of the United States to do? How can truth and reconciliation be reached?”​