Denise Rector

[1] Almost 10 years have passed since the publication of this interesting and challenging book from the pen of a theological ethicist in the “Radical Orthodoxy” circle of John Milbank. Bell’s work is at once a validation of the fundamentally Christian concerns of Latin American Liberation Theology and a penetrating theological critique of the latter […]

[1] I was recently asked by a group of Canadian college professors what “public theology” — a term that was not familiar in their intellectual world — was all about. I said that “public theology” was the engagement of theology and theological ethics with many facets of the public world — politics, economics, education, culture, […]

[1] The final scene of Eric Till’s 2003 movie Luther silhouettes Luther and his wife against a green hill as horsemen gather ominously. The tension breaks when one of the riders gallops toward the couple shouting “They accepted our confession!” Melanchthon bears the good news. As the scene fades, words scroll across the screen praising […]

A Problem with “Bound Conscience” [1] In August of 2009 the Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, its highest legislative body, approved the social statement Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust by exactly the required two-thirds majority. The task force producing the policy document identified the “bound conscience” as a key concept in […]

[1] What is striking about the ELCA’s August 2009 decisions about sexuality is that they changed policy without giving a scriptural account for the change. The policy change allows persons in publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships to be ordained, yet the change is not supported in any official church document on the basis of […]

[1] Today’s reading from Jeremiah casts a lovely and hopeful vision for a future when God’s law is “written on the hearts” of the people, and when friendship with God is so obvious that no one needs any convincing. Imagine the profound reformation required for us humans to reach that point! Although we trust that […]

Preaching on Social Issues Articles The Silence of Easter by Clint Schnekloth Active Repentance: Getting beyond Guilt by Clint Schnekloth Getting Your Meta On by Clint Schnekloth Advent, Virtue Ethics, and the Telological Suspension of the Ethical by Clint Schnekloth Blessed are the Undocumented? A Reflection on Matthew 5:1-12 by Brian A.F. Beckstrom The Return […]

[1] One of the central debates facing Christianity from its onset surrounded essential requirements for acceptance into the community of believers. More specifically, some wondered whether or not particular ethnic heritage or cultural traditions were mandatory, whereas others considered various beliefs and behaviors surrounding food and other existing customs. As the small number of Jesus’ […]

[1] The Journal of Lutheran Ethics invites us again this month to think about the relationship between Sunday worship and ethics, giving us an opportunity to question our assumptions about worship and God’s mission. Many scholars working on liturgical renewal have contended that to worship is, in fact, to engage in our fundamental identity as […]

[1] On Cantata Sunday of this year (May 2, 2010), my husband and I gave our farewell sermon to the congregation at St. Michael’s Lutheran Church in Fürth, Germany, based on Isaiah 12:21 and the hymn by Robert Lowry (1826–1899) “My Life Flows on in Endless Song.”2 The last line of the refrain asks, “Since […]