Denise Rector

Introduction [1] However deeply ensconced the suspicion of natural law might seem among 20th-century Protestant thinkers, it cannot be attributed to the 16th-century Reformers themselves. Both Lutheran and Reformed streams of the magisterial tradition readily affirmed the doctrine of lex naturalis and cognito Dei naturalis. While it is decidedly true that they championed a particular […]

[1] As Thomas Pearson’s essay so succinctly illustrates, questions about the usefulness of Roman Catholic versions of natural law theory to Lutheran ethics — or even to ecumenical conversation about ethics in which both traditions participate — have many layers. Does natural law exist? If it exists, in what exactly does it consist, and what […]

A review of They Are Us: Lutherans and Immigration by Stephen Paul Bouman and Ralston Deffenbaugh, Augsburg Fortress, 2009. 144 pages. [1] A book this good is worth its weight in gold. Actually, the book weighs about nine ounces, which would make it worth over $9,000. However, although it’s worth its weight in gold, it […]

[1] On November 11, 2009 there was an atmosphere of anxiety in the Youth Center of the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church (LELC) in Riga’s Old City as LELC pastors and evangelists met. The agenda of the LELC Pastors’ Conference had as a point of debate the question of women’s ordination — should the new Constitution […]

[1] We often take our bodies for granted. [2] As essential to our lives as air itself, it might seem that one of the few universal truths in this world that humans tend not to notice our bodies. The particular way in which an elbow bends is unappreciated until it adopts a creak in its […]

The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown: Perhaps the selfsame song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn… Excerpt from the poem “Ode to a Nightingale” by John Keats (1795-1821) [1] […]

[1] As part of its exhibit to raise awareness about human trafficking at the 2009 Youth Gathering in New Orleans, the ELCA’s program unit for Church and Society rented a U-Haul Van and opened its back doors. Youth groups were invited to jump in and read the stories of people affected such as Miya, a […]

[1] The latest atrocious news from Haiti, thanks to a mesmerized CNN (view Child Trafficking in Haiti) seems to be that fears that the countless children orphaned or lost before and during the earthquake are not only at risk from their physical circumstances. They are also at an even greater risk than previously of being […]

[1] I was once teaching Immanuel Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason[1] to a group of undergraduates. We were discussing Kant’s claim that Christ acts as a “prototype” for human morality. That is, Christ provides us with the most perfect example of how to be good, one that is worthy of our emulation. […]

[1] Eleven percent of the American public thinks President Obama is a Muslim. But another label, true only in the loosest and most attenuated sense, has been attached to him and his political allies. Back in May the state chairs of the Republican Party, meeting in Maryland, declared themselves alarmed at the Democrats’ drift toward […]