Denise Rector

0 [1] “Do what you love” was Joel Sartore’s message to the Ralston High School graduating Class of 2000.  As a graduate of Ralston High himself, Sartore had returned to share his story about the importance and joy of following one’s dream.  By that time, Sartore was already a National Geographic photographer, so one could imagine that the spark to create […]

[1] At Field Elementary School in South Minneapolis, I learned and memorized the names of all of the Great Lakes. I knew from maps that one of the Great Lakes bordered Minnesota, and while my father, uncles and grandfather took me fishing all over Minnesota and western Wisconsin, I didn’t see Lake Superior until I […]

[1] David L. Clough is Professor of Theological Ethics at the University of Chester in the U. K. He is also the founder of the CreatureKind a faith-based project with a focus on farmed animal welfare. Clough’s first volume, On Animals: Systematic Theology, published in 2012, is surely the most significant theological account to date […]

[1] For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God. (Hebrews 3:4). [2] Sitting down on a cold winter afternoon with my dog vying for the larger portion of the couch at my side, I glance at the theme of this issue of the Journal of Lutheran Ethics: Faith, Science, and […]

0 [1] The mid-day skies darkened as an acrid-smelling cloud of haze rolled in over the city of Kota Kinabalu this past September. From my perch at the seminary, atop a jungle-clad hill in the center of the city, my usual expansive view was reduced to being best measured in yards rather than miles.  Kota […]

The Proper Use of Science in Determining Risk Assessment [2] Risk assessment is one way of making decisions about whether or not a new technological advancement is worth the price to the environment, but this often requires having some knowledge of the future consequences in order to assess the risk. Determining future consequences can be […]

0   [1] Over the past two centuries within the Western intellectual tradition, considerations of the relationship between science and ethics have moved in two distinct and largely opposite directions. This paper examines these two directions and poses ideas and questions in order to move Lutheran thinkers towards a new way of thinking about the […]

[1] The calendar has rolled over into 2020, starting a new year and a new decade that many had hoped would be marked with clear 20/20 vision. But January 1st did not bring a sudden clearing of our eyes and of the air. Instead there has been marked political turmoil and fiery natural disasters. Our smart […]

In this issue of the journal we highlight four books addressing animals and climate change. Dr. Stephen Crocco, Director of the Library at Yale Divinity School, reviews David Clough’s large two-volume work, On Animals, which brings both systematic theology and theological ethics to bear on the ways Christian human animals live with non-human animals who […]

[1] Four new films offer penetrating and personal looks into various aspects of migration, deepening our understanding of migrant worker vulnerability, environmental destruction from continued wall building, the courageous work of Dreamers, and the shocking and complex violence driving families to flee Guadalupe, Mexico. [2] The Infiltrators is the provocative and uplifting story of Dreamers who courageously […]