Asian Continent

​ [1] Scriptures and their interpretations are highly influential in forming the norms of a culture. The act of scriptural interpretation has long fallen into the hands of those who hold positions of privilege and power, yielding readings that either affirm the status quo or further benefit the privileged sectors of society. Those who are […]

In her article, Surekha Nelavala compares surrogacy practices in India to those in North America. Writing from a feminist perspective, she contrasts surrogate mothers in North America who give “a priceless gift to the intended parents,” with the Indian fertility clinics, often dubbed “baby factories.” The thrust of the article deals with the dilemma that, while providing much needed income to many Indian families and thereby temporarily empowering surrogate mothers, the practices of the Indian surrogacy industry exploit and objectify surrogate mothers, often having disastrous and life-threatening effects on their lives and their families.

Namsoon Kang, Diasporic Feminist Theology: Asia and Theopolitical Imagination. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014, 378 pages, $39.00.

[1] Christian minjung theologies arose in the 1970s and 1980s in South Korea. They were articulated by a small group of Protestant pastors and intellectuals who became part and parcel of the late 20th century minjung movement—a cultural phenomenon led by artists, students, labor organizers, and intellectuals—that included a retrieval of traditional artistic forms, a […]

Evangeline Anderson-Rajkumar opens with two case studies from India that demonstrate the connection between violence and patriarchy. She uses the studies to lead into a mapping of patterns of violence in patriarchal culture that exist in societies worldwide.

1] This past May, six students and I experienced some Middle Eastern “development” in the raw.1 Under a vividly blue, sheltering, desert sky, we worked with local residents to build a small dam not far from Mt. Sinai. All was done by camel and by hand — carrying boulders, scooping sand, mixing mortar, and carrying […]

[1] Rigorous self-discipline is somewhat alien to contemporary American religiosity. Perhaps on account of cultural affinities, or an unspoken assumption that the soul is not affected by the body and its experiences, the very obvious benefits of diligent practice do not seem so obvious to us. I have often witnessed this aversion to rigor as […]

[1] Journal of Lutheran Ethics asked persons who had written earlier in JLE on Iraq to write once again in light of current circumstances. JLE asked them to address the question: “What does the United States owe Iraq? What obligations does the U.S. have toward Iraq?” [2] Six writers take up the challenge. They all […]

[1] On January 26, 2007 Bishop Mark S. Hanson called the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) to conversation on Iraq: “Our country is engaged in a divisive debate about the nature and the direction of this war… As the war in Iraq escalates and the way to a lasting peace seems unclear, how shall […]

[1] One striking feature of the continuing U.S. debate about the Iraq War is that the Iraqi civilian victims are absent from the discussion. We-the U.S. voting public-simply don’t know very much about what they want, and particularly what they want from us. We occasionally hear the cries of victims in news reports, and often […]