Asian Continent

Some Thoughts on U.S. Responsibility in Iraq

[1] The issue addressed to the symposium concerns the nature of U.S. obligations to Iraq. The language of obligation suggests the editors of JLE have in mind a moral question, and, indeed, there is a moral question here, although it is of a certain sort. More precisely, the question of U.S. obligation to Iraq is […]

Niebuhr’s Realism and the Mess in Iraq

1] Published in the darkest days of the Great Depression, presciently warning about Hitler’s rise in Germany, insightfully urging that achievement of greater equality within America is a matter of its own survival, Reinhold Niebuhr’s Moral Man and Immoral Society is one of those books often referred to but infrequently studied. As we struggle to […]

An Ethical Critique of Christian Zionism

An Ethical Critique of Christian Zionism [1] As an Arab Palestinian Evangelical Lutheran Christian who grew up as a refugee, questions about the land and theology of Palestine/Israel are not just theological or philosophical exercises to me. They involve all that I am and all that I hold sacred in my life as a Palestinian […]

Christian Zionism

[1] What is Zionism? What is Christian Zionism? Let’s try to develop some working definitions before we visit the pros and cons of a movement that seems to be attracting a fair amount of attention today. [2] A simple definition could be, “Zionism supports the return, or the various returns, of the Jewish people to […]

Christian Zionism from a Perspective of Jewish-Christian Relations

Thesis [1] The essential lines of classical Christian anti-Judaism are by now familiar to many, documented in such seminal works as James Parkes’ The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue and Rosemary Radford Reuther’s Faith and Fratricide and more recently chronicled for readers of the New York Times bestseller list in James Carroll’s Constantine’s […]

Jewish-Christian Difficulties in Challenging Christian Zionism

[1] In our post-Holocaust era, many Jews have identified with the State of Israel as their last line of defense should the community again come under the threat of eradication. Most Christians, especially in North America, are unable to begin fathoming this possibility. Their communities simply have not been under such a threat. The typical […]

Palestinians, Christian Zionists and the Good News Gospel

Palestinians, Christian Zionists and the Good News Gospel [1] What is striking in the large body of writing and activity related to the development of Christian Zionism, particularly in its more extreme manifestation rooted in American pop culture dispensationalism, is how little is said about those who were most affected by the establishment of the […]

Introduction to “Christian Zionism” Issue

1] In our time, when the Israeli/Palestinian conflict occupies such a prominent place in our political discourse, the topic of Christian Zionism has become a critical matter for theological and ethical deliberation. In this issue, the Journal of Lutheran Ethics is pleased to provide a contribution to this important discussion. [2] Robert O. Smith reminds […]

Casualties of the Iraq War

[1] If truth is the first casualty of war, cynicism must be its last-and most enduring. Sadly, we have seen both in the war in Iraq. No one found WMDs, the stated reason for entering the war. Nor were there any discovered links between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. The majority of Americans who believed […]

Iraq after Three Years

[1] I supported the President and Congress in their decision to invade Iraq. It is now three years after that invasion. How does that decision stand up? (I have given reasons in other essays for my support of the war and will not rehash them here. Suffice it to say that those reasons draw upon […]