Book Reviews

[1] A chaplain once shared with me his practice of entering a patient’s room by asking the patient who had already visited. He would name the likely guests — fear, guilt, uncertainty — not as a diagnosis, but to open a door. Whatever the patient confirmed or corrected, a conversation had already begun. He arrived […]

[1] This multi-authored book is of South African Origin with a suite of international theologian authors and scholars who have various other specialties.  It is the second book in a series, “An Earthed Faith: Telling the Story Amid the ‘Anthropocene’” –the Anthropocene has come to mean the geologic age we live in, extensively modified by […]

[1] In this edition of the Journal of Lutheran Ethics we will consider two reviews focused on ethics, and Christian ministry/pastoral care. [2] The prologue to the 1993 ELCA Social Statement, Caring for Creation: Vision, Hope, and Justice, establishes this church’s commitment to creation and the challenges posed by climate change.  “Christian concern for the […]

[1] The ELCA social statement Faith and Civic Life: Seeking the Well-Being of All defines Christian Nationalism as:  A cultural framework that idealizes and advocates fusion of highly selected Christian beliefs with U.S. civic life. This nationalistic ideology holds, among other   things, that the U.S. Constitution was divinely inspired, that Christianity should be a […]

[1] Esteemed readers of the Journal of Lutheran Ethics, this “Summer Books Issue” contains four reviews and recommendation of readings on the issue of Christian Nationalism. We include book reviews from a broad range of topics including travel, philosophy, ethics, and spirituality. It is our hope that these diverse reviews resonate and influence a decision […]

[1] Richard Lischer invites us into a compelling story told by a wonderfully diverse cast of storytellers. Readers of the JLE would likely have already met many of the folks here, but probably not in this way, with the types of questions Lischer poses for them (and us) to ponder. As we read their stories, […]

[1] In 2019 the ELCA Churchwide Assembly in Milwaukee, WI., condemned white supremacy by declaring that (1) white supremacy is racism, and (2) violent rhetoric against persons of color in the name of so-called “Christian Nationalism” is not a true Christian faith. It is idolatry and the church condemns it.[1] The connection between Christian nationalism […]

[1] Four years after its inception, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America issued its first teaching document, The Church in Society: A Lutheran Perspective at its second Churchwide Assembly in 1991.[1] This statement, which passed by a two-thirds majority, signified that the newly constituted ELCA would “commit itself to serve God and neighbor in its […]

[1] Crossing Boundaries is the perfect book for this summer’s travel season.  Published during the pandemic, when traveling was all but closed, this book encourages travel as a path to personal growth and community peace building in a world marked by escalating conflict and division. Today, although the pandemic is over and the world even […]

    We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men   [1] This Lost Generation lament for selves in search of authenticity is taken up by Catholic University of America’s Angela Franks in a deeply researched elegy for “the identity crisis in the West: the crisis of the subject that resists being fixed.”  […]