Book Reviews

[Originally included in JLE July/August 2014] [1] Daniel Finn is the William and Virginia Clemens Professor of Economics and the Liberal Arts and professor of theology at St. John’s University and the College of St. Benedict in Collegeville, Minnesota. He has published extensively in the area of Christian ethics and economics and enjoys the genuine […]

[Originally published in JLE June 2016] [1] Adrian Thatcher is honorary professor in the department of theology and religion at the University of Exeter in the UK. He is highly regarded for his work in theology and human sexuality. He has edited the 2015 Oxford Handbook of Theology, Sexuality and Gender. His most recent book […]

[Originally published in JLE September 2015] [1] Ted Peters opens up the doctrine of justification by grace for Christ’s sake through faith so that we can see and appreciate how truly radical it is as he unpacks its vitality for our lives and our life in engaging this complex world. The doctrine of justification though […]

[1] Utilitarianism, the pragmatic philosophy developed by Jeremy Bentham (d. 1832) and John Stuart Mill (d. 1873) views actions as good or moral that conduce to human happiness and as bad or immoral those that do not. Its critics sometimes argue that justice is more important than individual freedom to pursue one’s bliss. Peter Singer […]

“What if long-term PTSD is less about what happened out there (in combat), and more about the society they come back to?” [1] This past November, I heard author and journalist Sebastian Junger speak at a Navy SEAL Foundation conference on mental health issues in persons serving in the Naval Special Warfare (NSW) community. Junger, […]

Though it was published three years ago (2014), the information, issues, and tenor of Human Dignity and the Future of Global Institutions contains a present day salience perhaps not foreseen by the editors and contributors at the time. We appear to be entering another time of intense debate over the nature and need of things global – globalization, globalism, global institutions, global narratives – versus a resurfacing of neo-nationalism through Brexits, the call to make America great (or first) again, and the public and foreign policies of states as diverse as Russia, China, Hungary, or the Philippines. Perhaps not another “paradigm shift” as occurred in November 1989, but questions have returned to the public discourse loudly and clearly about the vitality of NATO, or the relevance of regional organizations such as the European Union, or if the positive purpose of regional or hemispheric trade treaties like NAFTA is outweighed by their future impacts, risks, or constraints.

Tranvik believes one of the problems identified by Luther 500 years ago—that Christians too often regard Gospel faith and life in the world as separate realms of human endeavor, neither interacting with, nor informing one another—is still with us. He believes that the separation of faith from everyday life is harmful both to faith and to the world in which Christians live, and that Luther’s theology of vocation provides a vital alternative. Finally, Tranvik believes that telling the story of how Luther lived out his solution to this problem will be helpful to readers in the twenty-first century.

[1] In his piece in this book, Carter Lindberg quotes Luther from his commentary on Deuteronomy: “’The poor you always have with you,’” quoting John 12:8, “just as you will have all other evils. But constant care should be taken that, since these evils are always in evidence, they are always opposed.”[1] Thus, for Luther, […]

[1] The Rev. Dr. Philip Turner is a retired but clearly still active veteran of the conflicts within the Episcopal Church U.S.A. Though he does not write about those rifts with any specificity in this rich and constructive book, that discord echoes through the pages of Christian Ethics and the Church. It seems reasonable to […]

[1] For Armed Forces members, “…caught in some of life’s worst heart-rending situations…the practice of the Christian ethic does not operate with the certitude of moral perfection but rather with the assurance of God with us with grace for the way” write the authors of this thoughtful, compact, far-reaching new book (pages 9, 130). Wollom […]