Book Reviews

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Commendable Realism

Review of Durable Goods: A Covenantal Ethic for Management and Employees by Stewart W. Herman. Soundings: A Series of Books on Ethics, Economics and Business. University of Notre Dame Press, 1997. Pbk., 256 pp. ISBN 0-268-00885-X. $20.00. [1] I have long thought that Stewart Herman’s Durable Goods: A Covenantal Ethic for Management and Employees is […]

Review of Herman’s Durable Goods

This article, originally published and (c) March 1999 in Theological Studies (p198) is available from Journal of Lutheran Ethics for download in PDF. To download the article, use the following link: [ Download PDF ]

Review of John W. De Gruchy’s Reconciliation: Restoring Justice

[1] Is there a place for Christian insights about reconciliation beyond the realm of the personal and private? Even more, is it possible that these same insights can help pave the way to a more deeply reconciled national identity in South Africa? John W. De Gruchy has charted a difficult and courageous path indeed in […]

A Review of Law and Protestantism: The Legal Teachings of the Lutheran Reformation by John Witte, Jr.

[1] John Witte is a well known and accomplished legal historian and the present volume does not disappoint. His thesis, explicitly stated in the Introduction is that: “It was the combination of theological and legal reforms that rendered the Lutheran Reformation so resolute and resilient” (p. 4). And he argues against those 20th century historians […]

A Review of Law and Protestantism: The Legal Teachings of the Lutheran Reformation

[1] John Witte, Jr. in his book Law and Protestantism notes that “many legal historians have tended to deprecate the 16th century in general and Lutheran theology in particular.” Some “have dismissed the ‘Reformation’ altogether as a historian’s fiction and a historical failure.”[1] But this book invites us to take a second look at the […]

Book Notes: Recent Works on the Promise and Peril of Genetic Engineering (2 of 4)

With this December issue of the Journal of Lutheran Ethics, we bring the second installment in our series of notes on books addressing genetic engineering. For interested readers, the first of these columns appeared in the September issue. Works reviewed in this month’s column: David B. Resnik et al., Human Germline Gene Therapy Phillip Kitcher, […]

Luther and Globalization: A Review of Healing a Broken World: Globalization and God by Cynthia D. Moe-Lobeda

[1] This passionate, clearly-written book is a post-Euro-American essay in Lutheran theological ethics. Which helps to explain its considerable strengths and some of its unfinished business. [2] Cynthia D. Moe-Lobeda teaches Christian ethics at Seattle University. She writes from the perspective of an intense Third World experience. She served for a number of years as […]

Patriotism and Attachment to Place: A Commentary on Joseph Sittler’s “The Grace Note,” April 1951

[1] The year 1950 has been described as the “crossroads of American religious life.”[1] It was a paradoxical time of oppressive anxiety and intoxicating prosperity. Anxiety was fed by events and situations that had thrust Post-World War II America into a frightening new world: the Cold War and threats of Communist espionage and subversion; atomic […]

The Grace Note

[1] A remembered chapter-title from a now all but forgotten high school history text lives in my mind with the vitality of a banner whipped by the wind! This is the title, “The Promise and Hope of American Life”. Phrases have a way of sticking, or gathering up into themselves over the years multitudes of […]

The Thunderbolt of God

[1] One of the fruits of the 1997 North American Lutheran-Reformed Formula of Agreement was its development of the concept “mutual affirmation and mutual admonition.” Given a common core of shared belief, each brings to the other a fresh charism and a corrective of reductionist tendencies. The Journal’s request for a Reformed perspective on Lutheran […]