Book Reviews

[1] In a year seized by multiple pandemics, we seek wisdom and courage for the road ahead.  In the words of Rabbi Arthur Waskow, [2] “It is uncanny that the human race as a whole is at the moment struck with a viral disease that attacks most powerfully our ability to breathe.  And uncanny again […]

[1] In March of 2020 the United States government responded to the existence of the coronavirus in our midst with a call to shut everything down for two weeks.  The worst of it would then pass over us, and we could resume our normal lives once more. [2] It didn’t work out that way. [3] […]

[1] Dr. Murray Haar of Augustana University is famous among his religion department students for the bold warning posted on his office door. “Think…That you may be wrong.” This directive might feel out of place in many Introduction to Systematic Theology texts—the goal of which often involves preserving the interpretations and debates of Western European, […]

[1] Are you looking for a book about today’s immigration issues that marries biblical texts with contemporary stories? Here it is! With chapters dedicated to the wall at the southern border,  immigration detention and other issues, Professor Lambert Fogg tells the stories of the immigrants in our communities while at the same time interweaving the […]

[1] In 2016, the ELCA Churchwide Assembly overwhelmingly passed a “Repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery.” [1] Yet in the intervening years I have noticed that most people I come across have no idea what the Doctrine of Discovery is, or how it affects not only the lives of Native Americans, but also the lives […]

[1] Where do you pin your hope for the future of democratic self-governance in the US, particularly in the wake of the January 6 attack on the Capitol?  Hope is indispensable to faithful living and enjoys a primary role in Lutheran theology.  Yet in these broken times, any hope about the future of American democracy […]

“Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said, ‘His authority came not from the office he held, nor from the timbre of his voice.  It came from the moral force of his life.”  (page 282) [1] This posthumously published autobiography invites its reader to experience the moral force of Elijah Cummings’ life and be inspired by his […]

[1] Followers of Luther began debating relationships between faith, ethics, and justification during Luther’s lifetime.  Heirs of Luther’s theological vision have never ceased to debate them.  Some Lutherans believe that ethical prescriptions beyond freely “serving one’s neighbor” out of a response to the Gospel, constitute works righteousness, leaving believers anxiously wondering if they have done […]

[1] This book breaks no new ground and has little to offer cognoscenti.  But this is an observation, not a criticism.  The authors, a biblical scholar and a religious journalist, aim for a general audience made up of millennials and others who are comfortable with evolution and distance from Christian faith because of its perceived […]

[1] Fear Not is useful for Christians confronting gun violence, even though it was not written specifically for that purpose.  This volume is a second edition of Law’s 2007 book, Finding Intimacy in a World of Fear, written in response to 9/11 and the American experience of fear and its manipulations.  Law has written a new preface and […]