Economics

[1] Luther has always been a difficult read, as Martin Marty has informed us.[1] His worldview changed repeatedly. It follows that his writings are filled with contradictions and paradoxes.[2] Samuel Torvend appears to have missed the counsel of Benne, Marty and Edwards for he sees Luther as a whole intellect from the pounding on the […]

Samuel Torvend. Luther and the Hungry Poor: Gathered Fragments (Fortress Press, 2008). 978-0-8006-6238-7. [1] With the negative externalities of globalization ever more present in the United States due to the sub-prime mortgage meltdown and its effects on the United States banking and finance infrastructure and individual lives affected, social ministry is more relevant than ever. […]

Introduction [1] The right to property stands at the cusp of legal and economic rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.[1] It also stands, therefore, at the cusp of personal life and the public dimensions of life lived in the economic and political spheres of society. Enjoying a right to property is not only […]

[1] “Sex, Marriage and Family:” that’s the title of the LCA social statement from 1970.[1] I always wondered if this was the table of contents for the document – or a description of the way life really works. The ambiguity was delicious. In either case, “family” came last. It was almost an afterthought. That is […]

[1] The September issue of Journal of Lutheran Ethics is devoted to issues that Christians have debated since Christ turned over the Tiberian coin: How should Christians respond to taxation by their secular governments? This month’s contributors approach the question “What about Taxes?” from various angles. [2] William Ross probes what is distinctively Lutheran in […]

[1] Many taxpayers have grudgingly acquiesced to paying federal, state and local taxes because of Jesus’ counsel to “render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.”[1] In a representative democracy like the United States, however, this direction becomes much more complex because the taxpayer bears some responsibility for the form and degree of taxation […]

[1] During the past several decades, the economic disparity between the poorest and the richest Americans has widened. This is partly the result of enormous increases in the salaries of many upper echelon executives and professionals, and the stagnation of wages among many working class employees. The growing “wealth gap” also is related to tax […]

[1] In 2002, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was involved in a lawsuit over the “parsonage exemption,” a provision in the federal tax code that allows “Ministers of the Gospel” to exclude from their taxable income the value of a parsonage or other congregation-provided housing allowance.[1] On its own initiative, the federal appellate court hearing […]

[1] As a Christian tax professional, I recently realized that since the end of my undergraduate accounting studies, I have held two important bodies of writing in the highest esteem – the Word of God and the Internal Revenue Code (federal income tax law). I have continually striven to become more knowledgeable in both, knowing […]

[1] The question of to whom does wealth belong is not one that most economists would be comfortable answering except in the most trivial sense. Trivially we would answer that wealth belongs – well – to those who own it. Aside from being rather circular in its logic, this reply does not get at the […]