Globalization

[1] One of the central debates facing Christianity from its onset surrounded essential requirements for acceptance into the community of believers. More specifically, some wondered whether or not particular ethnic heritage or cultural traditions were mandatory, whereas others considered various beliefs and behaviors surrounding food and other existing customs. As the small number of Jesus’ […]

[1] My first response to seeing a series of pictures of the decimated Port-Au-Prince after the January 12th earthquake was “How will they build factories now?”1 Prior to that date many of us concerned with the desperate state of things in Haiti had been focused on the man-made disaster that was currently in the making […]

[1] Stories. If there is one thing Nicholas D. Kristof, a columnist for the New York Times, and Sheryl WuDunn, a former editor and bureau chief for the Times, know, they know stories. Kristof and WuDunn are the first married couple to win a Pulitzer Prize in journalism. Through the deft journalistic documentation of real […]

[1] Search for ethical discernment and praxis in the context of complex and ambiguous issues always face the danger of treading the regular route of finding solutions within the logic of the prevailing dominant knowledge. Alternatives, we are told, are not only impossible but also illegitimate. The dominant discourse in the context of climate change […]

A New Deal for the Global Economy The Current Crisis “Money is a singular thing. It ranks with love as man’s (sic) greatest source of joy. And it ranks with death as his greatest source of anxiety.”[1] [1] The current global crisis began as a crisis about money but quickly became a pandemic global economic […]

Introduction According to most estimates, violence in the Darfur region of Sudan has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people since 2003, with many more forced to flee their homes. Charges of genocide have been leveled by many in the international community, including President Bush and Congress. The goal of this study […]

This article is the seventh chapter of Professor Simpson’s War, Peace, and God: Rethinking the Just-War Tradition, available from Augsburg Fortress Press. It is reprinted in JLE by permission. Four Global Challenges [1] In this final chapter I introduce four global challenges as we ponder God’s preferential future for earthly peace. First, we will look […]

Imagination enlarges the circle of our seeing and enables empathy. It is the only real cure for the globe’s deadly levels of toxicity. [1] Students in my spirituality workshops at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago reflect a maturity beyond much commentary I read each day in the Chicago Tribune. They also outpace many […]

[1] In many Latin American Lutheran churches the challenges of globalization have recently been linked to the act of confessing. In declaring this to be a confessional matter, many Lutherans claim to be following a tradition which goes back to the time of the Reformation. The confessional aspect has also been emphasized by many in […]

[1] I asked students in a course I teach that is required of all students at Lenoir-Rhyne College about the major election issues. Their responses were fairly uniform: the economy (and unemployment), the war, and education. Interestingly the African American students and the Hispanic students have similar concerns, but they were stated somewhat differently. These […]