Government (Civil)

[1] In our upcoming elections, these are three broad commitments that I would like all candidates to make. [2] Let’s talk about real issues: restoring a politics of substance Politics within our present context has been debased. Real policy alternatives are often not discussed or debated. It sometimes seems that “image” is almost everything. Candidates […]

[1] Thoreau once quipped, “what is the use of a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?” Middle- and upper-income North Americans enjoy larger private dwellings and more spacious lots than their counterparts in the rest of the industrialized world. Yet, increasingly we are coming to question the health of […]

[1] Three specific problems in the Bush administration’s policies warrant further analysis: 1) the renewed commitment to nuclear energy, 2) the exploration for oil in ANWR, and 3) the administration’s dismissal of global warming. The renewed commitment to nuclear energy is highly risky, even if, as the administration claims, technological advances have made an already […]

This article comes from a new casebook on environmental ethics co-authored with James Martin Schramm and forthcoming from Orbis Books in 2004. [1] Two primary visions of the future vie with each other to control the direction of U.S. energy policy. Developmentalists such as President Bush and Vice President Cheney advocate increasing the supply of […]

The author argues that the U.S. and its partners have rightly arrived at war on Iraq as a just and necessary last resort. The potential problems with the just-war case are notable, particularly concerning the after-effects of the war, but they do not incurably undermine the case for going to war. Instead, both supporters and […]

Authority in General [1] The term “authority” has many possible meanings.1 In regard to our topic here, however, the list of possibilities is relatively short. When a person speaks of the authority of the church in the world (as distinct from the church’s authority among its own members), he or she is likely to be […]

[1] The so-called “Two Kingdoms Doctrine” is the label under which a particular framing of the relationship between God’s grace and everyday life in the midst of its institutional realities has been presented in 20th century Lutheranism. For over half a century it has been the way Lutherans framed the relationship between justification and justice. […]

Heinrich Bornkamm 12/01/2002 ​​ In this essay, the distinguished church historian of Heidelberg University gives us a guided tour through one of the most complex and controversial problems in the interpretation of Christian ethics. Luther’s “two kingdoms” doctrine has been variously praised and damned in recent theology. Thinkers such as Nygren, Althaus, and Ebeling have […]

A Dangerous Principle for a Dangerous World [1] In floating the notion of preemptive attack against states harboring terrorists or preparing weapons of mass destruction for use against the United States, the Bush administration is considering a dangerous new principle in a dangerous new world. It is a step in the right direction that the […]

[1] The “war on terrorism” designates a fundamentally new framework for U.S. foreign policy. The new foreign policy framework is shaped by two countervailing political impulses. On the one hand, responding to terrorism is an act of self-defense. On the other hand, responding to terrorism requires military interventions and even overturning governments. These two impulses, […]