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Introduction [1] The Lutheran Center for Faith, Values, and Community at St. Olaf College, which I direct, is charged with articulating why and how Lutheran theology, tradition, and affiliation still matter at an institution like St. Olaf that boasts an increasingly diverse community of students, faculty, and staff. The number of students identifying as Lutheran […]

[1] Interreligious engagement belongs to the same set of activities undertaken by an assembly as gathering offerings for food-shelves, or pleading for the cleaning up of highways.  These activities are often the same thing because a somewhat ordinary kind of interreligious engagement takes place in the interaction of many peoples to redress problems they share.  […]

[1] As the ELCA urges congregations to host  open discussions on issues such as gun violence prevention, the following discussion guide gives readers a list of questions to discuss as a group after looking together at the “Notes from the Discussion” in this issue. [2] Considering the nine ideas generated at the Lutheran Ethicists’ Gathering, […]

[1] I remember sitting with tens of thousands of Luther Leaguers in San Antonio in 1988 at the National Lutheran Youth Gathering as we all sang together “The church is not a building where people come to pray, it’s not made out of sticks and stones, it’s not made out of clay.  We are the […]

Theologizing is an ongoing, transforming process in the world.. [1] In the 1970s, I decided to work on a Ph.D. in Theology, even though my interests were pulling me into Ethics. Back then, Lutheran Ethics was seen by many as an oxymoron; Lutherans believe “God does it all; we don’t.” Because I wanted to be […]

[1] Over 20 years ago I worked on Capitol Hill for a Member of Congress.  We would receive letters, phone calls, and emails about an assortment of issues.  And we were required to send a response to every correspondence we received.  Most of the time, those responses contained information or a constituent’s opinions about up-coming […]

[1] “The right understanding of any matter and a misunderstanding of the same matter do not wholly exclude each other.”[1] Like the novel as a whole, this statement from Franz Kafka’s The Trial is a portal into opacity. Joseph K., the novel’s protagonist, finds himself lost in an endless debate governed by nontransparent logic. He […]

[1] During the pandemic, there was a predictable slowdown in church construction. Many churches that had scheduled renovation or new building projects put them on hold. Others that had begun to consider launching such projects decided to put the subject on the back burner for a year or two, until they could be certain the […]

[1] This issue of Journal of Lutheran Ethics focuses on the question of What the Church is, can be, and ought to be.   The following activities can be done in small groups in church communities and are meant to foster both discussion and action on the topics at hand.   Activity 1: The Church as […]

[1] I remember speaking at the microphone in a convention center in downtown Minneapolis on August 18, 2009. More than 1,200 people sat in the ballroom as the ELCA Churchwide Assembly debated the Human Sexuality Social Statement.[1] I felt nervous as I told my story of finding myself in Scripture. As a person of color […]