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The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child will put his hand into the viper’s nest. – Isaiah 11:8 If your ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step you take gets you to the wrong place faster.1 – Stephen R. Covey [1] Though Covey is not […]

[1] As Thomas Pearson’s essay so succinctly illustrates, questions about the usefulness of Roman Catholic versions of natural law theory to Lutheran ethics — or even to ecumenical conversation about ethics in which both traditions participate — have many layers. Does natural law exist? If it exists, in what exactly does it consist, and what […]

Introduction [1] However deeply ensconced the suspicion of natural law might seem among 20th-century Protestant thinkers, it cannot be attributed to the 16th-century Reformers themselves. Both Lutheran and Reformed streams of the magisterial tradition readily affirmed the doctrine of lex naturalis and cognito Dei naturalis. While it is decidedly true that they championed a particular […]

I’d like to begin by thanking all contributors to this symposium on natural law for their thoughtful papers. One thing those papers illustrate quite nicely, I think, is that “natural law” is not so much a position, but a group of positions. The term “natural law theory” designates a set of intellectual commitments together with […]

[1] Calvin dedicated a great deal of attention to the nature and scope of the Christian life, and even wrote a section of the Institutes dedicated to this theme (Inst. III.vi-x), which was often published on its own. However, rather than summarize the teaching of that section, I would like to raise up five themes […]

[1] The chocolate shop nearby is encouraging people not to give up chocolate for Lent. “Just give up something like red meat,” they say, “or your negative attitudes.” Over the years, I’ve been using Lent as a time to get my life back on track. I’ve given up things like desserts, drinking, and dining out […]

[1] The latest atrocious news from Haiti, thanks to a mesmerized CNN (view Child Trafficking in Haiti) seems to be that fears that the countless children orphaned or lost before and during the earthquake are not only at risk from their physical circumstances. They are also at an even greater risk than previously of being […]

[1] Confronting the possibility of a worldwide flu pandemic has a way of throwing some of our most enduring health care quandaries into sharp relief. How can we distribute limited resources equitably and morally? How do we balance care for the individual and care for the community when they are in conflict? How much power […]

[1] In 1972, as a freshly minted M.Div., I went off to begin graduate work in ethics in the Department of Religion of Princeton University. On a quiet summer Saturday, just days after my arrival, I went to explore 1879 Hall, where the department’s offices were located. It was silent and empty on that Saturday […]

[1] First of all, a word of appreciation to the members of the Task Force who have generated this draft. Having been a part of the development of the last sexuality documents, I do understand the time and energy entailed. Much insight is available in this draft and certainly the final social statement should stand […]