Issue: August 2004

[1] This social statement begins the public conversation within the ELCA on health and health care. If we take this statement seriously, we will be agents of change. The impact of this statement depends on the action of individual members, congregations, and institutions of the church toward improving health within their spheres of influence. This […]

[1] When asked to write an article that compared and contrasted ethics regarding the Vietnam and Iraqi Wars, I thought about the overused notion that those who fail to learn about history repeat it, or other such common sayings. While I often agree with the general notion, the historian in me bristles–nothing ever recreates the […]

Works reviewed in this month’s column: President’s Council on Bioethics, Beyond Therapy Brent Waters and Ronald Cole-Turner, eds., God and the Embryo Matt Ridley, Genome BEYOND THERAPY: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness A Report by the President’s Council on Bioethics (New York: HarperCollins Publishers [ReganBooks], 2003), 328pp. [1] The President’s Council on Bioethics was […]

[1] After attending a study group using the ELCA study guide Journey Together Faithfully: The Church and Homosexuality at Advent Lutheran in Arlington, TX, I felt as Dennis Bielfeldt (2003) did when he wrote: “While I believe Journey Together does fairly describe the different voices and positions within the ELCA on this controversial issue, I […]

[1] On April 30, 1944, less than year before his execution, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a long letter from his cell at the prison in Tegel to his friend Eberhard Bethge, a letter that achieved posthumous renown for Bonhoeffer’s discussion of “religionless Christianity.” Indeed, Bethge was later to write that this “first great theological letter” of […]