Issue: August/September 2026: Corporate Responsibility

[1] “Who’s fault is it?” “It ain’t nobody. It’s a company.” “Then who do I shoot?” “Brother, I don’t know. If I did, I’d tell ya. I just don’t know who’s to blame.”   [2] This famous bit of dialogue from The Grapes of Wrath points to a critical issue in corporate responsibility. The question […]

This issue of the Journal of Lutheran Ethics centers on the idea that dialogue and collaboration between individuals is the key to positive corporate responsibility that encourages the flourishing of all.  The following discussion session is one way to begin this process. Question 1: What is our corporate responsibility? * What things do all human […]

[1] I serve as a pastor in Toledo’s North End neighborhood of Vistula. In our neighborhood, over half of the area residents (53%) live at or below the federal poverty level. Eleven years ago, when I began serving at Salem Lutheran Church, those figures were closer to 60% of people living at or below the […]

[1] We like to imagine greed as the key to success in business: the CEO must be strong and decisive, must move fast and break things, and above all must turn a profit. But success is like holding a fish. Grip it too hard and it shoots out of your grasp. When businesses fail, it […]

[1] On October 31, 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto released a whitepaper describing the protocol for Bitcoin, a peer-to-peer electronic cash system.[1] We do not know whether the founder of Bitcoin was aware that Protestants celebrate October 31st as Reformation Day, but the date is fitting, for, in the years that have followed, Bitcoin has initiated a […]

[1] In this edition of the Journal of Lutheran Ethics we will consider two reviews focused on ethics, and Christian ministry/pastoral care. [2] The prologue to the 1993 ELCA Social Statement, Caring for Creation: Vision, Hope, and Justice, establishes this church’s commitment to creation and the challenges posed by climate change.  “Christian concern for the […]

[1] This multi-authored book is of South African Origin with a suite of international theologian authors and scholars who have various other specialties.  It is the second book in a series, “An Earthed Faith: Telling the Story Amid the ‘Anthropocene’” –the Anthropocene has come to mean the geologic age we live in, extensively modified by […]

[1] A chaplain once shared with me his practice of entering a patient’s room by asking the patient who had already visited. He would name the likely guests — fear, guilt, uncertainty — not as a diagnosis, but to open a door. Whatever the patient confirmed or corrected, a conversation had already begun. He arrived […]