Issue: December 2006: Virtue Ethics

[1] Here’s a story I tell my students. “So there I was in the grocery store, waiting to check out. Just when it’s my turn, some guy cuts into the line. He puts his stuff on the belt, and says “Get out of the way, lady. I’m in a hurry.” I’m about to give him […]

[1] In the days leading up to having dinner with Sister Helen Prejean, and hearing her speak in public at Princeton University, I made people laugh by telling them that I would really look forward to dinner with Susan Sarandon-who played Sister Helen Prejean in the Hollywood film, Dead Man Walking. However, after conversation with […]

[1] In 1960 I enrolled in the Ph. D. program at Princeton Theological Seminary. To my incredible delight and surprise Dr. Gerhard von Rad was to be a guest professor at Princeton for two quarters in the school year. I had been introduced to von Rad’s teachings my senior year at Trinity Seminary in Dubuque, […]

[1] This October was the first time my grandmother witnessed me in the role of pastor. I was baptizing my first grandson. Around the baptismal font stood five generations of my family. Why were we all standing there? Well, I would say that it was because of my grandmother. My maternal grandmother has heard me […]

1] With Lisa Dahill’s lyrical exposition of Bonhoeffer’s spirituality, we find a contemporary Lutheran theology working within a critical appropriate of virtue and character. Bonhoeffer has too long been labeled a “command of God” theologian, whose work confronts Christians with Jesus’ words “Follow me.” Certainly an “ethic of command drives the first part of his […]

[1] On February 1, 1941, Eberhard Bethge wrote to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, his best friend, for Dietrich’s birthday on February 4: I offer my hearty congratulations and wish you a good and fruitful use of your powers, success in articulating your new insights, good stimulating friends, and good coffee and tea in your new year. Along […]