Issue: September 2004

Volume 4 Number 9

Doping in Athletics: A Conspiracy of Silence

[1] In an event little-noted outside the swimming world, the U.S. women’s 4X200 freestyle relay broke the oldest world record on the books in the Athens Olympics. The 17-year-old mark was set by the team from the German Democratic Republic and was widely viewed as tainted by the East German team’s steroid use. East German […]

The Emperor Has No Clothes On: Lutheranism towards a Multicultural Landscape

The following article was given as a graduation address to Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary. [1] In Hans Christian Andersen’s fable, “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” a vain Emperor has a reputation for only caring about dressing in elegant clothes. Knowing of the emperor’s vanity, two scoundrels come to the Emperor claiming to be good tailors, having […]

Turn Abu Ghraib Inside Out?

[1] In the July 2004 issue of the Lutheran, John Hoffmeyer, a theologian at the Lutheran seminary in Philadelphia, comments on the Abu Ghraib scandal by posing a quandary of the sort that ethicists used to love: what if by torturing one person you might extract information that would prevent a major terrorist attack? Hoffmeyer […]

A Review of Having: Property and Possession in Religious and Social Life by William Schweiker and Charles Matthewes

[1]If property is a relation among persons with respect to things, as Morris Cohen says,[1] possession in the human realm is a relation among persons and things commonly called having. The distinction is as important as their connections. Both notions and their relations are explored in this welcome collection of essays coming out of a […]