Category: Ethics

An argument that chastity is more empowering to women than promiscuity.

An exegetical and personal exploration of infertility and adoption.

A commendation of the classic biblical and traditional Christian ethic regarding sexuality.

A reflection on the ongoing estrangement between the races.

An argument against the Catholic position on contraception.

The recommendations on ministry policy made by the Task Force for the ELCA Studies on Sexuality and coming before the 2009 Churchwide Assembly have provoked disparate responses from differing constituencies within the ELCA. In this article I propose to describe, through a case study, the ways in which the actual recommendations of the task force represent a compromise between two opposing sides.

I argue for a helpful criterion in defining marriage that honors this foundational social relation yet does not exclude persons from it according to their “form.” God‘s call should not be determined according to a static social order that is often defined according to human understandings of physical form. Instead, God’s call to serve our neighbor is the Lutheran criterion that should structure the many relationships in which humans live, including marriage.

What is the bound-conscience and what does it have to do with deciding whether or not the ELCA should accept for ordination gay and lesbian persons in long-term, monogamous, faithful relationships? In this article, I ask whether or not we might do better to speak of a “liberated conscience” as opposed to a “bound” one in relationship to this question.

Examining such texts as Jesus and the Samaritan woman in John 4, this essay surveys biblical treatments of the ethnic and religious “other” to provide resources for a current day hermeneutics of dialogue.