Category: Theology

Betcher considers biblical and theological representations of the physics of Spirit, including miracles, if also the politics of compassion, as related to bodies exhibiting disabilities. The essay suggests another way of reading the miracle texts so as to disturb the optics of modern realism, especially their social effects.

This article analyzes viewer response to The Passion of the Christ, focusing on how viewers interpreted the film‘s dominant atonement images, in order to explore just how these images operate in popular culture, how they influence values, practices and beliefs, and to question the social impact of the discourse of violence and redemptive dynamics imbedded in the religious images themselves.

A translation of Luther‘s previously untranslated 1518 Theses on the remission of sins, with a brief introductory note.

A multi-level essay exploring the theological meaning and spiritual impact of various racial depictions of Jesus.

A personal story of a young Lutheran woman making peace with Mary, the mother of God, and in the process finding her vocation to ministry.

Develops a theology of thinking about death through hymnody, to enable a full life in Christ in life and at death. Evaluates entries in Lutheran hymnals in shaping and nurturing a Christian’s thoughts about death, and in sharing, proclaiming, and strengthening one’s faith. Illustrates with hymns that do an appropriate or lesser job in addressing issues of a Christian’s death.

In this article, the author argues that modernity developed theological notions of ontological defect into scientific and medical pathology such that ‘The Fall’- now borne in cultural norms as well as scientific paradigms- marginalizes differing somatic capaciousness.