| |
|
Editor's Comments |
|
|
Washing Your Ears: On Inter-Religious Friendships
by Victor Thasiah
Shortly after getting to know some young Muslim men from Malindi while traveling in Kenya in 2009, they invited me to join them for prayer — to observe and participate as I wished. Outside of the mosque, after removing my shoes, they welcomed me to wash my hands, feet, face, ears, and mouth — to purify myself from the evil I had thought, done, seen, heard, and spoken.
|
|
|
| |
|
Feature Articles |
 |
|
Dwelling in God’s Household: A Lutheran Perspective on Interfaith Relations
by Kathryn Mary Lohre
In a single generation, the religious landscape of the United States has changed dramatically. America can no longer be described as "Judeo-Christian," if ever it could. Today the religious demography of the United States reflects the spectrum of the world’s religions and the diversity of global Christianity. |
|
 |
|
German Lutherans and Assimilation: Lessons in the Current Atmosphere of Islamophobia
by David D. Grafton
One of our great American patriots and public servants has always been a staunch advocate of the need for immigrant communities to assimilate into traditional American culture, adopting the English language and the values of its national heritage. So, it is not a surprise that he has also been critical of immigrants coming to America who do not assimilate into our culture. |
|
|
|
Forming Religious Identity in the Context of Religious Pluralism
by Michael Reid Trice
The topic of religious formation resonates for anyone with a vocational commitment to ecumenical and multi-religious realities today. The topic is: Forming Religious Identity in the Context of Religious Pluralism, and in this paper I will measure the height and depth of this sentence together, within four thematic buckets, reading this topic (like Hebrew) from right to left.
|
|
|
| |
|
Interview |
|
|
Catching Up with Mary Nelson
with Victor Thasiah
Mary Nelson is a leading Lutheran social activist who lives on Chicago’s west side. In addition to consulting, teaching, writing, and serving on several boards, she is Chair of the Board of Directors of Sojourners and President Emeritus of Bethel New Life. Journal of Lutheran Ethics recently caught up with Mary, hearing her latest reflections on social activism.
|
|
|
| |
|
Responses to Hearing the Cries: Faith and Criminal Justice |
|
|
Journal of Lutheran Ethics presents responses to the recently released study Hearing the Cries: Faith and Criminal Justice, written by the ELCA Criminal Justice Task Force. The study is an invitation to join the ELCA's deliberation on a major social issue as this church develops a social statement on criminal justice for consideration and adoption at the 2013 Churchwide Assembly.
|
|
|
| |
|
Book Reviews |
|
|
Introduction to Reviews of Daniel Rice’s Reinhold Niebuhr Revisited: Engagements with an American Original
by Michael Shahan
Of all the dispiriting signs of the times in Lutheran pastoral circles these days, the one I find most troubling is the anti-theological bias of so many clergy. Before I go any further on this track, I must confess that my research on this matter is constricted by my own small world of contacts, confined to the relatively modest sampling of pastors with whom I have had the privilege to interact over the last forty-six years: men and women, I must add, who over all proved themselves to be generally bright, well-read, intellectually alive, and truly engaging personalities. |
|
|
|
Daniel Rice’s Reinhold Niebuhr Revisited: Engagements with an American Original
by Gracia Grindal
To read Reinhold Niebuhr is pure pleasure; to read his disciples less so. The book, with a forward by Martin Marty and an introduction by Daniel F. Rice, seeks, as the title says, to revisit and engage with our greatest public intellectual of the twentieth century. |
|
|
|
Daniel Rice’s Reinhold Niebuhr Revisited: Engagements with an American Original
by Richard Perry
When America learned the President of the United States identified Reinhold Niebuhr as a person who influenced him, I imagine many people scurried to probe more deeply into the nature of Niebuhr’s ethical and political thinking. |
|
 |
|
Patricia Beattie Jung and Aana Marie Vigen’s God, Science, Sex, Gender: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Christian Ethics
by Mary J. Streufert
In the midst of Christian debates on sexuality that ultimately rest on various biblical hermeneutical schools and practices, Patricia Beattie Jung and Aana Marie Vigen have edited a multi-faceted volume on human sexuality that challenges an overriding focus in Christian theological discourse on one normative source, Scripture.
|
|
|
| |
|
Book Responses |
|
|
Introduction to Daniel Bell’s Response to Paul Hinlicky
by Michael Shahan
Does life in twenty-first century America involve compromises of the soul unlike anything else in the history of the Christian faith? Is being Christian more difficult in an affluent, market-driven, consumerist society than it was for the early Christians during the days of the Roman Coliseum? |
|
|
|
Response to Paul Hinlicky’s Review of Liberation Theology after the End of History
by Daniel Bell
Capitalism. Professor Hinlicky asks why I should continue to call the land of our captivity "capitalism" at all, thus inevitably invoking the Marxian narrative. The question is worth pondering and the concern reasonable.
|
|
|
| |
|
Cloud of Witnesses |
|
|
Thomas Aquinas on the Christian Life
by Matthew Levering
Thomas Aquinas's theology of charity testifies throughout to Paul’s proclamation that "God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us" (Rom 5:5). |