"Vulnerability and Security" was the theme of the 2005 Lutheran Ethicists Gathering held January 5th and 6th of that year in Miami, Florida.  Journal of Lutheran Ethics is pleased to present papers given at this gathering.

The focus of this theme is on nation-states and other actors in the current context of international affairs when reporting of events is instant and vulnerability and security are often swiftly affected.  Three major events and probably several minor ones helped frame this discussion.  The major events (from an American perspective) were the Al Qaeda terrorist attack on the United States of September 11, 2001, the subsequent U.S. retaliation against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that followed.  The so-called minor events might be seen to include the civil war in Southern Sudan and the separate unrest in the Darfur region of that country, the civil conflict in Peru, the drug war in Colombia, terrorist attacks in Spain, the now-almost-out-of-mind genocides in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Rwanda, and, of course, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, among others.  These events are not "minor," obviously, to those whose vulnerability is heightened and whose personal security is compromised by them, however they may be seen by others.

The papers given at this gathering were responding to two documents.  One is Vulnerability and Security: Current challenges in security policy from an ethical and theological perspective, a document prepared by the Commission on International Affairs in the Church of Norway's Council on Ecumenical and International Relations.  It was drafted for the commission by Ulla Schmidt, Raag Rolfsen, and Sturla Stålsett, all of whom attended the 2005 Lutheran Ethicists Gathering.  You can read the text in English at:

http://www.kirken.no/english/doc/Kisp_vulnerab_00.pdf

The second document is "The National Security Strategy of the United States of America" (September 2002), prepared for President George W. Bush by the staff of the National Security Council of the United States of America.  You can read this document at:

www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.pdf

The responses to these documents came from both non-American and American perspectives.  Wanda Deifelt, a Brazilian theologian, responded from a Latin American perspective.  Ryan LaHurd looked at them through the perspective of the Arab world.  The American theologians who responded to the documents are Mary Gaebler, H. David Baer, and Gary Simpson.  There was a lively discussion around both the documents themselves and the formal responses, whose themes and major issues I attempt to capture in my "Vulnerability and Security: Threads from a Conversation."  We hope you find this discussion as thought-provoking, and as stimulating of conversation as did the participants in the 2005 Lutheran Ethicists Gathering.