Items included on this page come from a variety of sources. The perspectives conveyed may or may not express a Lutheran ethos. They can serve our instruction as discussion-starters, examples (positive and negative), and illustrations of intersections between God’s two kingdoms, intersections sometimes characterized by tension, sometimes by congruence. Inclusion does not imply endorsement.
30 Years After Explosion, Challenger Engineer Still Blames Himself: A shuttle engineer for the Challenger has carried a burden of guilt for thirty years. Says Bob Ebeling, “That was one of the mistakes God made. He shouldn’t have picked me for that job. But next time I talk to him, I’m gonna ask him, ‘Why me? You […]
Waste not, hunger not: Forty percent of the food produced in the U.S. ends up in landfills. Meanwhile, people are hungry. Daily Table tries to address both problems. Two questions and a caveat: How does Daily Table manage to sell fresh food at such inexpensive prices? Why does Daily Table sell food instead of giving it away? There are […]
The Secret Ingredient of Our Poverty Relief: Economists are showing that hope makes a statistical difference in developing nations but that hope comes in two forms. Wishful hope or “hope that” is important but lacks human agency. We hope that something will happen, but believe we have little or no influence over it. Aspirational hope, or “hope […]
EEOC Fiscal Year 2015 Enforcement and Litigation Data: In fiscal 2015, the agency received 89,385 charges of workplace discrimination. Of those, only 3,502 (3.9%) charged religious discrimination. A further breakdown of the data shows that the EEOC found no reasonable cause in 68% of the cases of alleged religious discrimination.
A Seismic Shift in Bioethics: How moral norms trump even scientific evidence and technology — This position paper can serve as an introduction or polemic piece for examining how scientific and technological developments influence social norms and ethical perspectives. Useful for courses in bioethics, science and technology, sociology, religion, and business.
Court Rules Against Fontbonne Academy Constitutional Claim: In a decision being called the first of its kind nationally, a state judge has ruled that an all-girls Catholic school in Milton discriminated against a gay man when it rescinded a job offer after learning he was in a same-sex marriage. This case is emerging as the […]
Finding Jesus at Work: Why are more and more companies offering access to chaplains as an employee benefit? — Corporations are providing spiritual guidance to workers by means of Christian chaplains? What’s in it for the company? The potential for profit doesn’t hurt. Chaplaincies add value to companies, potentially helping create lower turnover rates, increased levels of […]
Christianity Today on the PP /CMP Case: Daniel K. Williams, a historian of the pro-life movement, and Focus on the Family president Jim Daly provide their perspectives on the ethics of the Planned Parenthood Fetal Tissue case. The articles link are Why Are Pro-Lifers Borrowing Pro-Choice Philosophy? and I Know Why the Government Went after Pro-Life […]
How the homeless population is changing: As the population ages, the homeless are getting older too, presenting societal challenges in the years ahead. In the early 1990s, 11 percent of the adult homeless population in the United States was aged 50 and over. It increased to 37 percent by 2003, and today half of America’s homeless […]
Digital warfare: RNS and PBS report anti-jihadi campaigns on social media — The real battlefront against ISIS and other terrorists is on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTubes–social media where jihadis are made and recruited. A corps of new warriors familiar with the terrain includes a West Point team (see this RNS coverage) in a contest for most effective online presence […]
