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.
Ariens Co. in Milwaukee has fired seven Muslim employees for taking unscheduled prayer breaks, and 14 others have resigned over the issue. The Muslim employees wanted management to continue a previous, more lenient practice of allowing them to leave their work stations at different times to pray as their faith requires of them. Ariens said it was […]
ISIS has lost a lot of territory but that hasn’t translated into a loss of supporters. For classes in psychology, political science, marketing, history, and sociology: ISIS has become some sort of religious obligation. ISIS aims to be at the forefront of an end-of-days battle. It’s pitting its fighters against the West to establish a Muslim […]
Is Sports Gambling Moral? You Bet, Americans Say: Nearly two-thirds of Americans disagree that it’s morally wrong to bet on sports. Yet 49 percent think sports betting shouldn’t be legalized nationwide. Opposition runs highest among religious Americans. Almost 60% evangelical beliefs say sports betting should not be legalized throughout the country, and 57 percent believe daily fantasy sports […]
ISIS obliterates oldest Christian monastery in Iraq: Published at Crux (The Boston Globe), this is the AP’s thorough coverage on the destruction of the St. Elijah Monastery by ISIS. The oldest Christian monastery in Iraq has been reduced to a field of rubble, yet another victim of the Islamic State group’s relentless destruction of ancient cultural sites. […]
Faith Groups and Corporate Social Responsibility: an 8 min. video on the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, a coalition of long-term stockholders who have used their influence as investors for decades, pressing major corporations to divest from apartheid South Africa, end human trafficking, abolish modern slavery, and support human rights. Students in business, economics, […]
Pharmacists to Supreme Court: Protect our religious conscience: A family-owned pharmacy and two female pharmacists asked the U.S. Supreme Court today to stop a new Washington State law that would force them to sell abortion-inducing drugs in violation of their religious beliefs.
Religious Health Care Ministries Show Growth: The Wall Street Journal reports that the number of participants in religious health-sharing arrangements has grown from 200,000 to 500,000 since 2010 and after enactment of the ACA. According to the report, gov’t officials are concerned both about the risk to participants from the unregulated operation of the arrangements, and about their impact […]
“Concussion” Makes a Christian Argument Against Football: Students across several areas of study and interest may find the arguments within and about this film worth exploring. “The movie’s moral arguments are framed less as matters of medicine than of religious faith. It’s not a sports movie, or a medical thriller, so much as a Christian […]
The Quietly Dangerous Suburban Church — How three architects in the 1950s tried to meld religion, modernism and suburbia: The marks of the church are word and sacraments (AC VII); thus, here is a study for the-spiritual-and-the-material, a key Reformation insight about the Gospel. To what extend are other spatial elements important and edifying? The 1950s and ’60s […]
How secular Americans are reshaping funeral rituals: Students can examine the trend toward cremation as a pattern in sociology, business, religion, family studies, ritual expression, and psychology. According to estimates by the funeral industry’s main trade group, 2015 is on track to be the year that cremation surpasses burial for the first time, as a long-standing […]
