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.
Law professor Brian Leiter’s Why Tolerate Religion? (published in 2013) proposes three affirmative reasons. The reviewer agrees with Leiter’s third conclusion, but for legal reasons argues to deny the first two: 1) singling out religion and 2) granting religious exceptions: “It is difficult, however, to appreciate them if one reduces religion to just a matter of religious conscience.” […]
The New Dignity: Gnostic, Elitist, Self-Destructive Will-to-Power: “Human dignity is grounded in our ability to defy nature—to go beyond natural limitations and thereby create ourselves anew. But in a world with no clear origin, no purposeful end, and no intrinsic meaning, human dignity is founded on nothing more than a self-creating will to power that […]
Forensic Pseudoscience – The Unheralded Crisis of Criminal Justice: No human endeavor is completely without error, and one might wonder just how systemic the problems of forensic science truly are. The claim of crisis is far from universally shared. But the problem is therefore not that forensic science is wrong, but that it is hard to know when it […]
A new study by LifeWay Research shows that more than 4 in 10 women who have had an abortion were churchgoers when they ended a pregnancy. Only 7 percent of women discussed their abortion decision with anyone at church. Three-fourths say the church had no influence on their decision to terminate a pregnancy. Students can […]
NAE, LifeWay Research Publish Evangelical Beliefs Research Definition: Because researchers use different tools to identify evangelicals, results vary in polling. Lifeway Research has developed, reviewed, and tested an evangelical beliefs research definition for accurate and consistent use among researchers. (Could such a research definition be developed for Lutherans or Catholics?)
Researcher, author, and professor Allan Carlson maintains that the U.S. culture never stays in a moral morass for more than a few generations. He cites four distinct periods of family strength and renewal and four distinct periods of family decline since 1630. “There’s going to be another renewal because we human beings—not just we Americans, but […]
The Institute of Religious Studies at Baylor University, hosted by The National Press Club, examines the statistics and survey reports about religion in the U.S. and what some critics are calling “the secularization myth.” Although surveys have found a decline in membership for Mainline denominations, many actually changed to other denominations from which they grew up in. Yet […]
The NYT piece covers a current sexting case, “Hundreds of Nude Photos Jolt Colorado School,” and the Mercator article offers some commentary: “Lessons from a sexting scandal.” This case is one of several over the past few years that perplex authorities and may serve as an exemplar for how the culture is now at a […]
The Geo Grooup, Inc., a private prison and detention business, has been hired by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to hold Central American immigrant families seeking asylum. The work involves electronic monitoring, explaining immigrants’ legal rights and the asylum process, and helping enroll their kids in school. This role traditionally has been filled by […]
From the journal Current Biology this research continues the disputes about the relationship of religion and morality: “Parents in religious households reported that their children expressed more empathy and sensitivity for justice in everyday life than non-religious parents. However, religiousness was inversely predictive of children’s altruism and positively correlated with their punitive tendencies. Together these […]
