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.
In this review of Phil Zuckerman’s new book, Peter Leithart finds that Faith No More (Oxford, 2015) opens a window into the souls of people who have stopped believing that they have souls. “With atheism and apostasy on the rise, it’s worthy of careful study by those of us who want to prevent apostasy and reclaim the […]
Religion and the Risk of Divorce: this update on the numbers parses the GSS data and all the respondents in the 2010, 2012, and 2014 surveys and finds the divorce rate among religious Americans for the whole sample is 45 percent—quite close to the “half of all marriages end in divorce” statistic that is widely passed along. […]
In “The Christian Voice in the Civil Realm,” Gifford Grobien notes that the contemporary American, liberal political system differs greatly from Luther’s context. Understanding the unique factors of political liberalism and their relation to religious expression helps one to understand the role of the church in this context. Grobien addresses the issue of how the church is […]
Introduced in 1875, the original Blaine Amendment was an attempt to amend the U.S. Constitution by explicitly banning any government funds from going to “sectarian” institutions, aimed chiefly at Catholic and Lutheran schools. Today, 38 state constitutions have Blaine amendments that restrict government aid to “sectarian” organizations. Although many of the amendments have lain relatively dormant for decades, […]
Lutheran Sociologist Alvin Schmidt has published a new book on the lively topic of death and burial. “This book documents today’s rising rates of cremation in the West, and notes that these rates now include many deceased Christians, a stark contrast to Christians in the past who had consistently rejected cremation from their earliest years […]
“God and Politics: Four Famous Voices on Religion and Society” is a brief overview of Dorothy Day (1897-1980), a Catholic social activist and a candidate for sainthood, Moses Maimonides (1135-1204), a philosopher, rabbi and physician, Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971), a Protestant theologian and champion of “Christian Realism,” and Stephen Wise (1874-1949), a prominent, politically active rabbi. Possible […]
In this open letter to NY Times columnist David Brooks, widely read author and developmental psychologist Thomas Lickona disagrees with Brooks’ view that Christians should drop the same-sex marriage fight and focus instead on aiding the underprivileged. Lickona points out the the two concerns are linked in several important ways. The article is a good […]
From The New York Times: It’s as if Jesus’s parable about the workers in the vineyard—where latecomers got the same pay as those who worked all day—has come to life. Earlier this year, Dan Price, a graduate of Seattle Pacific University and CEO of Seattle-based Gravity Payments, made headlines nationwide after announcing plans to raise […]
From Sojourners: “Sex is great–and it will destroy us all!” This brief essay considers how modern purity movements among teenagers are built around a drive for a pure and strong nation — and fear of a looming apocalypse. The article may be useful for exploring with students such themes as holiness theology and purity movements […]
From Lutheran Forum: Christopher J. Nagel at Concordia Irvine reviews Sean Doherty, Theology and Economic Ethics: Martin Luther and Arthur Rich in Dialogue by Sean Doherty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 228 pp. Doherty’s aim is to present not so much a study in economic ethics but an understanding of a Lutheran method and rationale of economic thinking. The […]
