End-of-Life Ethics — What does it mean to die well in this culture? This question is being asked with greater urgency and frequency as contemporary societies become more scientifically and medically sophisticated. The church as a source of both pastoral care and moral vision has untapped resources to share.
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.
Support for the Death Penalty by Religious Affiliation
Support for the Death Penalty by Religious Affiliation — There are significant religious divides on the death penalty issue. White evangelical and mainline Protestants have the strongest support for the death penalty, while Hispanic and black Protestants express the least support. White Catholics, like the general public, are almost evenly divided in their views while […]
Gang Ministry: Homeboy Industries, Los Angeles, CA
Homeboy Industries, Los Angeles, CA — This 50 min. audio interview with Jesuit Priest Fr. Gregory Boyle offers a very listen-able discussion about gang intervention, vocation, and ministry as community rather than as “fixing.”
Madison, Rousseau, and the Role of Religion in Civic Life
Madison, Rousseau, and the Role of Religion in Civic Life — This brief essay can introduce students to some basic views on how the left-hand kingdom may seek to manage the religious factions that have “divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each […]
Jesus and the Death Penalty
Jesus and the Death Penalty — The lethal injection controversy in capital punishment continues. This anti-death penalty essay invites a two-kingdoms analysis that could prompt students to a multiple model study of the issue including mental disabilities, politics, religion, justice, and various Biblical themes.
World Relgions Demographics Forecast
World Religions Demographics Forecast — By 2050, Muslims will nearly equal the number of Christians around the world; Atheists, agnostics and other people who do not affiliate with any religion will make up a declining share of the world’s total population, and in the United States, Christians will decline from more than three-quarters of the […]
The Death Penalty in Asia and the Pacific
From the Internat’l Desk: The Death Penalty in Asia and the Pacific — An Amnesty International report indicates that after years of moving towards abolition, countries in Asia are now once again using capital punishment while Pacific nations are not.
Luther on Justice
Luther on Justice — This brief essay examines Luther’s perspective on justice from his early writing in the Heidelberg Disputation to his work in Bondage of the Will: “Luther knows that the question about God’s justice (that is, about the apparent lack of God’s justice in our experience of this fallen and incomplete world), rages […]
The Millennials: Institutionalizing Ethics as Subjectivism and Emotivism
The Millennials: Institutionalizing Ethics as Subjectivsm and Emotivism — For most millennials morality is all about personal circumstances, said Robert Jones, CEO of Public Religion Research Institute (funded by the Ford Foundation) The new PRRI research looks at the views of U.S. adults ages 18 to 35 on issues such as sexual behavior, gender identity, […]
A Case to Watch on Mental Disabilities and the Death Penalty
A Case to Watch — The Supreme Court has created a short list of categories of those who cannot constitutionally be executed, including juveniles, the mentally insane, anyone who commits a crime other than murder, and, most recently, an individual who is mentally disabled. In an upcoming case, the Court will struggle again to clarify […]
