Crisis Pregnancy Centers: Search Engines and Appeals Courts — The true state of CPC search ads for crisis pregnancy centers is hard to measure. What isn’t is the recent number of court cases favoring how crisis pregnancy centers present themselves.
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.
Switzerland: The Ethical Shift from Human Dignity to the Dignity of Vegetation
Switzerland: The Ethical Shift from Human Dignity to the Dignity of Vegetation — Switzerland’s constitution requires that “account must be taken of the dignity of living beings when handling animals, plants and other living organisms.” No one knew for sure what that meant with regard to vegetation, so the government appointed the Swiss Federal Ethics […]
Death Before the Fall
Death Before the Fall — A review by Tim Stafford of Ron Osborne’s book, Death Before the Fall: Biblical Literalism and the Problem of Animal Suffering. Osborne’s book examines literalistic readings of the texts as not actually true to Scripture, creating as many theological and interpretation problems as they claim to solve. What they impose […]
The Story We Find Ourselves In: Nurturing Christians in a Consumer Culture
The Story We Find Ourselves In: Nurturing Christian Identity in a Consumer Culture –Consumerism has become society’s prevailing story, the story in which young people cultivate their identity. It is now important to help them shift from viewing themselves as objects within a consumer society to seeing themselves as subjectsand agents of God’s love.
How Christians Should Talk About Sex
How Christians Should Talk About Sex — This column uses it’s a point of departure a recent two-part piece from Rolling Stone on current sexual norms. The columnist’s perspective compares today’s Millennials with the culture Paul was addressing with the Gospel 2000 years ago.
Why People Exaggerate Religious Behavior
Why People Exaggerate Religious Behavior — Social scientists have learned you can’t always believe what people tell you. An analysis of 3 places in the Muslim world examines whether peoples’ reports of religious behavior match what they do.
Sacred and Profane: How Not to Negotiate with Believers
Sacred and Profane: How Not to Negotiate with Believers — This article on the 1993 Branch Davidian disaster in Waco, TX, profiles religious-as-different and the gap between the secular outlook and certain religious persuasions that can lead to complete disconnect and possible tragedy. The case study is of particular interest in light of today’s same-sex […]
American Civil Religion
American Civil Religion — Book review by James Childs on an e-book from Gary Laderman. This 93 page book “is in some respects a narrative of matters familiar and yet it is done insightfully. He opens up possibilities for thinking about our civil religion that may not otherwise occur to us…. Since this is an […]
Twilight for America’s Elite Intellectual Consensus
Twilight for America’s Elite Intellectual Consensus — George Marsden’s book, The Twilight of the American Enlightenment (Basic Books, 2014) sketches the emerging intellectual establishment following World War II and looks at common assumptions held by those leading cultural analysts writing for middlebrow Americans–assumptions that no longer prevail.
A Matthew 18 Case in Dispute Resolution
A Matthew 18 Case in Dispute Resolution — A current law suit and its resolution could turn on which side reneged on a promise to use Christian principles in the workplace, a quarrel that offers a window into a parallel, little-known system of religious justice.
