Items included for this subject area 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.
Trinity Lutheran: The Church-State Case Looms at the Supreme Court — The Supreme Court is expected to rule in June, 2017, on a case brought by Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Missouri, against the state. The ruling could have powerful implications for the separation of church and state and the funding of religious schools in […]
Christians and Lawsuits: The usual starter text for law suits is 1 Cor. 6:1-8. ADF is among the better known Christian legal services and presents four factors to explain when and why the church may use a culture’s legal system to engage in litigation (citing Calvin here, though Luther addressed this concern also as he […]
Keep Christianity Weird: This review of Destroyer of the Gods by Larry Hurtado (Baylor, 2016), 304 pages, notes that book reminds us how weird Christianity was to the Roman world. Christianity’s sheer familiarity has desensitized us to its radical claims. Hurtado aims to show how the “odd” became “commonplace,” by surveying the first three centuries of the Jesus […]
Christian Human Rights: A Debate — The annunciation of human rights in the 1940s is now viewed by the general public and professional scholars as the uncomplicated triumph of liberal democracy. But it is equally if not more viable to regard human rights as a project of the Christian right, not the secular left. Their […]
Meg Meeker, MD, on Teenagers and the STD nobody is talking about: Most people are aware of the physical repercussions of sex–we e now have 35 known STDs (in 1960, we only had two); teenagers make up one-third of the U.S. population, but they carry 50 percent of STDs; one in four teens has an STD. […]
Wholly Citizens: God’s Two Realms and Christian Engagement With the World — Luther’s framework of the two realms is often misunderstood and misrepresented. Bierman wisely begins his work not with Rom. 13 but with Luther’s provocative treatment of Ps. 82. He examines Luther’s later interpreters–some accurate, others not so much–and how the two kingdoms doctrine has […]
The student loan system is so complicated even the experts have trouble figuring it out: Christian schools can consider the challenges faced by the 44 million student loan borrowers across the country as they navigate the repayment process. The complexity of the student loan system, which includes both federal and private loans, a myriad of repayment […]
The Reformation 500 Years Later, with Dr. Timothy Wengert: This 6 min. video from a Reformation scholar is a quick summary of the 95 Theses, the centrality of the Gospel, why these mattered then, and why they matter now.
Comment, Summer 2017: This issue explores expressions of civil religion that deserve serious consideration because, as implausible as it might seem, civil religion is an irreplaceable moral source of civil society. In fact, reconsidering civil religion is necessary precisely because civil religion is inevitable. It’s not a question of whether we have a civil religion, but […]
Americans Want to Avoid Shame, Make Their Loved Ones Proud: Americans are more worried about their reputation than their conscience, less about guilt and fear, and more about avoiding shame. Shame has become particularly powerful in American culture in the internet age: “What’s surprising is not that personal freedom, ambition, and doing the right thing are valued by […]
