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.
Enlightenment Liberty vis a vis Christian Liberty: Those we teach often confuse and conflate Christian liberty with civil concepts of liberty. And we read much today about religious liberty. In this edition of Issues, you will find ten discussions from a variety of perspectives to expand your own teaching repertoire on the freedom of the Christian, […]
Governing God’s House: The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA) has asked board members and church staff from more than 500 churches how their congregations are governed. This summary offers several insights about practices and patterns that seem to be effective. (We may further inquire: can we / should we educate our boards and, if […]
Brain-controlled drone race pushes future tech: A drone race has used a brain-controlled interface by which 16 pilots used willpower to drive drones through a 10-yard dash over an indoor basketball court at the University of Florida. This technology delivers an abstract thought through the digital realm and into the real world as programmers write code to translate […]
AP report about private colleges has a familiar doctrine-shaped hole: This opinion/watchdog piece raises issues about how well the mainstream news services report on Christian colleges and the culture shifts. Students can practice basic critical thinking skills by searching and examining several related stories to see if the writer’s concern is justified. The current California […]
When Do Religious Accommodations Burden Others? Available here are two chapters from the forthcoming book, The Conscience Wars: Rethinking the Balance Between Religion, Idenity, and Equality (S. Mancini and M Rosenfeld, eds. (Cambridge University Press, 2017). The two chapters examine situations where the interference with religious freedom is so significant, and the countervailing burden on […]
The Queerness of Christian Ethics: A Conversation with Rev. Elizabeth Edman — Edman is a granddaughter of a president of Wheaton College. This book interview presents her views on LGBTQ experience and her perception of Christian ethics. Students can examine it as a current perspective, and assess it in terms of Law and Gospel, source […]
Scopes of Religious Exemption: A Normative Map — (Note: one free download allowed) Religious exemptions take a variety of forms, with distinct logical shapes and normative underpinnings. This paper identifies eight ideal types of religious exemptions, grouped into three larger rubrics, representing a series of different analytic and justificatory structures, to help make sense of what […]
Church Meeting Not Totally Immune From Judicial Examination: In Barrow v. Living Word Church, (SD OH, July 25, 2016), an Ohio federal magistrate judge refused to apply the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine to dismiss a suit by a former volunteer pastor who was removed from his position and from church membership, saying in part: “If a church meeting […]
In Germany, secular ‘confirmation’ thrives again: The history of secularism as an alternative to organized church religion in Germany is a long and winding one. Begun more than 150 years ago, the Jugendweihe was a way to educate and raise young people outside a religious tradition, a movement that faced persecution during Nazi times and later […]
How the push for gay rights is reshaping religious liberty in America: This series profiles seven recent and prominent cases in which people of faith have faced litigation when their convictions guided actions contrary to current civil rights trends. The CSM subtitle begins the series with, “As gay rights rapidly expand, some religious conservatives worry that their […]
