Call for Clergy to Shun Civil Marriage Ceremonies — Here is the NYT on the Marriage Pledge published in First Things in December, 2014. The pledge commits clergy members not to sign “government-provided marriage certificates.” This Times piece includes several statements and links that may help with a two-kingdoms analysis.
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.
"Open Book" by R. Marxhausen: the Bible, the book open to us all
As We Forgive
As We Forgive — A 10 min. video on young Christian filmmaker Laura Waters Hinson, producer of As We Forgive, the Academy Award winning documentary on the Rwanda genocide and possibilities of forgiveness. She discusses her work in film, her calling as a Christian, and her new projects. The film discusses the left-hand kingdom’s efforts […]
How Institutions Can Die Well
How Institutions Can Die Well — This essay, titled “Final Gifts,” suggests that institutions in the church need to think and talk about how to die well: one of the mistakes institutions make is to defer facing their failure to the point that they have no more resources to attend to the end. They just […]
NLRB Rules that Adjuncts at PLU can Unionize
NLRB Rules that Adjuncts at PLU can Unionize — A federal labor ruling that gives the go-ahead for Pacific Lutheran University’s (PLU) adjunct faculty members to form a union may also clear the way for college instructors at other private colleges to unionize. The decision by the (NLRB) last week found that the private Tacoma […]
How Singles Can Contribute to a Marriage Culture
How Singles Can Contribute to a Marriage Culture — This 6 min. video from the Southern Baptists’ Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission offers students a perspective on singleness as a vocation that helps sustain marriage as a cultural and a religious institution. The speaker, Jennifer Marshall, is the author of Now and Not Yet: Making […]
The New College Counterculture
The New College Counterculture — UofMich senior Ryan Shinkel offers a column on today’s campus counterculture characterized by tradition, virtue, and religious commitment, and not well received by the current establishment inherited from the 1960s. The article may be of interest to students as a way to gain some perspective on which movements are conformist […]
Talking About God in Public
Talking About God in Public — A review of Rowan Williams’ new book, The Edge of Words: God and the Habits of Language (Bloomsbury, 2014): when we talk about God, we do so mutedly and usually only in the confidence of our private sacred spaces. If we’re going to regain our confidence in finding words for […]
Christian Marriage, Civil Marriage
Christian Marriage, Civil Marriage — First Things has been publishing several pieces on the marriage issue along with a page for pledging clergy non-participation in civil marriage. Here is one article from which you can search others. Also, click here to see the pledge page.
The Perceptions Project: Science and Religion
The Perceptions Project — The Perceptions Project, a three-year endeavor spearheaded by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) program of Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion (DoSER) brings together scientists and religious leaders (especially evangelicals) for conversation about how members of these influential communities view one another and how relations between them […]
Four Challenges for Christians on Assisted Suicide
Four Challenges for Christians on Assisted Suicide — “Those who try to win an ethical argument that it is morally wrong for terminally ill patients to take their own lives are on their way to losing that argument. But those who are ready to articulate a better way have a real chance in changing the […]
