A Tale of Two Christian Colleges — Two Christian colleges, both founded in 1906, both about the same size, have gone in different directions. College of the Ozarks has opted for being a bit peculiar and is thriving. Louisiana College tried the conventional and is struggling.
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
The Dignity Deniers
The Dignity Deniers — Dominant cultural voices argue that an individual’s moral worth should be predicated upon his or her individual capacities of the moment. This view is most acutely expressed in bioethics, the field that wields tremendous influence over health-care public policies and in the ethical protocols of medicine.
Private Schools for the Public Good
Private Schools for the Public Good — The Cardus Think Tank has released its 2014 education survey which presents evidence that non-public and particularly parochial schools promote the public good even above public schools and that school choice should become part of education policy.
Bigger Love: Debating Marriage and Sex Beyond Morality
Bigger Love: Debating Marriage and Sex Beyond Morality — Bret Mavrich argues that the current marriage disputes, including impending polygamy, should be addressed as a prophetic issues of the ways the old Adam seeks to centralize power and eclipse God’s greater love and call for justice.
The Full This-Worldliness of Life
The Full This-Worldliness of Life — Dietrich Bonhoeffer continues to receive attention and study as perhaps the twentieth century’s chief voice and case study on the two kingdoms. This review examines Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer by Charles Marsh (Knopf, 2014), widely regarded as a solid contribution to the literature.
Why Christian Education
Why Christian Education — Jim Drexel at Covenant Colleges offers a rationale for Christian Education, examining the usual pro and con views and citing Luther and Calvin with attention to the two kingdoms.
How Black and White Christians Think About Race
How Black and White Christians Think Differently About Race — Researched by Michael Emerson of Rice University and David Sikkink of Notre Dame (and released by the Association of Religion Data Archives), this Portraits of American Life Study found that divergent perceptions on race among black and white Christians have continued to widen since 2006.
The Wrong Kind of Christian
The Wrong Kind of Christian — Over the past two years, Vanderbilt University has enacted policy to exclude student groups based on leadership creedal belief and on sexual expression. Fourteen campus religious communities no longer have organizational standing including Catholic, Evangelical, and Mormon groups. Tish Harrison Warren describes her failed effort to reason with the […]
The Rhetorical Device of Assigned Mendacity
The Rhetorical Device of Assigned Mendacity — An instructive essay by Mark Bauerlein that can be used to alert students to a technique in discourse sometimes used to distract and discredit the religious perspective. This form of the indirect ad hominem occurs in policy debates and legal decisions and can be detected with a […]
A Secular Age 2.0
A Secular Age 2.0 — “Back in the ’70s, even while a lingering, residual religion still pervaded the atmosphere, the smart set was discovering that religion was a sham. But those were the ’70s, more specifically, the 1870s.” Matt Milliner at Wheaton reviews Minding the Modern: Human Agency, Intellectual Traditions, and Responsible Knowledge by Thomas […]
