La Diritta Via: An Ethical Response to Terror
by Peter S. Henne
Terrorist acts of al-Qaeda are not, as commonly perceived, a revolutionary reaction aimed at destroying Western culture; they are instead a systemic outburst to the marginalization of the Middle East in the international system.  Through the use of the theories of John Locke and Carole Pateman, it is determined that the supposed revolutionary nature of the group is based on a faulty tacit consent-based conceptualization of al-Qaeda’s actions, and that the inequality of the international system is the true cause of terrorism. [read article]

A Lutheran Perspective on Teaching Legal Ethics
by Robert W. Tuttle
I have a confession to make.  For the past decade, I have been teaching Lutheran ethics to the students of George Washington University Law School.  This confession will come as something of a surprise to my students and colleagues.  GW is not, after all, a religiously affiliated law school, much less a Lutheran one; and the course in question is supposed to be the school’s standard, two-credit class in professional responsibility. [read article]

Review of Must Christianity be Violent? by Kenneth R. Chase and Alvin Jacobs
review by Mark Hoffman
Must Christianity be Violent?  “Of course not!” is the obvious answer of any faithful Christian.  However, that is the title of this book, a compendium of lectures sponsored in March 2000 by the Center for Applied Christian Ethics of Wheaton College (Illinois).  The impetus of these lectures was to engage the concern often leveled against Christianity, that “Christianity’s tragic legacy has been a reversal of values through which an ethic purportedly driven by love and service has been used as an opportunity for control and subjugation.” [read review]

Review of After Empire: The Art and Ethos of Enduring Peace by Sharon D. Welch
review by Elizabeth Bettenhausen
Today in powerful places in the USA, compromise is slurred as Truth's enemy, and only the single-minded know justice. Peace will arrive when the other, the different, is eliminated or turned into an impotent minority.  Thus, on the Comedy Channel, The Daily Show never runs out of material. [read review]

Review of After Empire: The Art and Ethos of Enduring Peace by Sharon D. Welch
review by C. Melissa Snarr
One of Sharon Welch’s gifts is to take a common ethical question and discuss it in ways few have imagined. She transforms questions into prisms which invite us to turn them in the light and meditate on what the resulting refractions might mean for our moral vision [read review]

Review of Three Books on Peace
review by Richard J. Niebanck
Must Christianity –defined as that theological ethos whose normative basis is the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ – be violent?  This question, the title of the third book to be reviewed below, is answered with a definite “yes” by the first and emphatic “no” by the second. [read review]

2005 Lutheran Ethicists Gathering: Vulnerability and Security
The focus of this theme is on nation-states and other actors in the current context of international affairs when reporting of events is instant and vulnerability and security are often swiftly affected.
[explore portfolio]

New contributions to Vulnerability and Security
Vulnerability and Security: A Paradox Based on a Theology of Incarnation
by Wanda Deifelt
The juxtaposition of two apparently contradictory notions, namely, vulnerability and security, makes for a wonderful paradox in the best of Lutheran tradition. They seem mutually exclusive but, in fact, comprise two basic, coexisting human characteristics: all human beings desire security, safety, protection, and shelter. [read article]

Reflecting on End of Life Decisions
The long tragic case of Terri Shiavo recently produced an outpouring of response throughout the United States. Her death was reported on April 1, 2005, nearly two weeks after life support was removed in accord with a court order. [explore portfolio]

Response to the Respondents to my Civil Religion Argument
by Robert Benne
I am honored and delighted that five persons of such stature have taken time to respond to my article on civil religion—“Civil Religion—Destructive, Useless, or Beneficial?”  All five responses were helpful, civil, and of high quality.  They are fine demonstrations of the kind of moral discourse at which this journal aims.  I can only hope that my response to these contributions will measure up to their quality.
[read article]

Responses to Robert Benne's "The American Civil Religion - Destructive, Useless, or Beneficial?"

by Gilbert Meilaender
Some Lutherans have drawn back because our country's civil religion seems insufficiently religious, others because it seems too religious (and insufficiently secular).  Neither of these strikes me as a very nuanced approach, and that fact inclines me to be sympathetic to Benne's case.  [read article]

by Walter M. Stuhr
Robert Benne’s article on American Civil Religion is timely and important. It comes at a time when the Supreme Court is deliberating the constitutionality of public monuments to the Ten Commandments.  The “alliance” of the presidency of George W. Bush with the Christian Right brings the issue of church and state relations to the fore.
[read article]

The New Freedom of Public Religion
by John Witte, Jr.
The subtitle to Professor Benne’s perceptive article poses the question whether America’s civil religion is “destructive, useless, or beneficial.”  It can be all three. [read article]