The Catholic I Am

by Gilbert Meilaender

What is distinctively Lutheran is to think of ourselves first as catholic—as catholics who found at a certain point in history that they needed to reform the . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Feb 2011

Creatures of Place and Time: Reflections on Moving

by Gilbert Meilaender

My family and I moved last summer, moving to Valparaiso, Indiana from Oberlin, Ohio, where we had lived for eighteen years. Now, eighteen years is a reasonably long time in anyone’s life. It constitutes the bulk of the life of my children, and almost the entire life of several of them. It is by . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Apr 1997

A Lutheran Affirmation

by Leslie Newbigin

No Other Gospel!  Christianity Among The World Religions  by carl e. braaten  fortress press, 142 pages, $10.95 Carl Braaten gives us here a spirited and well-grounded affirmation of the centrality and finality, the uniqueness and universality, of Jesus Christ, and a frontal assault . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Jun 1992

The Church as Interest Group, Once More

by Richard John Neuhaus

In the January issue, this section carried a commentary titled “The Catholic Church as Interest Group.” Among the points made was that, despite the bishops’ declared intention, a statement such as “Political Responsibility,” issued by the United States Catholic Conference (USCC), is in . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Apr 1992

Reason Public and Private: The Pannenberg Project

by Richard John Neuhaus

There are numerous obstacles to making the connections between religion and public life. For some moderns, a quasi-religious commitment to secularism produces an overt hostility to religion in all its manifestations. For many others, religion is self-evidently a purely private phenomenon. In that . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Mar 1992

The Lutheran Difference

by Mark A. Noll

To the extent that Lutherans are noticed at all by non-Lutherans in America, impressions can be wildly contradictory. From one perspective, they can look like mildly exotic ethnics—sort of like the Mennonites, only more numerous. Thus it is possible for interested outsiders to smile . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Feb 1992

Protestants and Natural Law

by Carl E. Braaten

It is a longstanding commonplace in Christian thought that Protestantism distinguishes its moral theology from that of Roman Catholicism by its rejection of natural law. The idea of natural law has long formed the spinal column of Catholic social teaching. Modern Protestantism, by contrast, has no . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Jan 1992

The Mother of Editorials: The Times Gets Religion

by Richard John Neuhaus

Maybe we have been too hard on the editorial page of the most influential of our parish newspapers. Over the years, the New York Times’ editorial writers have been indifferent or hostile to the role of religion in our common life. Any impingement of religion on spheres that . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Aug 1991

Heaven Is My Home

by James Nuechterlein

It sometimes seems to me through the mists of memory that I spent my childhood in church. That is not actually the case, of course. There was the weekly Sunday morning service, preceded by Sunday School, and it was invariable, no more to be questioned or argued over than attendance at regular . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Oct 1990

East Germany: Luther vs. Lenin

by Uzve Siemon-Netto

It is hard to disagree with the Reverend Johannes Richter of Leipzig’s Thomaskirche when he says that this has been the East German church’s moment of kairos. Consider: pastors are serving as government ministers in what used to be a Communist country. Pastors—of varied political . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Jun 1990