On Secular Governance

Lutheran Perspectives
on Contemporary Legal Issues

Edited by

Ronald W. Duty and Marie A. Failinger

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
Grand Rapids, Michigan / Cambridge, U.K.

© 2016 Ronald W. Duty and Marie A. Failinger
All rights reserved

Published 2016 by
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
2140 Oak Industrial Drive N.E., Grand Rapids, Michigan 49505 /
P.O. Box 163, Cambridge CB3 9PU U.K.

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

ISBN 978-0-8028-7228-9

eISBN 978-1-4674-4522-1 (ePub)

eISBN 978-1-4674-4475-0 (Kindle)

www.eerdmans.com

In memory of my mother and father, Evelyn and William Duty. Her consistent respect and hunger for learning shaped my own, her deep Lutheran piety and sense of Christian vocation led her sons by example, and her own lifelong pursuit of an education was — tragically — affected by her obedience of the Fourth Commandment. His support, both for her educational pursuits and my own, was constant and generous.

RWD

To my parents, Joan and Conard Failinger, for the many sacrifices they made in taking their six children to weekly worship and sending us to Lutheran schools and colleges so that our lives could be informed by the Lutheran witness and conformed to our many diverse callings. And to my grandparents, Emma and Conard Failinger, and Nina and Harold Lang, for guiding us in the faith by word and example.

MAF

Contents

Contributors

Acknowledgments

A Note on Citations of Legal Materials

Introduction

Ronald W. Duty and Marie A. Failinger

Part I: Framing the Problems of Law and Theology

1. Nomos and Narrative in Civil Law
and Theological Ethics

W. Bradley Wendel

2. Why Religious Freedom?

John R. Stumme

3. African Americans and Secular Law:
A Paradoxical Relationship

Richard J. Perry Jr.

Part II: Reflections on Property and Larger Creation: Property Law and the Environment

4. U.S. Property Law Reconsidered in Light of the Lutheran Finitum Capax Infiniti

Mary Gaebler

5. Law, Grace, Climate Change, and Water Rights
in the American Southwest

Ronald W. Duty

Part III: Lutheran Reflections on the Law of
Human Dignity and Human Need

6. A Lutheran Feminist Critique of American Child Protection Laws: Sins of Sexual Nature

Kirsi Stjerna

7. Hiding in Plain Sight:
Lutheran Reflections on Human Trafficking

Wanda Deifelt

8. Bearing So Much Similar Fruit: Lutheran Theology and Comprehensive Immigration Reform

Leopoldo A. Sánchez M.

9. God’s Uses of the Law and the Effort to Establish a Constitutional Right to the Means to Live

Marie A. Failinger and Patrick R. Keifert

10. Can Luther Help Modern Lawyers
Understand Fiduciary Duty?

Susan R. Martyn

Part IV: Lutherans in Their Role as Citizens

11. The Legal Framework of Lutheran Churches —
A Historical European Perspective

Svend Andersen and Morten Kjaer

12. Military Chaplains and the Law

James M. Childs Jr.

13. The Right to Freedom of Association:
Organizing in Rwanda after Genocide

Victor Thasiah

14. Disturbing Unjust ...