Wiley: Dialog: Table of Contents

Mercy and Merit

John F. Hoffmeyer — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 18:30:50 -0700

Dialog, Volume 65, Issue 2, Page 59-59, Summer 2026.

About Authoritarianism

Duane Larson, Brent Hege — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 18:30:50 -0700

Dialog, Volume 65, Issue 2, Page 60-61, Summer 2026.

Resisting and Confronting Authoritarianism

Paul Ziese — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 18:30:50 -0700

Dialog, Volume 65, Issue 2, Page 111-116, Summer 2026.

The Meaning of Obedience in a Time of Authoritarianism: Ethics of Care in and beyond the Military

Pauline Shanks Kaurin — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 18:30:50 -0700

ABSTRACT

In my book, On Obedience, Contrasting Philosophies for Military, Community and Citizenry, I anticipated emerging and different problems of authority and the nature/character of obedience in military and civic cultures. My anticipations proved to be correct, and more urgent questions have emerged. I pay new attention here to faith perspectives and their roles within communities of care (COC), along with the moral perspective implied within COCs. The religious/moral examples of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Magda Trocmé provide practical grounding for my thesis.

Christian Defense and Stewardship of the Constitution of the United States

Jeff Zust — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 18:30:50 -0700

Dialog, Volume 65, Issue 2, Page 62-64, Summer 2026.

Theological Struggle Against Authoritarianism: Calls for Confessing Church

Craig L. Nessan — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 18:30:50 -0700

ABSTRACT

This article juxtaposes the church struggle against Nazism in Germany with the theological struggle against Christian Nationalism in the US. The Christ-centered theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and of the Barmen Declaration grounded theological resistance in Germany. In the US, there have been many calls for confessing church; five theological movements are documented. The author compares the two historical contexts and analyzes the challenges facing contemporary efforts at confessing church through theological resistance

An Excerpt From Disciples of White Jesus

Angela Denker — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 18:30:50 -0700

ABSTRACT

I write on a spring morning in America where we find ourselves, inauspiciously but unsurprisingly, on the brink of a Holy War in the Middle East, spurred on by the very sorts of Christian men who I reported on in my 2025 book, Disciples of White Jesus: The Radicalization of American Boyhood. In such times as these, it can be difficult to take a step back from the chaotic daily headlines and missives of death, from schoolgirls in Iran to American military members serving overseas, to take stock of the underlying theological motivations of the right-wing politicians dictating such military orders. That's why I'm grateful, however, for this issue of Dialog on the topic of Authoritarianism. I am grateful too for the opportunity to contribute an excerpt of my book that speaks to the manipulation and recasting of Jesus into a violent warmonger, akin to the weaponized and racist theology that undergirded the Crusades of the Middle Ages. I hope that readers see not only the danger of this White Jesus, but also find hope in lifting up instead the authentic, crucified Jesus of the Bible, in whom I place my ultimate faith even in dangerous days such as these. And so I offer this excerpt from my book, Chapter 4.

Confronting Authoritarianism: Some Lessons From the Barmen Declaration

Brent A. R. Hege — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 18:30:50 -0700

ABSTRACT

The Theological Declaration of Barmen, adopted by the German Confessing Church in 1934, offered a theological response to the authoritarian and totalitarian threats of the Nazi government in the first years of the Third Reich. As such, it can serve as a resource for thinking theologically about what it means to be the church in our own time of increasing authoritarianism in the United States and elsewhere. Most significantly, the Barmen Declaration's forceful denunciation of the idolatry of leader, state, and ideology, coupled with its insistence on the Reformation principle of solus Christus, reminds Christians of where their ultimate loyalties must lie. At the same time, the Barmen Declaration's silence on the Nazis’ persecution of the Jewish people is a stark reminder of the limitations of Barmen, calling churches and Christians in our present moment to stand in solidarity with all those who are targeted, dehumanized, and persecuted by the state. This article explores the context and the arguments of the Barmen Declaration, its foundations in Luther's Two Kingdoms doctrine, and additional resources within the Lutheran tradition for going “with Barmen beyond Barmen” to rise to the challenges of our own moment of crisis.

The Ethics of Authoritarianism in Christian Perspective

James M. Childs — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 18:30:50 -0700

ABSTRACT

We look here at the characteristics of authoritarian government in the context of constitutional democracies and argue that its operative ethical system in public policy is egoism, with its supporters constituting a collective ego complicit in the undemocratic and Machiavellian practices used to sustain power and the authority of leadership to impose its vision of the good on all of society. Basic features of the Christian ethic of agape and its theological foundations provide striking contrasts with the ethics and practices of authoritarian government, providing resources for the public witness of the Christian community.

Can God the Father Bind the Strongman? Bonhoeffer, Daly, and the New Authoritarianism

Dirk von der Horst — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 18:30:50 -0700

ABSTRACT

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Mary Daly offer contrasting approaches to anti-authoritarian theologies. This article explores the sexual politics of anti-authoritarian theologies by exploring how Bonhoeffer and Daly treat masculine God-language, identity politics, and institutions.

Issue Information

Sun, 07 Jun 2026 18:30:50 -0700

Dialog, Volume 65, Issue 2, Page 57-57, Summer 2026.

Understanding the Relationship of Humanity to God and to Creation Through God's Love: Tuomo Mannermaa's New Interpretation of Martin Luther's View of the Two Kinds of Love

Ying Yang, Paulos Z. Z. Huang — Thu, 28 May 2026 19:52:13 -0700

ABSTRACT

Based on Luther's twenty-eighth thesis in the Heidelberg Disputation, which contrasts God's love and human love, Tuomo Mannermaa offers a detailed analysis of the theme of love in Luther's theology, highlighting its paradoxical character. According to Mannermaa's interpretation, Luther insists that God's love and human love move in opposite directions: the essence of God's love is creative and self-giving, directed toward nothingness and deficiency; whereas human love is acquisitive and self-seeking, oriented toward what is already good and beautiful. Luther thus grounds the God-human relationship on the basis of God's love, not human love. Additionally, material creation, including neighbors, the natural world, and the self, is understood as a “good gift,” each worthy of God's loving embrace. This marks a decisive breakthrough from Anders Nygren's dichotomy of agape and eros. Nygren reduces Luther's conception of God's love to a gift of God imparted through faith, subsequently exercised by Christians in obedience to the command to love their neighbors. In contrast to Nygren, Mannermaa's interpretation demonstrates, at an ontological level, the absolute value of God's love in relation both to human love for God and creation. It thereby confirms the Christian love for God as a central and indispensable theme within Luther's theological system.

Eco‐Theology, Marketing Values, and Sustainable Consumption

Eylem Şencan — Tue, 12 May 2026 06:08:44 -0700

ABSTRACT

This study develops an interdisciplinary framework that brings green marketing research into dialogue with contemporary Lutheran eco-theology in order to examine sustainable consumption among Christian households in İzmir, Türkiye. Although sustainability marketing has shown that pro-environmental purchasing is shaped by consumer values, trust, corporate responsibility, and perceptions of shared social benefit, much of this literature still explains consumption through secular and highly individual models of choice. These approaches leave limited room for the moral commitments that shape everyday economic life. In response, this article argues that sustainable consumption can be better understood when interpreted through an eco-theological framework centered on vocation, neighbor-love, humility, justice, and responsibility within creation. Using the Sustainability Consumer–Industry–Response Framework as a starting point, the study adapts these concepts to a qualitative analysis of 20 Christian households in İzmir. Within this framework, environmental values are interpreted as vocational responsibility, corporate traceability as moral accountability, communal consumption as neighbor-directed responsibility, and willingness to pay more for sustainable goods as materially embodied sacrifice shaped by frugality and care for creation. The findings show that sustainable consumption takes shape as a morally meaningful practice grounded in household life, communal expectation, and faith-informed understandings of obligation. The resulting Spiritual Framework for Sustainable Consumption suggests that markets can function as spaces where ecological commitment, moral discipline, and communal responsibility are enacted in ordinary life.

When God Does Not Answer: Prayer, Silence, and Response in the Age of AI

Anna Cho — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 05:38:10 -0700

ABSTRACT

This article examines how artificial intelligence reshapes expectations of response within Christian prayer and spirituality. While AI systems generate immediate and linguistically coherent outputs, such responses remain non-intentional and lack ethical and ontological responsibility. Drawing on speech act theory, the study clarifies the distinction between simulated responsiveness and divine address. Prayer is interpreted as a performative practice marked by waiting, vulnerability, and openness to transformation, while divine silence is understood not as absence but as a mode of temporality. Rather than proposing a new spirituality, the article offers a speech act-theological clarification of classical Christian spirituality under altered linguistic conditions.

Kierkegaard and Luther

Allen G. Jorgenson — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 04:44:31 -0800

Dialog, EarlyView.

“We Can't be Quiet. We Can't Sit Back.”: Examining the Indecent Eco‐Theology Praxis of Christian Environmentalists in Trump's America

Margrethe Kamille Birkler, Emily Jean Cornwell, Rebecca Leigh Rutt — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 23:01:11 -0800

ABSTRACT

In this time of crises, we analyze whether and how Christian environmentalism in the United States embodies ‘indecent eco-theology’ (IET): a critical theological approach centering the experiences of especially marginalized groups in (re)defining Christianity alongside action toward eco-justice. Using qualitative research and a case study, we examine how one organization is challenging dominant U.S. political and Christian norms that ignore ecological concern, and instead forwards an eco-justice-, practice-based faith. Specifically, we document the iterations between their practice and theological perceptions, advancing an interdependence with the more-than-human world while destabilizing dominant theological assumptions of the linear path from perception to practice. We also explore how they understand and mobilize ‘justice’, intersectionality, and engage with marginalized groups and the more-than-human world. Throughout, we draw insights to advance IET. Our findings thus reveal the organization's resonance with IET alongside the particularities that emerge from a situated case study that are fruitful for further theoretical development.

Reflections on Demonic Activity, the Reality of Hell, and Universalism

Richard E. Gallagher — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 19:16:14 -0700

ABSTRACT

This article addresses several critical questions of current vexed debates about the existence of evil spirits, the nature of hell, and the possibility of human damnation. First, it explores the evidential sources and plausibility of traditional notions of demonic activity and hell. Second, it presents a theological understanding of related subject matter that confuses and disturbs so many modern individuals while discussing the trend of not a few contemporary Christian theologians’ opting for universalism.