For my dissertation, I tried to tell the story of ancient slavery and show that early Christians were struggling with it. They weren’t clearly aboli- tionists. Galatians 3:28 proclaims that there is neither slave nor free, but Paul also uses the allegory of Hagar and Sarah to admonish Galatians not to be slaves and reprimands slaves as backward, unknowing people. We want to valorize (assign a value to) early Christians, but they are still struggling with injustice in their world. Sometimes they don’t seem to know what the injustice is. That is a piece for us today. I see myself as a faithful Christian, but I am also com- plicit in systems of injustice I don’t even recognize.


I focus on the intersections between slavery, sexuality, gender and race. You can’t talk about one without discussing all of them. Feminism, which I teach unabash- edly, helps make these connections because it helps us recognize, critique and reconfigure structures of power in our stories of early Christians and our biblical interpretations.


Aana Marie Vigen Associate professor of Christian social ethics and director of undergraduate majors/minors, Loyola University, Chicago


As a Christian ethicist, I try to equip my students with vital informa- tion about pressing ethical challenges without leaving them stranded in hopelessness. I focus on social jus- tice and on how people have previ- ously changed seemingly impossible situations.


Confronting climate change and health-care inequalities fuel my vocational passion. In the U.S., at one end of the spectrum there are


24 The Lutheran • www.thelutheran.org


50 million uninsured and 20 million underinsured people. At the other end, we spend more health-care dol- lars on end-of-life care than on the annual budgets of the departments of Education and Homeland Security combined. People say they want to die at home among friends and fam- ily, yet the majority of people over 65 die in nursing homes, skilled care and intensive care units.


In our crazy world, 7 million children under 5 die every year from preventable, treatable diseases in impoverished contexts, while people in resource-rich contexts can get sec- ond and even third opinions, travers- ing elite medical institutions until the end.


Lutheran theological insights about mortality, depending on God’s grace instead of trying to save our- selves, and trusting that God accepts us as fallible mortal creatures who are loved and who will die—all this is a radical word in a hyper-medical age.


Lea Schweitz Assistant professor of systematic theology/ religion and science; director of the Zygon Center for Religion and Science, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago


At the Zygon Center we offer con- ferences, courses, lectures and a film series for students and the public. Our “Epic of Creation” course reviews biblical and theological stories of creation as well as scientific theories. We also delve into the future of cre- ation, looking at what science can tell us about the state of the environment and how we should respond in theol- ogy and public policy.


I believe science gives us a faith- ful window into God’s good cre-


ation. The more we know, the more wondrous it is and the more its mag- nificence shines through. Also, basic scientific literacy is important for church leaders serving congregations and ministering to scientists. The public discourse around sci-


ence is very polarized—you speak your piece and take your toys and go home. At the Zygon Center we create spaces where people listen first and then thoughtfully respond together.


I believe the interdisciplinary discourse of religion and science is a great vehicle for cultivating dialogi- cal practics that are spiritually forma- tive, creative and respectful.


Victor Thasiah Assistant professor of religion, California Lutheran University, Thou- sand Oaks


Every day we traffic in opinions, biases, prejudices and inconsistencies without carefully scrutinizing what we really think or should do about important global challenges. “Prob- lematizing” is a tactic that compli- cates what seems obvious or simple, so we can better grasp the complexity of what is happening or what we are studying.


I problematize a lot when I teach. I use rich case studies to explore global conflicts and how religion is related to them. Sometimes religion is the driver, but more often conflicts are really driven by social, political or economic issues.


Students probe what’s going on, looking for historical injustices, fail- ures in governance, social inequali- ties and forms of what we call sys- temic violence. Then we look at how religion gets worked into the mix, as well as how religion can be a resource for resistance and progress. So much of our contemporary dis- course mistakenly pins the blame for


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