Not an ELCA Lutheran (horrors!). Not Rudolf Otto. Not me.

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The following passages are from the article, “The Original Risk: Overtheologizing Ethics and Undertheologizing Sin.” from Christian Bioethics 13 (2007): 7–23.

The article is by an infidel, Denis Müller, a Presbyterian (that's the horror, of course).
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Denis Müller is a member of the Faculty of Protestant Theology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland. I understand that his comments are not germaine to an ELCA Lutheran discussion.

"In other words, we must not only be conscious that diversity will always persist, but we must also recognize that theological ethics makes that secular complexity more and more complex: Christian faith does not give us simple answers and solutions but makes ethical decision more difficult and more challenging. We should not be afraid of that. On the contrary, this challenge is exciting and liberating, because its helps us to renounce all will to power and all spiritual arrogance. It is exciting, because it obliges us to enter into real and difficult discussions with proponents of all kinds of secular and religious ethics. But it is also liberating, because it frees us of all the temptations that induce us to think, as Christians and as theologians, that our theological position protects us from any critical discussion conducted with rational arguments." (page 10)

"The position of the traditional Christian believer only works in and for a traditional world, which simply no longer exists." (emphasis in original)
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Lets us be more clear. Of course this “traditional world” still exists in the head, in the heart and in the spiritual world of their [Englehart, Hauerwas, and company] fans. But for theology it is never enough to remain just a member of one’s fans’ club. I am a fan of soccer, and not only a fan of my own club. To be only a fan of one’s own club exposes one to the risk of becoming chauvinist, fanatic, nationalistic, fideistic and so on. I do not want to say that we do not have the right to support our own team. But what is here at stake is not to love one’s own single club, but to love soccer. In theological terms, that means that it is not my confession, or my theology, or my own school of thought that is the essential object of the discussion. What really matters is the meaning of faith for humanity as a whole and for the whole world. What really matters is the universal truth, not the particularity of Christianity, church, Christian faith, or theology. What is at stake is the universal validity of the truth we confess in Jesus Christ. Such validity cannot be established by a mere witness; it must be validated in the forum of public discussion, life and society. (page 11)

"There is no unified, coherent, definitive and unanimous vision of Christian bioethics today; as Christians, we have to live, honestly, openly, faithfully, hopefully, the tough reality of the conflict of interpretations.
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I am for the right to abort, for a just solution offered to homosexual couples in society, against the legal permission of euthanasia, etc. That does not separate me from the common faith of my Presbyterian church and from the universal Church of Jesus Christ. I am in communion with Christians all over the world, even if we do not agree on abortion, homosexuality or euthanasia, because faith—real faith—is much more than just ethical correctness. And because ethics requires a free discussion, not any sheer deduction from the Bible, from dogmas or liturgy. Ethics is always risky, and must survive under the conditions of 'irresolvable tensions'.”
(page 14)