Pastor Foltz is Pastor Emeritus of Saint James Lutheran Church in Gettysburg, PA and author of the the Frontline Study content.
Shortly after I was ordained I was surprised when a fishing buddy compared himself to another friend with the words, “He is not a real Christian. He believes in abortion.” I was speechless. I had never previously heard my friend express one thought about religion. But even more, although I had written papers on the […]
My son likes to add an addendum titled, “So What?” to academic work. I felt compelled to do that after so many respondents reported they agree completely that money controls our society but are not sure that we can do to correct this. That is especially difficult when the Church’s voice in our democracy seems […]
I decided to begin this series with industrial capitalism, because I thought it would be the least emotional of the issues Christians should be addressing in the present democratic society. Right off the bat, Lupe challenged me by reporting she was growing more and more angry about the “substitution of money for God…the elevation of […]
I have been assuming that the Christian voice in our secular democratic society must deal with reality, and in our time and place that is the capitalistic economic system. That does not mean that capitalism is a Christian program. Even a quick scan of the New Testament finds Jesus warning that you cannot serve God […]
One of the goals of the Christian voice is to uncover the truth that society ignores. For instance, it should acknowledge the role modern technology and international corporations play in monetary wealth becoming the only standard of our culture. The public conversation overlooks how both have very quietly and perhaps even unconsciously so disarmed traditional […]
Let’s examine the Church’s voice in our democratic society that many think presently champions an inverse of Christian values. Last week I suggested that entails asking what the Church has to say when economics is allowed to trump every other authority so that monetary wealth becomes the only standard of human success. We could begin […]
About fifty years ago, Harvey Cox wrote an article entitled something like “The Free Market as God.” I remember participating in one rather intellectual discussion of it. That was about it. Things have changed. Nowadays all sorts of people are lamenting that wealth has become god. And they are not advocating an abstract hypothesis but […]
My intention is to examine some of the peculiar issues Christianity faces in our present democratic society. I planned to start with the complicated role industrial capitalism plays and was re-reading an email from Lupe Andrade in preparation. Before starting to write, I picked up Kerry Walters’ daily commentary written for the Holy Spirit Parish […]
The royal wedding that united Prince Harry and Meghan Markle offers a good source for examining the content of the Christian message in a democracy. Many, including myself, thought it offered hope to our society that seems terrified of the future. Others accused it of promoting only an emotional utopianism that ignores Jesus’ teachings. The […]
The problem becomes even more complex when you ask who speaks for the Church in the cacophonous public conversation taking place in modern democracies. I was quite naive when I suggested the Church is one voice among many in these days. There are all sorts of voices claiming to speak for Christ out there, and […]
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