Pastor Foltz is Pastor Emeritus of Saint James Lutheran Church in Gettysburg, PA and author of the the Frontline Study content.
So far, I’ve looked at global technological systems to understand the major developments in human evolution taking place around us. You could also use artificial intelligence. Again, people seem to sense its impact but have difficulty explaining exactly what that is. We are amazed when we read something written by a machine, but we are […]
Several years ago, I attended a peace church conference. Surprisingly, I did not find a lot of emotional piety but rather profound thought, even when asked questions such as “Is there a better way to preserve the community than shunning?” However, I was most impressed with a discussion about the need to make cooperation the […]
Rebuilding culture is not something that is consciously done. You don’t gather people to design a culture. It naturally develops over many years as guidance for a group’s life. In an oral society, culture is the lifestyle and customs resulting from living together geographically. These are enforced and sustained by leaders, group pressure, and foundational […]
I’ve been implying that we must build new or rebuild old cultural values lost by relying on technological systems. This assumes a very loose definition of culture as shared meanings and purposes that bind us together and guide our social relationships. The loss occurs when technological systems provide what we need or think we need […]
I’ve been arguing that modern technology brings us many marvelous comforts and capabilities but also erodes traditional culture’s benefits. When people use technology to solve all their problems, culture becomes irrelevant. Let me go over some of the things lost. Culture provides guidance in social relationships. Technology focuses on overcoming our natural human limitations. It […]
Traditional culture provided all sorts of guidelines for relating to our neighbors. Some of you have questioned if there was ever such a thing. You argue I should recognize the US has never had a common story. In the past, our democratic government has simply been able to prevent our present cultural wars. Perhaps then […]
I think I got ahead of myself. Responses to the first lesson indicate I should define what I mean by culture and technology. In the past, a community was associated with a culture. That culture was not something consciously built but an understanding that developed naturally from living together. That is not to say everyone […]
A member of our Science, Technology, and Society group from South Korea mused that he belonged to three different cultures during his lifetime. The first was the traditional Korean in which he grew up, the second was American after the war in 1953, and the third was the technological in recent decades. He argued technology […]
Many work for peace, justice, and love. Karen asked if Christian faith offered optimism that is worth the time and effort. I think she was expressing the frustration a lot of us are experiencing. We felt we were overcoming our past shortcomings. We had elected a Black American president. We had a viable woman candidate […]
The third major biblical vision of the future is the promise of love. Let’s use Martin Luther King’s teachings to examine it. He specifically relates hope to the modern situation in the USA. In his “I Have a Dream” speech, the vision is the Beloved Community. He begins by describing it as “I have a […]
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