I have been trying to show that our visions of the future impact the way we live in the present. The responses I have been receiving reflect the discussion that has taken place ever since the first century. They range from “needing to wait” because there is no way we can realize the promises now, […]
The Just Society is the second vision on which our hope is built. In it, God promises he will bring the day when all people will treat one another fairly. The promise goes beyond fairness, however. It involves a distributive understanding of justice in which each person has enough. Like all other visions of the […]
Christian hope is based on God’s promises about his future actions. The resulting visions inspire our loving actions in the present. Isaiah’s beautiful picture of the Peaceable Kingdom serves as the model for the first vision. Its promise addresses one of history’s most poignant expressions of humankind’s lamentation at the ever-present threat of war. No […]
The visions of the future associated with Christian hope are quite different than those of technology. Like every proclamation of the Gospel, they call believers to loving action in the present time. The two technological visions that Franz and I suggested, on the other hand, make no demands except patience. “Technological expectation” is a determinism […]
Last week, I critiqued the picture of the Technium that one of the main characters in Dan Brown’s latest novel, Origin, predicts will begin in 2050. The Technium would be the perfect setting for a post-truth age. There is no need for truth or values, meaning or purpose, if science-based technology provides endless opportunities for […]
A friend suggested Dan Brown’s latest novel, Origin, deals with science challenging religion much as our book does. When I took a look, it was obvious Edmund Kirsch, one of the main protagonists, is based on the futurist Ray Kurzweil whom we use as the epitome of technological expectation. Kirsch predicts the beginning of a new […]
Last week I described faith as trusting the God found in the common story proclaimed by the Christian community. I boiled down that Gospel to God’s promise to be active in history, rescuing the creation from self-destruction and especially, humanity from the suffering it inflicts on itself. My Monday evening discussion group accused me of […]
One way to read the Enlightenment Project is to see it placing decision making in the hands of individual persons rather than established authorities. Integral to this is investing power in knowledge tested against reality and experience instead of laws imposed by aristocracy and clergy. The scientific method, technological innovation, and democratic government now associated […]
One of the major challenges confronting the Church is how we should be proclaiming the Gospel in this new electronic age. Last week, I suggested the first big step to resolving this question is gathering believers in person-to-person conversations. To that end, I have gathered 5 symposiums that have met regularly for at least two […]
Scholars usually speak of 3 momentous stages of language: the spoken, written, and electronic word. Each has distinctive characteristics that most of us readily recognize. Each has consequences for religion as well as culture. In the age of the spoken word, persons communicated exclusively person to person. Because most of this was face to face, […]
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