Pastor Foltz is Pastor Emeritus of Saint James Lutheran Church in Gettysburg, PA and author of the the Frontline Study content.
Sandel’s second test of the approaches he has examined so far concerns paying someone else to carry your baby. He begins with the Mary Beth Whitehead case in which a couple makes a contract for someone else to bear their child. When the mother reneges on the contract, the courts have a tough time deciding […]
The big question in modern ethics is agreeing on what is just in a pluralistic, often democratic world. How do we determine the right thing to do, if we all do not accept the authority of a king, a god, or some common values? The modern answer is often to turn in default to the […]
Traditionally those doing ethics began with principles and then dealt with exceptions. They might declare “no abortion” and then cite exceptions, such as rape, age, and danger to the health of the woman. We have problems today, such as governmental gridlock, when we believe acting on principle prohibits any exceptions. Utilitarians and libertarians generally avoid […]
Sandel first takes a look at utilitarianism, the way our modern society usually does ethics. (See Chapter 2 of his book.) In the past we determined right and wrong by using laws or principles to evaluate an action. You did not kill, because there was a law that prohibited it. Today, utilitarians decide by measuirng […]
When I began my face-to-face classes by asking how many ethical decisions they had made that day, I received a variety of answers. Some felt these were confined to big questions that demanded carefully considering the proprieties and priorities of the options before taking action. Others believed just about all their acts involved some form […]
Why is Michael Sandel’s introduction to ethics the most popular class at Harvard? What led “China Newsweek” to name Sandel the most influential foreign figure of the year 2011? How come my classes report using Sandel’s book has provoked some of our most exciting discussions? I suspect the answer has something to do with the […]
One of the wonderful functions the traditional Church plays is to mark life’s passages. In a society in which many people have nobody to share their celebrations and griefs, the Christian community blesses birth with baptism, the transition into adulthood with confirmation, the start of a new family with marriage, and death with the funeral. […]
Each Sunday many of us profess we believe in the resurrection of the body. We assert Jesus was resurrected in body as well as spirit. He ate with his friends, allowed them to touch him, and showed them the marks of his crucifixion. The resurrected Christ was the same person who loved them during their […]
Another practical concern related to the resurrection of the body is what modern technology has done to our concept of natural death. Most of our customs about the end of life were based on accepting God’s will for our natural deaths. Suicide was a major sin, sometimes defined as the unforgivable sin, because it rejected […]
One of the most frequent questions asked throughout my ministry was whether cremation was acceptable. So when one of our participants suggested we look at it and other end- of- life issues, I welcomed the chance. The issue centers on our belief in the Resurrection of the Body and illustrates how theological and practical issues […]
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