Device & Virtue: Recent Episodes
Chris Ridgeway & Adam Graber
Chris & Adam argue about life in a techified world—from Prayer Apps to the Metaverse—and if Christians have a third-way.
NEW THIS SEASON! Leave us a 90-second voice message about this episode. We may feature it in a future segment! Pulpit AI could save your church hours of social media work every week. Could it kill the sermon in the process? We interview pastor and entrepreneur Michael Whittle. He wants to make the sermon more valuable than ever, and he created Pulpit AI to do it. We talk to him about his new AI platform does and the future he’s dreaming for it. Plus, Chris and Adam discuss how Pulpit AI might affect pastors, preaching, and the work of discipleship. In this episode
Is the sermon just “content”?
Why Pulpit AI won’t write your sermons
What does Pulpit AI look like in 2033?
Risks for pastors and churches
Megachurches have used social media to build massive platforms and stir up plenty of controversy. If Pulpit AI gives that platform to every pastor, how will it affect the church? Links Michael Whittle is the Founder and CEO of PulpitAI and Vast Media. He’s obsessed with the intersection of faith, business & entrepreneurship, a topic he explores in his podcast, "Kings & Priests." Over the past decade, he has built companies spanning media, advertising, and consumer products in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York, and Singapore. Michael also serves on the pastoral team at C3 Los Angeles and resides in South Pasadena, CA with his wife Jillean and their two children, Rook and Willa. Learn more about Pulpit AI on their website. Talk Back NEW! Leave us a 90-second voice message about this episode. We may feature it in a future segment!
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Ownership is not an option. Forget magazines—does it seem like today we subscribe to just about everything? You’re not wrong—from reading books to driving cars—80% of new businesses offer a subscription. Has software changed ownership forever? Chris & Adam explore how technology has changed how we pay—and all the implications. No longer do we buy Microsoft Office in shiny boxes from Best Buy! That model that used to be magazines and the CD of the month club has moved to practically every digital product in our daily world. Chris’s business degree 101 taught him that all purchases fell into two two obvious categories—product or service. But now? Who knows! Add complaints about inkjet printers, Tesla, and thought on the spiritual implications of ownership, and we’ve got a roving convo that mixes tech, economics & daily life.
Links
How Tesla changed owner’s car battery capacity by unlocking software
My Printer is Extorting Me by Charlie Warzel (The Atlantic)
Listener Voicemail This episode features a talkback voice message from listener Toby B. Thanks Toby! Leave Your Own Voice Message
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NEW THIS SEASON! Leave us a 90-second voice message about this episode. We may feature it in a future segment! When’s the last time you got a handwritten letter, or stared out the window, or went on vacation without checking email? Did the Internet kill the good ol’ days, or is this just nostalgia talking? Chris and Adam dive into the book 100 Things We Lost to the Internet and explore the difference between true wisdom and mere wistfulness. Tech has become the de facto symbol of progress, but is everything new a true advancement? How could we know the difference. In this episode Among the 100 Things We Lost are…
Boredom
Getting Lost
Relying on the Doctor
Uninhibitedness
The Spanish-English Dictionary
Solitude
Your Attention Span
Spelling
The New Kid
Memory
Scrabble Tiles
Social Cues
Closure
Links
Learn more about the author Pamela Paul and her book 100 Things We Lost to the Internet
Talk Back NEW THIS SEASON! Leave us a 90-second voice message about this episode. We may feature it in a future segment! Follow Device & Virtue on Instagram and Twitter. Follow Chris and Adam on Twitter. Support Device & Virtue. Learn how. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
THREADS is the all new social network launched by the founders of Facebook, and it launched big and fast—over 100 millions accounts in the first week. Chris reflects on how social networks work like societal mirrors, and reflect some of the same issues that vexxed the early Christian church. Short Circuit episodes skip the argument—Adam or Chris grab the mic on their own for a more personal reflection on technology & faith. These shorter entries are a bonus to our full-length Device & Virtue episodes. Enjoy! Feedback? Send us a voicemail from your phone: https://www.deviceandvirtue.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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This month, Apple announced the new Vision Pro headset. 10 years from now, will we look back and say it changed our life? Can we ever know whether something is a Flop or the Future? Think about it. When they first came out, did folks know that the electric refrigerator or the microwave oven would change modern life as we know it? How about when Apple launched the iPhone? Sure—today we think about that as a turning point in history. But then? Discerning and predicting new tech is hard. You’ll find naysayers and you’ll find worshippers from the first minutes it appears. Who’s right? And how would we know? APPLE VISION PRO LAUNCH (JUNE 5, 2023) “In the same way that Mac introduced us to personal computing, and iPhone introduced us to mobile computing, Apple Vision Pro will introduce us to spatial computing.” …“The first Apple product you look through, and not at.” — Tim Cook
Watch the 2 hour event (Apple Vision Pro begins at 1hr 20min) APPLE IPHONE LAUNCH (JANUARY 9, 2007) “Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything” — Steve Jobs
MORE LINKS
Professor Scott Galloway was unimpressed with the Vision Pro launch
We may feature it in a future segment!
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NEW THIS SEASON! Leave us a 90-second voice message about this episode. We may feature it in a future segment! “Minority Report” was just a movie, right? Well, not anymore. Beat cops from Los Angeles to London are using Artificial Intelligence to forecast tomorrow’s murders. Is every crime predestined? Artificial Intelligence is everywhere, including the police station. From forecasting burglary to heading off homicides, predictive policing is more than 10 years old, and your city is probably already using it. What is predictive policing, and what should Christians think about it? Chris and Adam unpack the ethics of prediction and beliefs about predestination. They look some of the risks that come with crime statistics, and the solutions that don’t merely reduce crime but actually increase justice. Plus, if you’ve ever used Google Analytics, stick around for the Bible story of David’s census In this episode
What is predictive policing?
Is crime predictable? Is it predestined?
What personal data is being tracked?
How can crime statistics be biased?
What should Christians think?
Links
Predictive Policing Explained (Brennan Center for Justice)
2021: Predictive Policing and Crime Control in The United States of America and Europe: Trends in a Decade of Research and the Future of Predictive Policing (Social Sciences Journal)
2022: Algorithm predicts crime a week in advance, but reveals bias in police response (University of Chicago)
2022: The never-ending quest to predict crime using AI (Washington Post)
2020: Predictive policing algorithms are racist. They need to be dismantled. (MIT Tech Review)
2017: How strategic is Chicago’s “Strategic Subjects List”? (Equal Future)
2020 Update: Chicago police end effort to predict gun offenders, victims. (Associated Press)
Talk Back NEW THIS SEASON! Leave us a 90-second voice message about this episode. We may feature it in a future segment! Follow Device & Virtue on Instagram and Twitter. Follow Chris and Adam on Twitter. Support Device & Virtue. Learn how. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Can you strap on VR goggles and go to church in the metaverse? We asked the author Jay Kim of Analog Church and the pastor DJ Soto of Virtual Reality Church to argue all the wrongs and rights. Finally, an episode where Adam & Chris aren’t the ones doing all the fighting! To be fair both these guys are pastors so the debate is probably more of mild-mannered discussion, but it covers some important ground about what it means to be the church, and what the future of the church might look like. VR CHURCH—PASTOR DJ SOTO DJ Soto, Bishop & Pastor or VR Church D.J. Soto began preaching in the metaverse in 2016. Originally thinking he would plant physical churches, he soon realized a new vision to plant churches in the metaverse. He is now the Bishop of Virtual Reality Church and MMO Church, which are futuristic church expressions that is intended to be radically inclusive and consistent with Christianity’s long history of adapting to new forms of media.
About DJ Soto at VR Church
Wired Magazine interview with DJ Soto (Feb 2018)
Check Out what VR Church building looks like “inside”—YouTube
ANALOG CHURCH—PASTOR JAY KIM Jay Kim author of Analog Church Jay Y. Kim serves as lead pastor at WestGate Church in the Silicon Valley—really!—of CA and as teacher-in-residence at Vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz, CA. He's the author of Analog Church (IVP, 2020) and Analog Christian (IVP, 2022). Some of his written work has been featured in Christianity Today, The Gospel Coalition, Missio Alliance, Relevant, and other publications.
Visit Jay Kim’s website
Outreach Magazine interview with Jay Kim (January 2020)
Jay Kim is the author of Analog Church: Why We Need Real People, Places, and Things in the Digital Age (InterVarsity Press)
THE QUESTIONS DJ’S QUESTION(S) FOR JAY
How do you define church? What would "count" as a church experience.?
Can a metaverse church fulfill all the functions of a physical church?
JAY’S QUESTION(S) FOR DJ
What are the most significant limitations of virtual church, as you see it?
Do you think there are any potential drawbacks or even dangers to the customization and control afforded in VR (e.g. avatars curated to project an aspirational self rather than a more genuine self)?
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Vincent van Gogh spent decades perfecting his impressionist style. You can master it in one minute with the new AI art generator called DALL-E. Do we even need artists any more? DALL-E 2 is an artificial intelligence image generator released to the public on Sept 28, 2022. Considered by experts to be a noticeable jump in technology, the website or app allows users to type in any imaginary prompt “a monkey eating grapes in Mexico in the style of Picasso” and in a few seconds generates a new unique image that tries to match the prompt.
Try DALL-E for yourself! THE QUESTIONS Adam & Chris imagine the implications and effects of AI generated art including questions like:
How does this work?
Could AI generated art replace the human artist?
Who are the people behind DALL-E art and what are their goals?
What does the future look like with AI generated art?
Is their a Christian viewpoint on AI generated art?
What happens in a world where everything can be unique?
LINKS & RESOURCES
OpenAI is the non-profit that created DALL-E 2. Their 2015 announcement outlined their goals.
OpenAI has a content policy for safety and blocks certain keywords from working that could create pornography or fakes of politicians. It also has worked to promote accurate diversity in results.
However other groups have announced plans to release similar AI tools without any filters
Chris mentions concepts from Roland Barthes’ “The Death of the Author”
THE IMAGES For being a podcast for your ears, this was a pretty eye-opening episode! (groan) Check out all the visual images that Adam & Chris talk about here, including unique images that they created with DALL-E Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Gas prices went crazy this year. Are electric cars actually better? This is the one where Adam tries to decide whether to buy an electric car. In the age of Tesla, is it the right choice? Where did the choice even come from? Adam and Chris take a look at the key issues that could help us decide.
Are electric vehicles the eco-friendly choice?
How would life change if everyone went electric?
What's the cost/benefit compared to gas vehicles?
Could electric cars kill the great American road trip?
How long does it take to charge an electric vehicle, and what does it cost?
What choices do individuals have in global systems?
Electric cars continue to pass milestones, reaching tipping points for mass adoption in countries around the world. Legislation is driving consumers into electric vehicles. Global car makers are committing to all electric fleets within the next decade. Will gas-guzzlers go the way of the horse? Links Compare For Yourself. Check out Adam's cost comparison spreadsheet for Gas vs Electric. Fill in your own local data and compare costs for yourself. Here's another visual comparison as well. Recharging. One woman's road trip from New Orleans to Chicago, and back, and the harrowing risks of finding charging stations. Watch. Who Killed the Electric Car? - 2006 documentary by Chris Payne Leaded Gas didn’t completely disappear until 2021! Images Woman Cooking on Car Engine Horse Head? The weird car design that includes a horse head, so as not to spook other horses. Talk Back Reach out to Device & Virtue on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Talk back to Chris and Adam on Twitter. Support Device & Virtue. Learn how. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Is a computer actually like the human brain? And is God’s wisdom as mysterious as an AI’s black box? We host Wired columnist Meghan O’Gieblyn with fascinating conversation through sentience, suffering, God’s sovereignty—and of course, AI robotic dogs. Meghan O'Gieblyn is the author of God Human Animal Machine: Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning. Her previous essay collection Interior States, won the Believer Book Award for nonfiction. She writes essays and criticism for Harper's Magazine, The New Yorker, The Guardian, The New York Times, and Bookforum. Her writing has received three Pushcart Prizes, was nominated for a National Magazine Award, and has appeared in The Best American Essays and The Contemporary American Essay anthologies. And she writes a monthly advice column for our perennial favorite WIRED magazine. Big Questions
How is it possible that humans can become attached to these artificial intelligence pets?
What is the “hard problem of consciousness” in philosophy?
How has the language of computers affected how we think about our own mind?
Will artificial intelligence affect the way we think about God? Suffering?
A note on faith Meghan openly talks on this episode that she no longer considers herself a Christian—despite growing up as an evangelical and a degree in Christian theology. She incorporates her personal story of belief and doubt into her recent book. While of course at Device & Virtue we produce our podcast from our own Christian worldview & faith, we felt like we had much to consider from her thoughts and were thankful she agreed to come on the show knowing we were a podcast of faith. Books & Links
Chris mentions author Ted Chiang’s science fiction story “The Lifecycle of Software Objects” about artificially intelligent pets
Adam and Megan discuss LaMDA—an AI chatbot by Google trained on conversation. In June 2022, news was made when a Google employee named Blake Lemoine claimed that the chatbot was sentient, a claim rejected by experts.
Meghan O'Gieblyn’s earlier book that Adam mentions at the beginning was entitled Interior States
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You know that Thing where they ask celebrities to answer popular questions from Google autocomplete? Yeah... that’s what we’re doing today. Every day, people google their questions about technology. In this episode, Chris & Adam set the record straight and answer some of the most popular searches. They each choose 3 questions the other has to answer. No takebacks.
Why does technology hate me?
Is technology making us dumber?
Where did technology come from?
Where has technology gone wrong?
What if technology disappeared?
How did technology improve city life?
How would you answer these questions? Adam and Chris take their best shots. See if you agree with their answers. Plus, you'll never guess what this episode's "Vice or Virtue" is. LINKS Google Autocomplete was originally named "Google Suggest" when it appeared on Google's homepage in 2008 after 4 years in beta testing. We cited a couple silly autocomplete surveys including...
“Why is [US STATE] so…”
Google Autocomplete Reveals What People Think Of Different US States
TALK BACK Reach out to Device & Virtue on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Talk back to Chris and Adam on Twitter. Support Device & Virtue. Learn how. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
When Wired magazine started, they did the weirdest thing a tech magazine could do—they picked a patron saint. Was Marshall McLuhan a digital prophet? Chris interviews Nick Ripatrazone, author of Digital Communion: Marshall McLuhan's Spiritual Vision for a Virtual Age (2022). Nick is the Culture Editor for Image and a Contributing Editor for the Catholic Herald. Find out why McLuhan, in his mid-20s, left his nominal Baptist upbringing for a robust Catholic faith. Plus, are smartphones the new stained glass window? In the book, Ripatrazone writes, "For McLuhan, mass media was a form of Mass. When we communicate electronically, not only do we send information; we send ourselves." He unpacks this idea more fully in this episode. Afterward, Adam and Chris discuss how digital media provides a kind of "secular" communion, and whether McLuhan's uniquely Christian metaphor ultimately breaks down. Finally, find out whether Nick thinks the digital age requires us to reimagine the sacraments in a virtual world. LINKS Nick’s book is Digital Communion: Marshall McLuhan’s Spiritual Vision for a Virtual Age. Marshall McLuhan’s books include Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, The Medium is the Massage, and The Gutenberg Galaxy. Chris mentions the posthumously published, The Medium and the Light, as well as Douglas Coupland’s biography, Marshall McLuhan: You Know Nothing of My Work! TALK BACK Follow Device & Virtue on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Follow Chris and Adam on Twitter. Support Device & Virtue. Learn how. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Do you use Slack at work? Is your email inbox overflowing? Has any of this tech made our work better? Workplace tech has grown a lot… from memorandums to fax machines to email to Slack! So are we all more efficient? Or more overwhelmed? Workers check their email every 6 minutes. Slack users check it every 5! How do we get anything done? Do we just send messages to show our boss that we’re working? Performative productivity is real! Chris and Adam arguing about work life for the first time. Tech is collapsing our work and personal lives together. Maybe that’s a good thing? Plus, find out what happened a week after IBM introduced email into the company. Other questions in this episode…
Are email and Slack making us more productive?
Have these communication tools made us more distracted?
What the heck is the “hyperactive hivemind”?
How are digital communications affecting our work relationships and emotions?
Plus…
What does Good Work for Christians working digitally today?
What antidotes are there to the hyperactive hivemind of today’s corporate culture?
LINKS Cal Newport’s book is called A World Without Email Atlantic’s article is “How Slack Upended the Workplace”. Seneca’s book is called Moral Letters Brian Brock’s book is called Christian Ethics in a Technological Age Arcade Fire's song "Wasted Hours." TALK BACK Follow Device & Virtue on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Follow Chris and Adam on Twitter. Support Device & Virtue. Learn how. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The war in Ukraine has tanks in the streets, but don’t miss the invisible weapons—hackers from both sides are launching online attacks. Chris & Adam ask a really subtly perplexing question: is digital war violence? BIG TOPICS INCLUDE This episode floats into all sorts of things:
The 31 year old digital marketer that has become the tech mastermind behind Ukraine’s digital offense and defense
Some of the history of the world being very slow to recognize online attacks as “real attacks”
What is hacking really anyway? Like, what do they actually DO?
What does scripture and church theology say about the rights and wrongs of war? Just war theory? Christian Pacifism?
How do we apply these Christian ethics from other eras to today’s digital warfare?
MYKHAILO FEDOROV (MEH KY LO FED-ER-OF) Did we pronounce his name right? Questionable. We tried hard. Letter to Apple's Tim Cook
LINKS TO LEARN MORE Wired Magazine: Ukraine’s Volunteer ‘IT Army’ Is Hacking in Uncharted Territory Jacques Elull Violence: Reflections from a Christian Perspective (1969) Foreign Affairs: Digital Disorder issue
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Author Tony Reinke thinks Christians have made a wrong turn with technology, and he is out to steer us right. We’re coming along for the ride. We interview Tony Reinke, author of the new book God, Technology, and the Christian Life, exploring how humanity’s innovation relates to God’s purposes. You don’t want to miss this conversation! IN THIS EPISODE…
Why Tony thinks non-Christians will be innovators more often than Christians.
What Tony imagines the future fate of technology will look like.
How tech gratitude and tech stewardship pave a way forward for Christians.
How creational patterns guide scientific discovery and technology development.
Plus, hear about the “Copernican Revolution” Tony experienced while writing this book. Tony Reinke serves as a senior teacher at Desiring God, and hosts the popular podcast Ask Pastor John. GET A COPY OF TONY’S BOOK. Join us on Patreon by May 30, 2022, and we’ll send you a copy. Plus, hear an extended cut of our interview with Tony! (Regretfully, we can only mail books to residents in the continental US.) TALK BACK Follow Device & Virtue on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Follow Chris and Adam on Twitter. Support Device & Virtue. Learn how. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
CELEBRATING 50 EPISODES 50 technologies. 50 arguments. 50 episodes. After 6 seasons, we’re celebrating with clips from our greatest hits. Get ready for flashbacks. We dug into the archives, and dusted off a handful of clips that have stuck with us, going all the way back to Season 1! We add some updated thinking and reflect on why these episodes were chart-toppers for us. Plus, sample some episodes that might be new to you. As fast as tech changes, these episodes are still worth your ears. With insights that are still relevant today. CLIPS FROM THIS EPISODE Looking for an episodes we talked about? The details are here!
S1E4 - Digital Romance: Getting Serious with Aziz Ansari
S2E3 - Evangelism Chatbots
S3E6 - Counting Down the New Year? That’s Techy.
S3E7 - Tech-Savvy Family: Smart Screen Time and Parenting Digital Natives
S4E8 - Force for Good?
S5E6 - mRNA Vaccines: 2020’s Technology of the Year
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New! We are launching www.patreon.com/deviceandvirtue and have a goal to have 50 listeners become brand-new members of our DV crew! We need you! (And join by May 2 for a special bonus!) Special message from Adam + Chris: "Hey there! We love our listeners! You're smart. You notice the tech around you. And you know that our mission has always been to "argue" about the wrongs and rights of technology and faith in everyday life. We’ve heard from so many of you who know that this conversation is incredibly essential for our culture. Especially now. And there aren't a lot of places doing it like this. I'm sure you know it—but we work many hours each week for you and our listening community—trying to pull together a conversation on a current tech + culture topic that keeps you informed, thoughtful, and prayerful. We wish we could make this into our fulltime job, but it isn't! Mostly we use our nights and weekends to pull off these our podcast, and we hope you are loving it. We’ve met Christian leaders, pastors, Christians in tech, and people of faith everywhere who have told us that our discussions have helped think better about how to live. Discernment is the key—and it can’t be done without effort. Or without you! Your Patreon financial support for the Device & Virtue mission will be a huge encouragement! Yes, we're about to do our 50th episode—And so we're looking for 50 ground-floor members who will launch into episode 51 and well beyond! BONUS: Join by May 2nd and get an exclusive bonus: Chris + Adam’s curated lists of best reads on the topic of tech + faith. We narrow down the many sources to the essential ones worth your time and our private notes on each title. And Patreon supporters get other ongoing perks—check out www.patreon.com/deviceandvirtue to see all the options. Also: stay tuned for our “50th Episode!” retrospective episode, coming soon. TALK BACK Follow Device & Virtue on Instagram and Twitter. Follow Chris and Adam on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Does he use Alexa in his own house? We've got a interview with the founder of Alexa, Jeff Adams. MORE QUESTIONS INCLUDE
What’s the story of how Alexa came about?
How does your faith affect your work in technology?
What are the next big things coming with voice technology?
PLUS, CHRIS & ADAM DISCUSS:
Are we good at predicting the next big technology? (seems like… no)
How the first automobile relates to the Alexa project
Should Alexa be emotionally intelligent?
ABOUT JEFF ADAMS Jeff Adams has been a speech technologist for 25 years, spending time at Nuance, Yap, and Amazon. At Amazon, Jeff founded the Alexa Speech Group and led the team of speech and language scientists that built the automatic speech recognition and natural language understanding engines that Alexa runs on. Today he is the CEO and Founder of Colbalt Speech. Links & Resources
Check out Jeff Adam’s podcast: The Voice Box
More about the Alexander Winton and the founding of the automobile (Saturday Evening Post, 1911).
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SHOULD WE PUT OUR MONEY WHERE OUR PRAYER IS? How do you pray? In the morning? With friends from church? How about with your smartphone? Millions of people already are, and paying a subscription to do so. And Big Tech thinks you will too. Are Prayer Apps good for the soul? Adam and Chris dive into the spiritual, and financial, realities of Prayer Apps and this new pay-to-pray world. We do everything else on our phones. Why not praying too? But how might these apps change the ways people connect with God? And should we have to pay for it? Prayer Apps made headlines in 2021, winning the attention of Silicon Valley investors to the tune of more than $175 million dollars. If Silicon Valley believes people's prayer lives could become big business, maybe Christians should be asking a couple questions too. LINKS
Forbes reported that venture capital funding for religious, primarily Christian, “apps have increased from $6.1 million in 2016 to $48.5 million in 2020 and $175.3 million in 2021.”
TechCrunch talked to Hallow’s founder, Alex Jones, about their $40 million investment from Peter Thiel and Drive Capital.
Religion News Service reported on Glorify’s 40 million from the venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz, and a host of celebrity supporters. More here from TechCrunch.
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LIVING WITH AN IMMANENT SENSE OF THE DIGITAL Felicia Wu Song is a Christian sociologist who says digital natives aren't as native as we think. Is there any hope for the rest of us? She says, yes. Chris interviews Dr Felicia Wu Song about her new book Restless Devices. She explains her belief that our digital routines and habits are themselves forms of discipleship. She says they not only form our habits, but also shape our identity, community, and relationships. And as a sociologist, Dr Song also draws attention to Big Tech's platforms and design decisions, the structures and systems they create, and the defaults those designs introduce to digitally mediated relationships. Afterwards, Adam and Chris explore more what those routine and habits look like for them, and the struggles that come with the "immanent sense of the digital," as Dr Song puts it in her book. They imagine together what new habits and designs could help them better relate digitally to the most important people in their lives.
LINKS & RESOURCES
Dr Felicia Wu Song is Professor of Sociology at Westmont College in California, and author of the book Restless Devices: Recovering Personhood, Presence and Place in the Digital Age, published by Intervarsity Press.
Dr Song mentions James K A Smith's work on counter-liturgies, which factor heavily into his books Desiring the Kingdom and You Are What You Love.
Chris mentions Marshall McLuhan's book The Medium is the Massage, an avant-garde 60s/70s book that uses graphic design to explore the ideas of his seminal work, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man.
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WHOSE EXPERTS? WHICH INFORMATION? Doctors and scientists have fallen on hard times. Experts are facing a crisis of trust, and we think technology is a major factor. We explore why on this episode of Device & Virtue. Chris proposes how elders, priests, and magicians gave way to the modern expert, how digital media has led to the expert’s decline, and who is rising up in their wake. Meanwhile, Adam says that information overload is something the Bible addresses in surprising ways. Navigating the new information economy starts with some age-old wisdom. LINKS & RESOURCES
Adam recounts a theory about places like Stonehenge and Easter Island being “memory spaces.” Learn more in Lynne Kelly’s book, The Memory Code.
Adam and Chris talked about Google’s nGram search engine for finding the rise of the term expert
But they didn’t know what n-gram meant! Here’s the answer
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Sometimes a new technology comes along that you’ve barely heard of but could change everything. Like how we OWN things. Adam & Chris are putting the fun in Non-Fungible Tokens—the relatively new digital tech also known as “NFTs” OWN THE NFT FOR THIS DEVICE & VIRTUE EPISODE Are we kidding? No! You can buy the NFT for this very episode! CHECK IT OUT HERE CHRIS & ADAM ARGUE ABOUT NFTS They use the same underlying technology as Bitcoin, but NFTs aren’t money—they are being used more like a digital deed—an ownership certificate that allows people to buy digital goods. Some of the questions Adam & Chris argue about this episode:
There are already people paying millions of $ for some digital cat images online. It seems crazy. Are NFT’s a fad?
Digital things can be copied with just a right-click! Why does anyone care about owning an “original?” What is an original anyway?
If NFTs stick around, what are the effects on the world?
What is a Christian ethic of ownership?
LINKS & RESOURCES
OpenSea —Chris called this the current “Amazon of NFTs”
American rock band the Kings of Leon sold an album as an NFT
Artist Beeple sold digital art collection for a record $70 million
“No, NFTs Aren’t Copyrights” by Harrison Jordan via TechCrunch
“The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”—1935 essay by Walter Benjamin that Adam brings up talking about how technology has affected our view of “originals”
Manifold—NFT digital agency doing complex “digital contracts” with NFTs
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Well. Facebook has announced that their new name is Meta. As in “metaverse.” As in a science fiction nerd-term becoming reality. As in—is this our future?? Chris & Adam laugh and raise eyebrows as they watch Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement of what he thinks future life will be like for relationships, work, and play. What does a virtual reality life offer that life today does? Is this bad? Good? And what does a Christian think about an alternate reality? A virtual reality that is becoming less “virtual” every day? WATCH THE FACEBOOK/META KEYNOTE VIDEO
LINKS
“Founder’s Letter 2021 “ from Mark Zuckerberg
LM Sacasas: Notes from the Metaverse (The Convival Society Vol 2, No 16)
Matthew Ball: The Metaverse: What It Is, Where to Find It, and Who Will Build It
Snow Crash, the scifi book where the metaverse term originally came from
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Meet a new smartphone that can’t install apps, doesn’t have Facebook, and that’s why people want it. Does it make life better? Adam interviews Chris Kaspar, founder of Techless and maker of the Wisephone, aiming to change how people relate to their most personal device. They talk about digital addiction, parenting, smartphone self-control, and more. Then, in the post-interview discussion, Chris and Adam discuss whether they would get a Wisephone. They even get around to suggesting some ways the Techless might make the Wisephone better.
Links
Learn more about Techless, the Wisephone, and Chris Kaspar on Techless’s website.
See our Season 3 episode on screen time: “Tech Savvy Family: Smart Screen Time And Parenting Digital Natives.” Chris and Adam each interview their sisters to find out how they manage devices for their kids.
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Is my smartphone listening to me? Too many creepy stories are out there about suspiciously perfect ads appearing after just a conversation with a friend! So Adam starts getting a little paranoid and tries an experiment with some friends. Then he brings It to Chris to prove that our phone’s microphones have to be spying on us. Welcome to the world of digital marketing which is still right in front of us but many people don’t entirely understand.
MARKETING TECH FROM EASY TO CREEPY MAGIC
LINKS & RESOURCES What the big companies say Google’s policies for app developers Lots of articles linked back to this one article… which Chris said was more sensational than getting to the bottom of anything. Vice: Your Phone Is Listening and it's Not Paranoia: Here's how I got to bottom of the ads-coinciding-with-conversations mystery
Patents that Adam mentions Facebook secures patent to track users' TV viewing with microphones, cameras, GPS Studies we mention by universities or independent firms:
Gizmodo: These Academics Spent the Last Year Testing Whether Your Phone Is Secretly Listening to You
BBC: Why phones that secretly listen to us are a myth
What is the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon? TED Talk from professor Zeynep Tufekci: We’re building a dystopia just to make people click on ads
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Ever seen a Bible professor wear virtual reality goggles? Dr. Darrell Bock is well known in the Biblical scholarship world—he is a past President of the Evangelical Theological Society, New Testament Professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, and pastors know his commentaries on Luke & Acts. But today we interview him about a pretty different topic: the future of the church in a post-pandemic world where Zoom and livestreamed church has become the norm. Plus he talks about virtual reality goggles. Questions include:
Can you do a virtual baptism?
How does virtual reality help the global and persecuted church?
Practical ideas on making online church more human and interactive
And after the interview, Chris reacts with Adam, talking about Billy Graham and Jesus Avatars. Buy Virtual Reality Church by Darrell Bock (published by Moody Press).
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Do you wear a FitBit? Fitness trackers are producing more data than ever. But how useful are all these charts and graphs? We dig into the spreadsheets of the Quantified Self to see what kind of person we can find in the numbers. Meanwhile, as Big Tech companies hoover up data about our resting heart rates, body-fat percentages, and sleep habits, is our own privacy being threatened? Finally, we ask, “What is a body for?” We turn to Pope John Paul II, a big hitter when it comes to a theology of the body. He offers deep insights about what human freedom truly means, which gives us insight for how fitness trackers might help us live into all that God has for us as his image-bearers.
LINKS A history and analysis of the Quantified Self movement that started in 2008. The Amazon Halo band: Reviews from The New York Times and The Verge. A review of Amazon’s custom t-shirt biz. A summary of Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. All his public addresses can be searched for here. Most of Adam’s comments are drawn from this message.
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Why you have to trust in order to know. Learn more about "Lateral reading" sourcing and more with this video series that Chris recommends: https://thecrashcourse.com/courses/navigatingdigitalinfo Skip the argument with our new Short Circuit format! Adam or Chris grabs the mic for a more personal reflection on technology & faith. These shorter entries are a bonus to our full-length episodes. Enjoy!
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From disinformation to polarization, we hardly know what to believe anymore. And knowing who to believe isn't any easier. Chris and Adam talk thru the marks of conspiracy theories, and how moderation of social platforms may need to get more personal, not less. And how does our Christian faith impact this all? Doubting Thomas and how Paul talks about mystery cults—all packed in to this one
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This week Adam sits down to talk about finding Upgrades in an expected place: The Book of Genesis. Skip the argument with our new Short Circuit format! Adam or Chris grabs the mic for a more personal reflection on technology & faith. These shorter entries are a bonus to our full-length episodes. Enjoy!
TALK BACK Follow Device & Virtue on Instagram and Twitter. Follow Chris and Adam on Twitter. Support Device & Virtue on Patreon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Can we live more genuine, compassionate, and focused lives online? Well-known Christian author Andy Crouch joins his daughter Amy Crouch for a fascinating conversation on living My TechWise Life: Growing Up and Making Choices in a World of Devices Amy’s book is a follow up to the The TechWise Family by Andy Crouch: and the family Amy grew up in! Now a junior at Cornell University, she writes her own volume on what it was like as a teenager to grow up in a household with a certain approach to the iPhones and technology that we live with everyday. Our interview is packed with fascinating bits including:
What does it feel like for a teenager growing up with SnapChat and social expectations online?
How does technology interact with our own vulnerability and self-doubt?
How do we confront distraction?
How do parents and kids work together on creating family approaches to technology?
Also—we ask Andy Crouch (author of Culture Making and former editor of Christianity Today) magazine what he makes of the current startling events in Washington DC, how technology has affected what has happened, and what he thinks the church can do in response.
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The COVID-19 vaccine might be the technology of the year. But what is it about some new technologies that fuels fear? And where is faith? And are Chris & Adam going to get the vaccine? “If I get the COVID vaccine, am I failing to trust God?” Some Christians will be asking themselves this question. The vaccine has arrived faster than anyone could believe, and more effective than most doctors dared to hope. How did it happen so fast? And what makes this vaccine different than any vaccine in history? The COVID-19 vaccine is brand new in many ways, but it took 6 decades to create this vaccine in record time. Chris and Adam unpack the history and technology of mRNA, and the story of the woman behind it. And they dig deep into Scripture to look at what it means to trust God with what seems like a man-made miracle.
LINKS
Wired: How mRNA went from a scientific backwater to a pandemic crusher
NYT: Politics, Science and the Remarkable Race for a Coronavirus Vaccine
Official vaccine site: Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine | cvdvaccine.com
Gospel Coalition: The FAQs: What You Should Know About COVID-19 Vaccines
STAT News: With science and scripture, a pastor fights Covid-19 vaccine skepticism
YouTube: Inside the Lab That Invented the COVID-19 Vaccine
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Chris takes 5 minutes to talk LED lights for Christmas and what makes them special. Introducing our new Short Circuit format! Skip the argument. Adam or Chris grab the mic for themselves to make any point they want about technology & faith. These short sidebars are in addition to our full length episodes. Enjoy!
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Is social media manipulating the world? People are talking about this new scary documentary on Netflix, so Adam and Chris did movie night and are ready to talk it out. (We recommend you watch it first, but you don't have to!) Watch the trailer on YouTube right here. Adam & Chris talk through the The “Psychology Dilemma” — Does social media cause psychological harm? The “Disinformation Dilemma” — Does social media manipulate politics and what we believe? The “Never Before in History” Dilemma — Is this unprecedented? The “Solution Dilemma” — What will work? LINKS
Official website—The Social Dilemma
The press release response from Facebook
Review from Wired Magazine: Hate Social Media? You’ll Love This Documentary
Review from The Verge: Telling People to Delete Facebook Won’t Fix the Internet
Critique that The Social Dilemma did not include a diverse set of voices from experts who are women or people of color.
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So the founder of GrubHub—the original guy who started the app from his Chicago apartment—just gave us a call. Here’s what he thinks about the ethics of what he made—in this interview with Device & Virtue. Order some takeout, and listen while you wait. When Mike Evans started GrubHub in 2002, he was doing more than helping you find your next meal. He was seeking to change the game for small businesses across the country. Mike sits down with Chris to talk about how his faith inspired the groundbreaking app. Get an inside look at how vision and virtue can drive a company, and how business models and digital platforms can shape how tech companies develop. And see how a dream for helping restaurateurs translated into increased quality and convenience for customers. Plus, a hard look at the ethics of food delivery apps from farm to table.
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Food delivery didn’t start with pizza. It’s as least as old as the Bible. But ordering food is now easier than ever. Food delivery apps are transforming how we find food and consume it like never before. Transforming not just the making and eating, but also space and time. Food has a story and a history. And even a theology. How will food delivery apps shape them all? For Christians, whose faith finds its focus around a table, food delivery apps are worth thinking about deeply. Get started here.
LINKS
Ghost Kitchens are real. Here are a couple articles about this haunting phenomenon.
Here is a history of online meal delivery.
Margherita pizza and the origins of modern pizza delivery.
Pizza Net circa 1993!
The Slow Food Movement doesn’t mean you don’t crave McDonald’s.
As Christians in the 21st century, how now should we think about food?
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If you’ve been in a big city recently, you’ve probably seen people scootering around. Or is it “scooting”? Chris & Adam are asking the hard questions about micro-mobility—is it trendy? Transformational? Or Terrible? And if “cars created the megachurch”—what do e-scooters create?
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Have you installed the world’s newest social media app? Your church youth group has! China, dancing cats, and Adam’s new obsession all right here on the first episode of season 5.
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What if cops carried freeze rays instead of guns? Could it change society? Could technology really solve police brutality? Christians for millennia have debated whether force—and the technology employed in it—is necessary to stop evil, and whether Christians should resist lethal weapons in general. Some people envision a future without guns, where law enforcement uses non-lethal weapons. Star Trek has long pictured a reality where force involves stun guns but not bullets. Can non-lethal technology create a more peaceful future? Could it lead to a more equitable society? After all these centuries, Adam and Chris finally have the answer. . . . well, okay, that didn’t happen. Instead, we’re diving into this question from our unique angle, asking how is the gun shaping our relationships and our society, even when it isn’t fired? LINKS
“The History of Policing in the United States” (PDF)
A list of current less-lethal weapons
How police tactics differ around the world
“Police, Power, and the Specter of Guns”
“Can Star Trek’s non-violent utopia happen?”
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Can you translate the Bible into emoji? 😂. Some Christian leaders say No Way. But we ❤ this idea. Here’s why.
Some people 👀 emoji as just 😜 cartoons that make texting more fun, but they offer a crucial way to recover our humanity and share our ❤ with others. Could they help us know God better too?
Adam and Chris look at the multi-faceted world of emoji:
the surprising value of their playful style
emoji keyboards as cultural battlegrounds 💻
the history of emoji 📜
representing gender, sexuality, and politics ✌
the 🤔 of images . . . and words
God’s use of images . . . and words
and, yes, whether the Bible has a place for emoji.
By the ⏭ of this episode, the next emoji you 🤳 will be more than a cartoon. You will 👀 yourself, others, and the world a little bit differently. And you just might 😍 God a little bit more too. LINKS
Big shout out to Paddy Johnson whose Gizmodo article, “Emoji We Lost,” started us thinking about emoji in a deeper way. Worth your time if you want to dig in a bit more.
Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud is awesome. A fast, entertaining, and smart read. More than an introduction to comics, it’s a study in how we perceive, communicate, and represent the world we live in.
Chris mentioned McCloud’s spectrum of faces, realistic to iconic. See it here.
To see the Google blob/💃 emoji Chris mentions, go here.
Daniella Zsupan-Jerome discusses the idol vs the icon in her paper: “Virtual Presence as Real Presence? Sacramental Theology and Digital Culture in Dialogue.”
News: No new emoji next year, thanks to the global 😷. But here’s the new emoji for 2020.
Send us your favorite Bible verse in emoji (on Twitter or Facebook). ✍ your own, or use the Bible Emoji translator.
The Atlantic reviewed the Emoji Bible. Read it here. 📘
Submit your own emoji to Unicode here, but beware, the process is intense.
Academics aren’t above studying emoji either. Here’s research on how people use the 🔫, and on the inherent ambiguity to all emoji(s).
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If you’re out for an evening stroll, you can bet that someone’s watching, even if nobody’s home. It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood surveillance state. Instead of Mr. Rogers, Jeff Bezos is putting on his cardigan and answering the door. Grab your shoes. Ring Doorbells are popping up on porches across the country and around the world. What happens in your neighborhood no longer stays in your neighborhood. The video is getting uploaded to the cloud, everything from kidnappings to random acts of kindness. Are Ring cameras making our neighborhoods safer or making us more suspicious? This is the 6 o’clock news at the neighborhood level. And police are finding new ways to patrol your streets without leaving the precinct. Chris and Adam unpack the new normal for Christians who want to love their neighbor without violating their privacy.
LINKS
We recounted a bunch of stories in this episode. Read more about each one here: kidnapping, halloween, eavesdropping, trolling girl, aliens.
Caroline Haskins has covered Ring’s relationship with police in quite a number of articles for Vice. Quite.
Two earlier episodes from Device & Virtue, Season 2, touch on some of these same themes: Can I Get a Witness? (S2E1) and Fixing Our Privacy Settings (S2E2).
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Apple, Google, and governments around the world are cooking up a new way to trace where you’ve been and who you’ve talked to. Sound like Big Brother? It may actually help you to love your neighbor.
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Life's changed for all of us, right? Adam & Chris each highlight four things they noticed this week about technology & faith—all from home. For one thing, when church goes online, what’s the difference between watching and worshiping? It may depend on which app you use. Pastors are scrambling to keep their congregations connected during the coronavirus quarantine. And they are realizing that some key elements of “church” go far beyond just live-streaming the service itself. Plus, every live-streaming platform offers different features, and these differences will significantly impact the online community experience. Chris and Adam help pastors consider how different platforms will shape their congregations’ feelings of connection and meaningful relationship. LINKS
Chris mentioned this Washington Post article arguing why we should use smartphones to track the coronavirus.
Digital Tithing is more crucial than ever for churches during COVID-19. We talked about smartphone giving back in season 2, weighing the benefits and risks, and suggesting ways the technology could be improved.
Chris argues that “Online Communion Can Still Be Sacramental” over at Christianity Today.
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Did your church cancel services last weekend? With coronavirus, worship went online in unprecedented numbers, and social distancing has us all asking, “Can real church happen on the Internet?” The coronavirus may do more than infect our bodies. It may have a lasting effect on church theology around the world. Even while we long to gather together in person, we’re finding ways to still connect in real, meaningful ways. Plus, why is COVID-19 different than earlier pandemics? And what role has social media played in its spread? Adam & Chris jump in for a unplanned, self-quarantine episode to talk about all the craziness, and the tech & theology questions the coronavirus has brought up. LINKS
Wanna compare COVID-19 to earlier outbreaks? Here’s a good article to get you started.
Check out this Coronavirus Simulator from the Washington Post (no paywall). Compare quarantining to social distancing, and see which one is more effective.
Here’s a Twitter thread from DV friend Dr. Karen O’Donnell with more academic sources for thinking about online sacraments.
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Will artificial intelligence start delivering all your Amazon orders? If 9 million drivers lose their jobs, what should we do about it? Artificial Intelligence has already found its way into our homes, says Jason Thacker. We interview him about his new book, The Age of AI: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity (Zondervan 2020). We talk about:
Why Christians need to be thinking about AI
How AI is different from the way movies portray them
What we think do about autonomous weapons
Whether robots will take our jobs
We wrap up with 3 questions Christians can be asking in the age of AI. Then stick around to hear Jason’s take on Vice or Virtue! Jason is Associate Research Fellow and Creative Director at the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.
LINKS
Learn more about Jason’s book on his website, JasonThacker.com.
In April 2019, the ERLC put out a “An Evangelical Statement of Principles” about artificial intelligence, which touches on many of the themes in this episode. It also offers biblical support for each principle.
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Thinking of giving up technology for Lent? We have 10 ideas for how to do it. Plus, you know, maybe why you shouldn’t. Fasting from social media has been a popular choice the past couple years. Internet habits are out of control. People feel out of sorts. Maybe you feel the same way. Chris and Adam offer up 10 ways to develop a better tech-life balance. Ten alternatives to going cold turkey while still finding a healthier diet with our devices. Giving up social media isn’t just about our relationship with technology though. It’s also about our relationship to others. What do we do when giving up social media means cutting off connections to people? Whether you're thinking about Lent, or ready to log off for good, we’ll help you think about the vices and virtues of giving up.
LINKS Grayscale: Wanna try it?
On your iPhone: Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Color Filters > Grayscale. You can toggle it on and off there.
On Android: Settings > Developer Options > Simulate Color Space > Monochromacy. (If “Developer Options” isn’t showing, go down to “About Phone” and tap it several times, then look for it.)
If Lent is new to you, Aaron Damiani offers a good primer on the long-standing Christian tradition in his book, The Good of Giving Up. Check it out here.
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How did we get from the Arab Spring to Cambridge Analytica in less than 5 years? Waves of pro-democracy protesters in the Middle East have given way to waves of nationalism around the globe. In less than a decade, the Internet went from harbinger of democracy to herald of demagogues. What happened? And ARE WE … DOOMED?? Technology and social media are undoubtedly changing how elections and government run today. Will democracy survive them? And how do Christians survive—each other? Adam and Chris tip-toe through the minefield of political vitriol—risking life, limb, and Facebook friends—in hopes of getting a handle on the chaos we call democracy today. Listen and decide whether we succeeded.
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-- We had some audio problems with this episode so we apologize for the buzz and echo in some places! It’s still understandable, so we decided to still put it out there for you. Enjoy! - Chris Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Ignore the hyped-up headlines and impossible advice blogs, and hear how two moms are trying their best to walk with their kids in a world surrounded by screens. Adam and Chris invite two special guests to share about their own experiences raising Gen Z kids. Two moms who show us that, even in the age of Instagram families, parenting isn’t about perfection. Hear how two different moms handle screen time in two different, but doable, ways. And find some ideas that might fit your family. Two different moms. Two different methods. No wrong ways. Because sometimes . . . good enough is good enough.
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The New Year is upon us, and the only reason we know that is thanks to the Egyptians. And the Catholic Church! Clocks, calendars, and timekeeping tech on our final episode of 2019. Wait a second: What does being a “good Christian” have to do with clocks and calendars? The connections surprised us too… From sunsets to seconds, we’ve been tracking time for all of human history. To the point that we forget that calendars and clocks are technologies too. And like any technology, timekeeping has its vices and its virtues. So this year, you can take that cup of kindness yet, and think of auld lang syne. LINKS
Other than New Years itself, Susan White was our muse for this episode. Her 1994 book was way ahead of its time, you might say: Christian Worship & Technological Change.
For a good taste of White’s book, our friend Michael Sacasas wrote a great review in his series, “Christianity and the History of Technology.” Or check out the chapter “Christlikeness on the Calendar” in Adam’s free ebook, From Pews to Podcasts.
Get a good chronology of timekeeping with this article from the Scientific American: “A Chronicle of Timekeeping.”
Want to learn more about the Bible’s timestamps? Here’s another take from Justin Taylor over at The Gospel Coalition: “What Hour Was Jesus Crucified? Resolving an Apparent Bible Contradiction.”
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How does Google Maps decide what route you should take? How does Spotify determine what kind of music you might like? And if I wanted to get a job at those companies, how would they choose one application out of a thousand resumes? Decide. Determine. Choose. That’s what algorithms do. Everything from song recommendations to health insurance rates to prison sentencing, companies and governments are using algorithms more than ever. But news reports seem to come out every other week exposing how biased algorithms are. So can we really trust them? Adam and Chris explore what has made algorithms so popular, so useful, and so biased. But rather than getting rid of them, we can learn some surprising things from them—surprising things about ourselves. And if we do, we just might be able to
LINKS
The Washington Post reported on how this healthcare algorithm has highlighted significant inequalities in how medical insurance decisions are being made in the US.
When country music star Martina McBride created a playlist on Spotify, she had to scroll through 135 song recommendations before she found one from a female artist.
But, as this interactive article helpfully shows, weeding out bias is really a question of what trade-offs you’re going to live with, which in this case involves who gets out on bail and who doesn’t.
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From autism to advertising, technology is reading people’s emotions like never before. Some say emotional intelligence is being outsourced. Others predict emotion tech is on the cusp of a multi-billion dollar payday. So . . . how do YOU feel about that? No worries, the technology already knows. Just like FitBit changed how we relate to our bodies, emotion tech will change how we relate to our feelings. Could it train us to be more empathetic and understanding? Or numb us to real human connection? After meeting MIT Media Lab Professor Rosalind Picard—a leading researcher in “Emotion AI” and a Christian—Adam and Chris look at both the risks and possibilities of this bleeding-edge technology.
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What if we told you that at the Last Supper, Jesus taught us something about text messaging? Sounds far-fetched, right? But the connections will have you rethinking what “IRL” really means. Adam & Chris dive into our daily experiences of texting—especially that moment when your friend stops listening because a new text lights up their phone. Yeah, you know that moment. Key Questions Should we text when we are with other people? What does it mean to be present? Or absent? Which emoji is your favorite?
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Special Conference Episode! Chris & Adam join a conference for pastors on technology called Teche: A Christian View of Technology, put on by the Center for Pastor Theologians. This is our same-day hot-takes—recorded live on location! Stuff like: What’s the difference between a musical instrument and a Roomba? How is the Eucharist like technology? How the church could be more like a forest path
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What do you think? Are selfies narcissistic? Yes, right? But we’re starting season 3 off right and taking one of our own. Selfies have become part of normal life. We see them. We take them. We see other people taking them too. And while they may be normal, do they show us anything real? Chris and Adam dive into identity, authenticity, and the image of God to look for answers, with a few embarrassing stories along the way.
LINKS
Selfies: Searching for the Image of God in a Digital Age, by Craig Detweiler
The Social Photo: On Photography and Social Media, by Nathan Jurgenson
“Smiling Selfie in Auschwitz” (USA Today)
“12 Selfies That Basically Tell The World You're A Narcissist” (Your Tango)
“Yet Another Selfie? You might be a narcissist” (WebMD)
“What is the Real Link between Selfies and Narcissism?” (Psychology Today)
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What do you think Siri looks like? Is she someone you would tell your secrets to? She’s not a person—but she’s getting more personal than ever—could she change our real relationships? In this episode Chris & Adam chat up the voice part of “voice assistants.” More talking and less typing—what happens when as we shift our interaction with technology to the very personal medium of voice?
LINKS & QUOTES
Alexa, How Will You Change Us by Judith Shulevitz (The Atlantic)
Female Voice Assistants Fuel Damaging Gender Stereotypes, says a UN Study (MIT Technology Review)
“Oral verbalization, unlike writing, is thus natural. The word comes to each of us first orally in our mother tongue. It’s association with mother and early nature and nurture is why speech is so closely involved with our personal identity and with cultural identity. (22)… No real word can be present all at once as the letters in a written word are. The real word, the spoken word, is always an event…. Oral utterance thus encourages a sense of continuity with life, a sense of participation, because it itself is participatory.” — Walter Ong, Interfaces of the Word: Studies in the Evolution of Consciousness and Cultures
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Ever pass the plate in church and there’s nothing in there? Smartphones are the new tithing tech—building church budgets—even as they shape our souls! Adam & Chris cash in on the question: what happens when the cash goes out? Digital giving has been slowly growing for years and in our city of Chicago, cashless is the new normal for many folks. Venmo—the money app we use most often—reports 40 million users with $21 billion passing through the app at the beginning of 2019 (Q1). Paypal, it’s parent company, does much much more! So how does this affect giving to the church? Questions How are different churches adjusting to the digital shift? Ignoring it? Trying new things? We’ve got some stories. Who does giving online help and hurt? Does giving via our phone change our spiritual growth? Is giving supposed to be public or private? Has the church always “passed the plate?” How old is that practice? (not as old as you think!) And of course, Vice or Virtue. “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?” But, knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, “Why put me to the test? Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.”And they brought one. And he said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said to him, “Caesar’s.”Jesus said to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they marveled at him.” Mark 12:14-17
LINKS
PushPay: How to Choose the Right Tithing Software (no endorsement. We haven’t researched these guys or any of the others we mention in the episode).
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Does technology control history? Or does history control tech? Adam & Chris take sides. When major technologies hit the world stage, do they upend human history? There are a couple camps out there in scholarship. But one of the big questions is—how big of an influence is technology on human society? Tech Controls History (Chris) History Controls Tech (Adam)
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Imagine: You’re pregnant and your doctor offers you a DNA edit so your baby can avoid a terminal illness. Do you do it? That decision is coming sooner than you think. Turns out an expert professor on DNA-editing (who is also a Christian) had some early conversations with the Chinese scientist who shocked the world in 2018 by editing two real babies DNA. The trouble is, the Chinese scientist has some compelling moral reasoning for what he did: and he explains them on YouTube. What do we think of this? Plus we namecheck an amazing old-school sci-fi movie that imagines a DNA-based world... Can you guess?
LINKS
Sorry, Chris declined to provide a link to his DNA test results. (see privacy - ha!)
MIT Technology Review broke the CRISPR Babies story.
He Jiankui describe his work with gene editing babies in this YouTube video.
The Atlantic provides a good summary of reactions within the scientific community.
Blood tests for Downs Syndrome have had consequences its inventors did not foresee or intend.
Some evidence suggests He’s gene-editing may have enhanced the babies’ brains too.
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Would you be OK if your church tracked you the way Facebook does? Some churches already are. When Adam meets representatives for a church software company, he can’t help but interrogate them for half an hour. He brings his reconnaissance back, and he and Chris sit down to discuss just how they feel about how churches are tracking their congregations. This is Big Data on a church’s scale. Find out what data churches are already tracking and how these powerful platforms could inform the pastoral imagination and reshape the work of churches everywhere.
LINKS Cell-site Simulators
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Some people think the next great evangelist will reach more people than Billy Graham ever did. And they’re already programming the artificial intelligence to do it. When Chris and Adam meet an Australian who’s already programmed an AI chatbot to do evangelism, they look at each other and wonder, “Can a chatbot really spread the Gospel?” Only to realize that evangelism chatbots are not quite as unprecedented as they first appear to be. Still, this new generation of tech-driven evangelism forces today’s Christians to go back again and ask, “What exactly is the Gospel?” The future is here. This chatbot has already led hundreds to make decisions for Jesus. Can we really argue with results? This episode will help you get your head around our new Jetsons-like reality, and see what Rosie could mean for Christians called to make disciples.
LINKS
“Psychological, Relational, and Emotional Effects of Self-Disclosure After Conversations With a Chatbot” from The Journal of Communication (requires subscription)
FaithTech. “Bridging the gap between faith and technology.” Chris & Adam are involved in starting this in Chicago.
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Has your pastor preached a sermon on Facebook settings or surveillance cameras? Mine hasn’t. Does the Bible really have anything to say about digital privacy? And—is Alexa actually listening to us in my kitchen? Chris wrote the cover story for Christianity Today on a Christian view of digital privacy. He started out by going to parties and asking “When was a time your privacy was violated?” So Adam interviews Chris about what he found out including: What is the “intimacy paradox”? Are you a “city, suburbs, or country” person when it comes to your reaction?
LINKS
Cover Story Christianity Today Magazine September 2019
”Fixing our Privacy Settings: Why Christians should worry less about protecting their information and think more about giving it away” by Chris Ridgeway
Privacy in Context: Technology, Policy, and the Integrity of Social Life by Helen Nissenbaum
“Comfortable with friends sharing your picture on Facebook? - Effects of closeness and ownership on picture sharing preference” by Auk Kim and Gahgene Gweon, in Computers in Human Behavior, 2016.
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Last summer, Chicago Cubs baseball player Ben Zobrist got thrown out of the game when he turned to the umpire and complained “that’s why we want an electronic strike zone”. Who is a better witness to the truth—a person … or a computer? On a more serious note: This question became especially relevant in Chicago. Chris & Adam watched the race-charged trial of the police officer who shot black teenager Laquan MacDonald. A police video camera became the key piece of evidence the jury trusted over the eye-witness accounts. From a Christian ethics point of view, witness is key—heck, it’s the Ninth Commandment!
TOUGH QUESTIONS Are we at a point where technology is a better witness than a human? If so what does that mean? What do cameras see that people don’t? What can a human witness offer that a video witness cannot? Can technology bear false witness?
LINKS
Baseball player Ben Zobrist tells the ump he wants an electronic strike zone and gets tossed (CBS Sports)
Deepfake Videos Are Getting Real and That’s a Problem (Wall Street Journal)
Witness.org: “See It. Film It. Change It.
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Adam & Chris start a podcast. By arguing.
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So Chris found an article from 1962 called “Is Technology Diabolical?” What do you think Adam said . . . German theologian Helmut Thielicke posed this question more than 50 years ago, and it’s more relevant than ever. Chris and Adam unpack Thielicke's article and the most challenging questions it poses. Questions like, “If humanity wasn't sinful, would we need technology?” And, “Can humans avoid moral responsibility by blaming technology?” Chris and Adam find themselves wondering, What does technology look like in the Kingdom of God? Like Thielicke's article, questions will surprise you at every turn, not least of which is, “How do you pronounce ‘Thielicke’?”
LINKS Read it yourself: Is Technology Diabolical? Helmut Thielicke (1962)
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CS Lewis became a household name because of the Radio. So why did he get rid of the one in his own house? What did CS Lewis think about technology? He had strong opinions about the radio and other technologies inhabiting our lives. Chris and Adam sit down to talk about what CS Lewis thought about technology, and also how he lived with it personally. Drawing from published work like Abolition of Man and That Hideous Strength as well as Lewis's private letters, Adam and Chris explore why Lewis got rid of his radio, why he believed technology is neutral, and why he thought the typewriter would destroy aspiring writers. This episode arose from research Adam has done and written about in an ebook titled Mere Technology: CS Lewis Confronts the Devices Shaping His Life--And Ours. The ebook that this episode refers is not currently publicly available. Reach out to @AdamGraber if you want to convince him to send you a copy! Or start with a little taste of it here.
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The merging of human and machines sounds like an Ironman movie. But it’s actually happening right now. We even found some Christians who are praying this is the next big thing. Has humanity reached the end of its evolution, or could technology light the path for the next stage of human development? People like Neil Harbison believe technology could be just the beginning. Advancements in medicine have brought humans and devices closer and closer together, but where’s the line between healing someone’s defective heart and enhancing their capacity beyond human norms? Adam and Chris untangle some of these ideas behind what’s called “body hacking” or “transhumanism.” They ask, Could transhumanism be the future God has for humanity? Or are humans overstepping the natural human limits God gave us? Transhumanism is a trajectory we’re on, and we still face a lot of questions along that path. Most important, Chris comes clean about why he returned his Apple Watch.
LINKS
Defining “What is Transhumanism?”
NPR’s interview with Neil Harbisson: “What’s it like to hear color?”
Nicholas Carr’s “I Want Wings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” - other examples in this episode probably came from Carr’s article.
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You’ll never guess who just released an ethics statement all about the values they are trying to promote. It’s not the government or your church. Yeah. It’s Facebook. Included in this episode: All the morals of scrolling through those cat pictures. How do Facebook and Instagram decide what you see every time you scroll through? Deciding what to show you involves value judgments. If it always showed you the most recent post first, the value would be “newest = most important.” But Facebook’s algorithms are much more complicated. So are its values. Adam and Chris take a closer look at Facebook’s “News Feed Values” and ask, how do these values align with Christian values, Kingdom values? Can the Church affirm Facebook’s values, or are there values it would do well to oppose? Values covered in this episode include a priority of friends and family, as well as a goal to be informative. In an age of division and fake news, these values seem more relevant than ever. So does the Church have a uniquely meaningful take on them? Find out in this episode.
LINKS Facebook’s “News Feed Values”
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Our grandparents met because they lived in the same neighborhood. Today, we meet because we’re on the same app. From dating scenes to dating screens, the Internet has turned your parent's relationship into a foreign world. Aziz Ansari, in his book Modern Romance, dives deep into how the Internet has transformed love and relationships. From intimacy and transparency to cheating, sexting, and breaking up, we look at some of the stories and research from his book, and discuss what they mean for Christians. A few questions we cover: Does your significant other have the right to know what's on your smartphone? Do smartphones make cheating easier or more likely? Does the privacy of text messaging make intimacy easier and faster? Can sexting be a worthwhile form of intimacy for married couples? And how do smartphones complicate breakups?
LINKS
Some researchers suggest that because digital communication lacks embodied social cues, teens are worse at relationships since they’re still developing those interpersonal skills.
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Some day your computer will drive your car. “Ok Google, Take Me To Church!” Could driverless cars alter church life? Could they even impact Christian beliefs? As we outsource human activities to technology, those devices come to define our human activities, and even our ways of thinking. How will driverless cars impact church attendance, parking problems, demographic shifts, embodiment, church geographic reach? How will they influence how we think about ourselves as humans? Adam and Chris raise more questions than answers as they unpack the driverless car craze. Plus, they offer some suggestion for what we should really call these "self-driving vehicles."
LINKS
“Feds Say They’ll Count Computers as Human Drivers” (Wired, Feb 10, 2016)
“The Feds Want Rules for Self-Driving Cars in the Next 6 Months” (Wired, Jan 14, 2016)
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Facial recognition is everywhere—it’s how you unlock your iPhone, and some cops are even using it. So what if your church did? Software companies are already stepping into the sanctuary. Sure, we might expect China or Facebook or Apple to use facial recognition, but what standards or expectations should we have for churches using it? Could facial recognition help make large churches more personal … or more anonymous? Facial recognition inhabits more and more spaces in our lives and our society, identifying us and tracking our behaviors. So what happens when it enters our churches? The answers aren't as clear cut as they might seem.
LINKS
Churchix promises to help you “Know Your Members.”
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When did social media start? In 2004 when Facebook started? Nope, try the 1st century! Social media is anything but new and early Christians played a key role in its growth, Tom Standage argues in his book, Writing in the Wall. We dive in to look his claim that social media existed in the Roman Empire and and that the church influenced its development with their own system upgrades. What does it mean for the Church today that early Christianity developed in an age of Roman social media?
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