The End of Innovation with Lee Vinsel

Innovation is often seen as key to modern society. Whether in pursuit of economic growth, more convenience in daily life, or simply greater well-being, the pursuit of the new and better ideas and technology is always underway. But what if the key to human flourishing doesn’t lie in the search for the new, but rather in maintenance of what we already have? Could the endless pursuit of innovation as a goal in itself is actually causing us harm?

Lee Vinsel, co-author of The Innovation Delusion and founder of the Maintainers, explains the costs of this pursuit and the hold that innovation-speak has exacted on our society.From climate change to crumbling infrastructure, he and Grant discuss how maintenance rather than novelty might be the key to a more sustainable life, and how understanding and prioritizing the needs and well-being of human persons can lead to a more functional, beautiful world.

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Who Was God before the Bible? with Madhavi Nevader and T.J. Lang

In this episode, Ryan sits down with Madhavi Nevader and T.J. Lang, both biblical scholars at St. Andrew’s School of Divinity in Scotland. In a conversation that roams from the Tower of Babel to journey of the apostle Paul to the third heaven, they discuss how the understanding of God’s identity—as Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible, as Jesus the divine man, as multiple Persons who are yet one—has unfolded in time. 

From unpacking the many conceptions of God in the Old Testament, to the scandal of Jesus’s claims to oneness with the Father, to the fruitful give-and-take between Greek philosophy and early Christian metaphysics, they contemplate the nature of tradition and the way that historical and geographical forces shape it. Modern scholarship, archaeological science, and the ambiguities of translation all become tools to gain a deeper understanding of the revelation of who God is and His relationship to His people. 

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Investing in the Kingdom of God with Jacob Imam

For much of middle class America, 401ks are seen as good stewardship, and wise investing in the stock market as a way of attaining financial goods for oneself and the economy at large. But do these things we take for granted contribute to the overall good of the human person and society? 

Jacob Imam, economist and executive director of New Polity, argues that not only are these things not necessary to a healthy economy, but that we should question whether stock ownership has any role to play in Christian life. Beginning with the example of medieval economic relationships, he and Grant discuss the difference between investment and speculation; the relationship between work and ownership; and how investment, properly understood, might dignify the labor of our neighbors rather than simply profiting from the work of others. 

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Does AI Bear Man's Image? with John Wyatt

The prophet Isaiah speaks of the foolishness of those who bow down to the work of their own hands, idols made of wood that cannot speak and have no power of their own. And yet the irony of idolatry is that idols come to have a strange power over us and our actions.

John Wyatt of the Faraday Institute sees this biblical image of the idol as a powerful lens for assessing the spiritual, ethical, and philosophical repercussions of AI. Although AI is developed with the goal of helping mankind shape a better future, in many ways it is us who are changed by the technology we’ve created. From children forming relationships with analogous persons like Siri and Alexa, to engineers who believe that programs can become sentient, to people who prefer interacting with chatbots over human relationships—in these and many other ways, we are only beginning to feel the impact of AI on the human person.

John and Gretchen discuss these issues and more, and bring up important questions that Christians must ask in the age of AI. If we are image bearers created in the likeness of God, is mankind then making AI in its own image? How do we respond to the desire to “upgrade” humanity in light of the Incarnation and Resurrection? 

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