Device & Virtue

*Fixed audio release*

Today we're watching the Artemis II, but in the 1960s, our parents watched humanity land a man on the moon from their living room TV. It was a new era of hope, but it somehow disappeared. Can technology make us hopeful people?

This episode recorded in March 2026, before the Artemis II launch.

Hope can send us soaring to the stars, but when our lives sink beneath the wind and the waves, what happens to hope then? Amid the hurricanes of today’s technology, hope seems less like a rocket ship soaring above it all and more “like the thing with feathers.” 

Adam and Chris look at the materials required for building real hope, and they explore whether social media, smartphones, or AI are tools for constructing a home or weapons of mass destruction. Drawing on Scripture, story, and the work of Stanley Hauerwas, they look for the blueprints to build a sturdy hope. And they consider what role technology can play in building a hope that will withstand life’s storms.

• Stanley Hauerwas, ⁠The Character of Virtue: Letters to a Godson⁠. Buy a copy and read along with us!

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠CBS archives: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apollo 11 moon landing leaves Walter Cronkite "speechless"⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• NYT: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jack Garman, Whose Judgment Call Saved Moon Landing, Dies at 72⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• New York Times: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Until the Apollo 11 mission, my family didn't have a television⁠⁠⁠⁠

• Daniel Nayeri, ⁠Everything Sad Is Untrue⁠

• Jürgen Moltmann, ⁠Theology of Hope⁠

• Viktor Frankl, ⁠Man’s Search for Meaning⁠
• C.S. Lewis, ⁠Prince Caspian⁠
• ⁠Romans 5⁠, on suffering’s role in Christian hope
• 1 Corinthians 13⁠, on faith, hope, and love as enduring theological virtues

Talk Back

⁠Leave a comment via Spotify⁠

• Follow Device & Virtue on ⁠Instagram⁠. 

• Follow ⁠Adam on Substack⁠. 

Support Device & Virtue. ⁠Learn how⁠.

Our parents watched humanity land a man on the moon from their living room TV. It was a new era of hope, but it somehow disappeared. Can technology make us hopeful people?

Hope can send us soaring to the stars, but when our lives sink beneath the wind and the waves, what happens to hope then? Amid the hurricanes of today’s technology, hope seems less like a rocket ship soaring above it all and more “like the thing with feathers.” 

In this episode, Adam and Chris look at the materials required for building real hope, and they explore whether social media, smartphones, or AI are tools for constructing a home or weapons of mass destruction. Drawing on Scripture, story, and the work of Stanley Hauerwas, they look for the blueprints to build a sturdy hope. And they consider what role technology can play in building a hope that will withstand life’s storms.

In This Episode

• The role that suffering plays in Christian hope

• Whether smartphones, social media, and AI preach rival gospels of hope

• The vices of fantasy, apathy, cynicism, and optimism

• Why story and imagination have central roles in building a durable hope

• Whether hope is good for anything more than motivational posters

• What the moon landing can teach us about communal hope and its limits

Links

• Stanley Hauerwas, The Character of Virtue: Letters to a Godson. Buy a copy and read along with us!

• Daniel Nayeri, Everything Sad Is Untrue

• Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope

• Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

• C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian

• Romans 5, on suffering’s role in Christian hope

• 1 Corinthians 13, on faith, hope, and love as enduring theological virtues

Talk Back

Leave us a 90-second voice message about this episode. We may feature it in a future segment!

• Follow Device & Virtue on Instagram. 

• Follow Chris on Threads, and Adam on Substack. 

• Support Device & Virtue. Learn how.

Aristotle called friendship a virtue. Mark Zuckerberg made “friending” a verb. Next up: AI companions—What happens when they listen better than your fellow Christians? 

Loneliness is being called an epidemic, even as we’re “connected” all day. Online spaces reward hot takes over hospitality, and friendship gets flattened into a friend request, a feed, or a follower count. Meanwhile, Jesus’ most personal message was a passionate prayer for friendship. How can Christians recover real, virtue-shaped friendship in an age of hyper-connected loneliness—when AI affirms us, social media tribalizes us, and smartphones stick closer than a brother?

Chris and Adam trace friendship as a virtue through Scripture and classic and contemporary voices, then weigh modern tech against what friendship actually requires: presence, trust, humility, and a shared pursuit of the good.

In This Episode

• Did social media’s rise lead to friendship’s decline?

• Why Jesus put friendship—more than family—at the heart of the Church

• Aristotle’s three kinds of friendship: the useful, the pleasurable, and “of the good.”

• Friendship killers—the vices of slander, reproach, betrayal, sloth, and codependence

• Historical deep dives—how a new technology drove the social platforms of the 17th century, spawned new friendships, and gave us the world’s oldest magazine

• AI companions—their comfort, their stigma, and what Christians could learn from their example

• Chris and Adam reflect on whether friendship is a vice or a virtue in their own lives

Links

• Stanley Hauerwas, The Character of Virtue: Letters to a Godson. Buy a copy and read along with us!

• Mark Vernon micro-podcast lectures “Aristotle’s philosophy of friendship”

• U.S. Surgeon General advisory on loneliness and social connection (pdf)

• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

• Cicero, On Friendship

• Aelred of Rievaulx, Spiritual Friendship

• The story of Joseph Addison and Dick Steele’s The Spectator

Talk Back

Leave us a 90-second voice message about this episode. We may feature it in a future segment!

• Follow Device & Virtue on Instagram. 

• Follow Chris on Threads, and Adam on Substack. 

• Support Device & Virtue. Learn how.

  
  

  Image: Detail from François Venant's "The Parting of David and Jonathan"

Can we live humbly and still post that photo on Instagram? In the digital age, humility isn't so straightforward. With the smartphone at our fingertips, is pride just one selfie away?

Many of tech’s biggest names have been anything but humble. Tesla, Edison, Jobs, Zuckerberg, Musk. Does that mean their inventions will re-make us in their image? Or is there a way to hold humility in one hand and our smartphones in the other?

Drawing from Christian wisdom, Greek virtues, and modern theologians, Adam and Chris look for the borderland between pride and pusillanimity, between vainglory and self-abasement. And they explore how those borders are shifting thanks to social media, smartphones, and artificial intelligence.

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The word "temperance" may make us think of prohibition, but this virtue isn't some outdated legislation. Today's technologies are creating all new challenges. Should we be prohibiting them now?

It’s the season of Virtues! We’re exploring the old-school virtue of Temperance—including how a technology in the 1800s changed the course of American politics, spawned hundreds of Christian organizations and even changed the US constitution!

Plus, why ice cream could be an moral issue.

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THE WILLARD FOUNTAIN.Children Invited to Contribute Their Mite to the Fund for This Gift.The commission for “Willard Fountain.” which is to be a gift to the city of Chicago from children all over the world connected with the Loyal Temperance Legion Department of the World’s W.C.T.U.,…All money raised should be sent to Miss Anna Gordon, Evanston, Ill., and it is earnestly desired that little people everywhere should be impressed with the thought that the mission of love and money which they might perform by giving a cup of cold water to men who might otherwise be drawn into the saloon, can be carried out by this patient little figure, which will never grow “weary in welldoing.” It rests with them to send their pennies if they would be thus represented.

Cold Water Girl Fountain—Chicagology

…the self indulgent man is so called because he is pained more than he ought at not getting pleasant things (even his pain being caused by pleasure), and the temperate man is so called because he is not pained at the absence of what is pleasant and at his abstinence from it.The self-indulgent man, then, craves for all pleasant things or those that are most pleasant, and is led by his appetite to choose these at the cost of everything else; hence he is pained both when he fails to get them and when he is merely craving for them (for appetite involves pain); but it seems absurd to be pained for the sake of pleasure. —Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

• We’re using the list of virtues from Stanley Hauerwas and his book, The Character of Virtue: Letters to a Godson. Buy a copy and read along with us!

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Can we live simply without tossing our smartphone-life in the trash? We found answers in Sister Act II and walk-in closets. This season, we're doing something new, and it begins with the virtue of Simplicity.

We live in a complex world. Can technology help simplify it? Or does it only make things worse? Chris and Adam look at Simplicity in the face of social media, smartphones, and artificial intelligence.

If you ever feel fragmented, this episode is for you. Drawing on insights from Stanley Hauerwas, Richard Foster, and the Sermon on the Mount, we explore...

Plus, learn how past technological developments have already shaped our relationship to Simplicity.

Filled with philosophical insights and practical advice for integrating simplicity into modern life.

We’re using the list of virtues from Stanley Hauerwas and his book, The Character of Virtue: Letters to a Godson. Buy a copy and read along with us!

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Wow, we've got a new set of episodes coming our way—and Adam & Chris have decided to unveil a twist—while possible moving even closer to the Platonic ideal of Device & Virtue.

Support our new season at https://www.deviceandvirtue.com/patreon

Leave us a feedback voicemail at https://www.deviceandvirtue.com/talk-back

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If not, what about our soundboards and electric guitars? If you thought the answer would be straightforward, you don't know us! Adam and Chris deep into the intertwining histories of church music and technology. From early debates over instruments in worship services to the effects of platforms like Spotify on today's songwriting, they explore the tensions between tradition and innovation.

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Watch the TikTok Worship Song clip: https://www.tiktok.com/@jonathanogdenmusic/video/7221950505486945541

Read Chris' AI worship song about the blind man in John 9

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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.

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?

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. 

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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.

This episode features a talkback voice message from listener Toby B. Thanks Toby!

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