Device & Virtue

Author Andy Crouch says that we’re doing it all wrong—smartphones aren’t giving us the life we’re looking for. We asked him how to fix it, plus whether he’d ever own a robot dog.

Andy is our first returning guest to Device & Virtue! This time, he joins us to talk about his new book, The Life We’re Looking For. We take his ideas for a test drive, and run into everything from dishwashers and furnaces to Slack and electric cars.

Plus, we ask Andy to resolve some arguments from past episodes. He weighs in on Ring doorbells, robot dogs, communion online, and AI art generators. His hot takes will keep you on your toes.

Andy Crouch is partner for theology and culture at Praxis Labs and author of multiple books including his latest, The Life We’re Looking For: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World, and his earlier book, The Tech-Wise Family. A public speaker and professional musician, Andy was executive editor of Christianity Today from 2012 to 2016 and served the John Templeton Foundation as senior strategist for communication in 2017. Most importantly, he received a shout-out in Lecrae's 2014 single “Non-Fiction.” 

For more about Andy and all his books, check out his website. Follow him on Twitter.

Andy first joined us with his daughter Amy to talk about her book, My Tech-Wise Life, back in Season 5. 

Check out our past episodes for more on the topics we talked about with Andy. 

Andy mentions “prompt battles.” We did a little digging. Learn more about them here.

Andy adapts his analysis of instruments and devices from the work of philosopher Albert Borgmann, who first introduced “the device paradigm” in his 1984 book, Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life. Borgmann writes more about it in his newer book Power Failure.

"God and Mammon ... are precisely opposed to each other. God wishes to put all things into the service of persons and ultimately to bring forth the flourishing of creation through the flourshing of persons. Mammon wants to put all persons into the service of things and ultimately to bring about the exploitation of all creation." (p78)

"So, rather than actually creating machines that understand the infinitely creative and complex world of human culture, we will find that it is far easier to create attenuated cultural environments that treat persons like machines." (p97)

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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.

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.

Check Out what VR Church building looks like “inside”—YouTube

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.

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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!

Adam & Chris imagine the implications and effects of AI generated art including questions like:

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

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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.

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?

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!

Woman Cooking on Car Engine

Horse Head? The weird car design that includes a horse head, so as not to spook other horses.

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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.

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.

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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.

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.

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...

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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.

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!

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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…

Plus…

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."

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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?

This episode floats into all sorts of things:

Did we pronounce his name right? Questionable. We tried hard.

Letter to Apple's Tim Cook

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!

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.

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.)

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