What Would Jesus Tech

After being laughed off in 2022, the idea of the metaverse is coming back thanks to improvements in AR, VR, and AI. Not only that, but some new chatbots on Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram are concerning.

In this episode, we are joined by digital technology writer Ian Harber to make sense of all these changes. We focus especially on Mark Zuckerberg's latest announcements and products only available in the past week. How should the church respond? What is real? And just how good or bad are these new AI Chatbots?

Ian Harber: https://substack.com/@ianharber, https://twitter.com/ianharber

0:00 - Intro

10:15 - Fast-Paced Change

17:25 - When Will The Metaverse & Metachurch Arrive?

31:52 - Recreate A Dead Relative? What is real?

38:12 - Meta Chatbot Deepdive

Links:

Ian's Deconstruction Story

How To Prepare For The Metaverse

Destroyer of The Gods by Larry Hurtado

Co-hosted by Andrew Noble and Joel Jacob in Ontario, Canada. Original Music by Abigail Neale. Website Design by Zeke Gancena. To learn more about What Would Jesus Tech and to support the show visit whatwouldjesustech.com

Andrew and Joel continue their journey reconciling their love of technology with their love of Jesus. In this episode, they reflect on what they've learned, discuss their future careers in technology and theology, and announce that they'll write a new ebook to help equip local churches to discover a Christ-centered approach to the technologies of our day.

0:00 - Intro

0:45 - Meta Metaverse Updates

3:13 - What is the goal of What Would Jesus Tech?

6:17 - What has Joel learned through WWJT?

12:41 - Joel's future building technology?

18:40 - Will Andrew write a book?

26:05 - New Idea For WWJT

34:48 - Share Your Feedback

Co-hosted by Andrew Noble and Joel Jacob in Ontario, Canada. Original Music by Abigail Neale. Website Design by Zeke Gancena. To learn more about What Would Jesus Tech and to support the show visit whatwouldjesustech.com

The social internet is shaping us, but how? Samuel D. James says, "Habits create habitats for our hearts; they shape our identity and train our desires." Today we speak with Samuel and learn how our digital habits are even more than habitats, they're liturgies.

***Enter to win a free copy of Digital Liturgies book by following and sharing our posts on social media:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/whatwouldjesustech/
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/WWJTech
• Winner will be selected on September 20th, 2023.

0:00 - Intro

2:44 - Speed Questions - Kids, Church, Writing, Blocking/Distraction App Called Freedom

5:16 - What is Digital Liturgies about?

5:48 - How The Shallows Shaped Samuel

7:35 - Why "Liturgies"?

10:27 - Our Doing Shapes Our Thinking?

15:27 - The Internet Shapes Gender?

21:42 - Wait... what's the "internet" we're talking about?

25:45 - Reading Hyperlinks & Ebooks Shape You

28:45 - The Future With AI

31:03 - Anxiety, The Failure of Therapy, and The Social Internet

43:48 - Magic Wand To Change Things?

48:59 - The Gospel Changes How We Use The Internet

53:05 - Equipping People To Think Theologically About Technology

Books/links referenced:

• Digital Liturgies: Rediscovering Christian Wisdom in an Online Age
• Digital Liturgies - Samuel's Newsletter
• You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit by James K.A. Smith
• The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr
• Terms of Service: The Real Cost of Social Media
• The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling Audio Documentary
• WWJT interview with John Dyer
• People of the Screen: How Evangelicals Created the Digital Bible and How It Shapes Their Reading of Scripture by John Dyer
• Jonathan Haidt's research on After Babel
• iGen: Why Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy--and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood--and What That Means for the Rest of Us
• Generations: The Real Differences between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents—and What They Mean for America's Future

Co-hosted by Andrew Noble and Joel Jacob in Ontario, Canada. Original Music by Abigail Neale. Website Design by Zeke Gancena. To learn more about What Would Jesus Tech and to support the show visit whatwouldjesustech.com

This is a two-part episode. This audio here on the podcast is part one, so listen in to hear more about Luke Miller and why he left his job as a Teaching Pastor to go join a startup.

Part two is over on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/RW_Ou6jKeWI

This was an amazing conversation, and you'll surely learn something from this episode from Luke Miller, our guest.

Is there a way to use AI to be more present with your local church, rather than less, and improve our digital spaces at the same time? The founder of PulpitAI, Michael Whittle, thinks so. In this episode, Joel and Andrew question Mike on the usefulness and positioning of PulpitAI, going from media ecology critiques to asking about Christian Venture Capitalists.

The announcement Mike first made on Twitter has more than 150,000 views and more than a handful of hate-tweets. But there's more to this story.

PulpitAI is a tool that takes sermon audio, analyzes it, and then creates oodles of content from devotionals, small group discussion questions, social media posts, blog posts, and more. 

• To learn more about PulpitAI, visit: https://pulpitai.com/
• You can dunk on Michael's tweets here: https://twitter.com/michaelwhittle

0:00 - Intro

2:29 - Mike's Story

5:54 - The Story Behind PulpitAI?

11:01 - Is this just ChatGPT? (it's not...)

13:30 - Why not help prepare sermons?

16:28 - How does PulpitAI reconcile the value of an embodied sermon with the detriments of social media?

22:08 - Engaging the social media space | People may not like their pastor using AI

28:28 - Mike's hesitation with PulpitAI

31:33 - Don't Trust The Headlines

33:36 - Giving AI an Orthodox Worldview

45:00 - The Christian VC Space

53:05 - The Wrestling With Theology & AI

54:25 - Would Jesus Use PulpitAI?

We feel buried, overwhelmed, crushed, or stretched... why? It is because we feel that something is being done TO us. We live in a new age, an anxious age, and it is (at least partially) the result of a preoccupation with *time* in our modern moment. Dr. Kelly Kapic has researched this topic and shared his insights earlier this year at Grandview Church.

To watch Kapic's full talk visit: https://www.grandviewchurch.ca/christinculture

Direct YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K24LJtAIzl8&ab_channel=GrandviewChurch

0:00 - Intro

3:14 - Time & What We Feel

5:25 - Contextual Time

9:03 - Clocks and Their Original Transcendent Purpose

16:25 - Cultural Time

22:35 - Efficiency and Godliness

32:15 - Time and Anxiety

33:00 - Joel and Andrew Reflect

Co-hosted by Andrew Noble and Joel Jacob. Original Music by Abigail Neale. Website Design by Zeke Gancena. To learn more about What Would Jesus Tech and to support the show visit whatwouldjesustech.com

Threads is the fast-growing app ever. Will the hype last? What will this latest algorithm do for us? What will it do to us? And how should Christians and Social Media Managers respond?

In this special episode, we brought in Chris Martin, author of Terms of Service and The Wolf In Their Pockets, along with Wyatt Graham, Executive Director of The Gospel Coalition Canada, to discuss the release of Threads.

0:00 - Intro

1:22 - What's the big deal about Threads?

6:15 - Zelda Master Sword

6:52 - What is Threads in its current form?

11:55 - What's the product roadmap? Impacts? Virtues?

30:40 - Should Christians Use Threads? Should Social Media Managers use Threads? Is it good to be an influencer?

54:01 - Social Media is more real than real life

Co-hosted by Andrew Noble and Joel Jacob. Original Music by Abigail Neale. Website Design by Zeke Gancena. This is episode 32 of What Would Jesus Tech. To learn more about What Would Jesus Tech and to support the show visit whatwouldjesustech.com

We can't just critique the effects of technology; we need to cast a vision for embodied life in our technological age. Can we do this in a way that appreciates the goodness of technology? How important is our food? Would Jesus promote food that has been processed through technology? This is episode 31 of What Would Jesus Tech.

Special thanks to Hungry Theologian for joining us on this episode! Be sure to check out and subscribe to his YouTube channel!

0:00 - Intro

7:32 - A theology of food

10:45 - Food at tech company - fake or fortune?

15:14 - Does technology help or hurt our food?

25:48 - Future of food tech & what should we do?

29:30 - Gardening is virtuous but...

32:35 - Joel's history of diets

39:12 - Narrowing Of Modern Diets

43:55 - 3D Printed Food? Impacts?

Resources references:

A Technological Society - Jacques Ellul

Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life: A Philosophical Inquiry - Albert Borgmann

Power Failure: Christianity in the Culture of Technology - Albert Borgmann

God of All Things - Andrew Wilson

AIRE 2- https://foodmarble.com/product/foodmarble-aire-2/

Co-hosted by Andrew Noble and Joel Jacob in Ontario, Canada. Original Music by Abigail Neale. Website Design by Zeke Gancena. To learn more about What Would Jesus Tech and to support the show visit whatwouldjesustech.com

Our guest today has written A Christian Field Guide to Technology for Engineers and Designers.

How do we build technology as Christians? What are the principles? Where are the goals the same and where are they different? Derek Schuurman speaks with us today about how we can imitate Jesus in how we build and design tech.

Derek C. Schuurman is a professor of computer science at Calvin University. Prior to arriving at Calvin, he worked as an engineer and taught for many years at Redeemer University. He is a fellow of the American Scientific Affiliation and an Associate Fellow of the Kirby Laing Center for Public Theology. He is the author of Shaping a Digital World: Faith, Culture and Computer Technology (IVP, 2013) and a co-author of A Christian Field Guide to Technology for Engineers and Designers (IVP, 2022).

0:00 - Intro

2:54 - PSpice and Electric Cars

4:48 - Canada vs USA (and Christian education)

7:33 - Egbert Schuurman relation?

8:33 - Design Biblically: Parapets

10:10 - A book FOR engineers and designers? Why?

17:15 - Design Norms - SO KEY!

28:36 - Holistic Worldview With Bavinck and Concern on Agile Development

34:58 - "Redemptive" technology?

36:00 - Applying Design Norms

49:25 - Dreams and Science Fiction

• Links
• A Christian Field Guide to Technology for Engineers and Designers by Derek C. Schuurman
• Shaping a Digital World: Faith, Culture and Computer Technology by Derek C. Schuurman
• Christian Worldview by Herman Bavinck
• Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O'Neil
• You Are What You Love - James K. A. Smith
• IEEE - Ethics - https://www.ieee.org/about/ethics/index.html
• AIforGood - https://aiforgood.itu.int/
• DataForGood - https://dataforgood.ca/
• AIandFaith - https://aiandfaith.org/

Co-hosted by Andrew Noble and Joel Jacob

Original Music by Abigail Neale

Website Design by Zeke Gancena

To learn more about What Would Jesus Tech and to support the show visit whatwouldjesustech.com.

This is episode 30 of What Would Jesus Tech.

Apple has just launched a brand new product that they say is as revolutionary as the iPod or iPhone, the Apple Vision Pro. It will certainly change the meta of the metaverse (pardon the pun) and is sure to impact humanity in a variety of ways. As is typical of our tech-heavy episodes, Joel Jacob shares his excitement while Andrew Noble shares his concerns.

What Would Jesus Tech is a podcast where two Christian friends think together about how Jesus would use technology if he lived today.

0:00 - Intro

1:14 - How big of a deal is this?

4:30 - Will Apple succeed where others failed?

8:30 - Eye-tracking and more cool tech

14:12 - Use case and questions of isolation

20:40 - Christian Twitter Takes?

25:30 - Contemplating the use and nature of this tech

Show notes:

- See episode 2 of the What Would Jesus Podcast - Episode 2, Morality of the Metaverse

- The Life We're Looking For by Andy Crouch

- Microsoft HoloLens 2

- MagicLeap

- Meta Quest 3

- Tesla Demo

- PS2 Eye-Tracking

Co-hosted by Andrew Noble and Joel Jacob

Original Music by Abigail Neale

Website Design by Zeke Gancena

To learn more about What Would Jesus Tech and to support the show visit whatwouldjesustech.com

This is episode 29 of What Would Jesus Tech.