You're listening to Breakpoint This Week, where we're going to talk about the top stories of the week from a Christian perspective. Today we're going to talk about reactions to the Clancy trial, euthanasia in the UK, as well as artificial intelligence. We have a lot to get to this week. We're so glad that you're here with us. Stick around.
John, great to see you. Great to be with you. I can't believe it that this is actually the first time we've ever been together on Breakpoint this week. Are you getting sentimental already? Yeah, already.
You know, I'm going to tear up before we get finished, but it's going to be a little bit more.
Well, let's move on then. Yeah, it's been a busy week. Lots going on in the news, you know, lots to talk about today. You know, one of the things. that everyone's talking about is the Clancy trial.
And just the um Events that have transpired, the trial itself. But, John, as we look at this and as you think about this, what I'm curious is: you know, we didn't just arrive here. This has been something that's been building from a long time in the culture, kind of a cultural mood and a cultural moment. How do you make sense of what's happening? Yeah, there's a lot here that I think is beyond the knowledge of of pundits or Beyond the space of the show, as well, people have very strong opinions about this, and people have been following it very closely.
And I haven't. I didn't sit through the trial. A lot of people who are really sure what happened didn't sit through the trial. Either. And I guess I'm not as interested in that.
At some level, that's kind of a Neil Postman response. One of the things that. Neil Postman talked about in Amusing Ourselves to Death is that with the onset of mass media, That people will quote unquote stay informed on things, and then that will be an illusion that they. Have actually done something, or that a story that happens around the world is actually something that affects them.
Now, obviously, we live in a global world where stories that happen around the world do affect us. I'm not sure that this one falls into that category. But for me, I think the more instructive thing has to do with the cultural reaction. I want to make a connection, and I got to do it kind of carefully because I don't want to say it's a little bit of a stretch, but I think it's a parallel, but it deals with something a lot more. or it deals with something very troubling.
As this case does. Back twenty years ago or so, right? I think it was. In a sense, before at the very beginning when I started to do Breakpoint This Week and started to work with Chuck Colson. Uh it was at the uh Uh Time at the rise of the gay rights movement, the push for same-sex marriage.
And there were many people that were making predictions that once same-sex marriage was legalized, the next thing would be. Uh pedophilia. the sexualization of children. I think what we have seen is that there has been certainly a slippery slope. Yeah.
Polyamory, but the push towards pedophilia was a little bit different than people. Predicted at the time, I didn't think it did because I thought, you know, the Christian. conscience that had been introduced into Western civilization a long time ago and the protection of children was so innovative and so much better than anything that paganism ever had to offer. We're not going to go there. But we did go there.
We didn't go there in kind of the traditional route. We went there through drag queen story hours. We went. There through the Hypersexualization of children at a really young age through state forces like education. sex education push from kindergarten all the way through 12th grade, starting you know, helping kids question their bodies and so on.
And that's how it happened. This week I saw in the Christian century, which is the Probably the m the most predominant magazine or journal for Protestant liberals. Protestant liberal Christian denominations. And I use the word Christian now pretty lightly. Because there was a scholar that made a case for polyamory.
He He argued that You know, well, maybe, you know, we're too hastily judging this. Maybe the Bible wasn't as clear as we thought it was. God is always doing a new thing, so there's a trajectory hermeneutic there. And I read that thing and thought, this is exactly. What was put into the water?
for the embrace of same-sex marriage and the expansion of embracing These alternative sexual identities within Protestant liberalism, from marriage to ordination. In other words, We always talk about these slippery slopes and and critics will say, well, that's a logical fallacy because it doesn't happen. Or because it's not necessary, and it's not necessary logically, but it always seems to happen culturally. Especially when the things are put into the water, the ideas, the practices, the changes are put into the water, and it greases the skids. you know, so much.
I just have to say this. There's a lot that I don't know about Massachusetts law. What the jurors were bound to. There's a lot I don't know about the. Standout juror.
He's, you know, now these jurors are becoming public and people are publicly doxing them and identifying them. There's a lot of troubling things around how this whole thing is being shaped. But the the justifications for this horrific act that was done to these children. are the same justifications that are used to say we have to have abortion on demand. It was put into the water, over the last fifty years.
After The Dobbs decision came out. Ryan Anderson and Alexandra DeSanctis wrote a uh a book called Where the subtitle was How Abortion Has Has Poisoned Everything. In other words, it's not just the tragedy of abortion and the millions of lost lives, as if that weren't enough in and of itself. It's that there are ways of thinking, ways of seeing. Ways of thinking about children, ways of thinking about women, ways of thinking about healthcare, ways of thinking about all kinds of stuff that are now.
fully immersed into the cultural waters. And that's going to have And a fact And The move to justify something is crazy. And the slippery slope that people have been predicting for a long time with abortion is that it's. It's going to lead to infanticide because there's really not a difference between the 18 or so inches when a child is in the womb and a child is outside. The womb.
We know, for example, that in Roman civilization, it wasn't just abortion that was legal and morally and socially acceptable. It was also infanticide, the practice of exposure, throwing children out that are unwanted because of deformity, because of A disability because of that, they were just girls instead of boys. That that was completely morally, socially. legally acceptable in that context. And Christians brought a moral conscience to the world in a way that no other religion and worldview had.
Certainly in the Israeli context, in the Jewish context, it did for that nation. Christianity did it for the world. Did it for everywhere that it went and made a big impact. It continues to do that. We don't argue about whether to help the poor anymore.
We argue about. How to help the poor. But ideas have consequences, and bad ideas have victims, and the bad ideas. that drove the abortion debate forward. Are being resurrected in this context.
Now, is it going to have a larger cultural effect? Does that change what the verdict should or should? I'm not making that argument. All I'm saying is, this is the way slippery slopes happen. And I think it's something we should be aware of, and yes, alarmed by that somehow we're saying that because Of mental health and well-being, and so on, that this is no longer a crime.
It's one thing to say.
Well, look, she didn't get the help that she needed. All that. None of that I'm speaking to. All I'm speaking to is those who are actually saying it's not a crime. because of xyz.
Just know That's the same argument. that came out. I'll say one more thing, and I know I've talked for a long time, but let me say one more thing. The person who has trained more pro-life advocates in how to. Defend the humanity and value and worth of the pre-born than anyone else I know is Scott Glusendorf.
And he oftentimes uses a tactic called trot out the toddler. In other words, when you're having a conversation with someone. who is advocating for abortion, trot out the toddler. Say, well, would this apply to a two-year-old? You know, he has a funny way of saying it.
And now that I have a boy in my house, this. This example lands a lot more strongly. He's like, you know, if you're sitting, if you're at the kitchen sink, and you're washing dishes and your little boy walks up behind you and says Hey dad, can I kill this? There's a really important question you have to ask next. What is it?
If it's a cockroach, yeah. If it's the neighbor's cat, no. You know, I mean, you make these distinctions based on what it is, and that's the fundamental question. And that's the power of Trot Out the Toddler. You trot out the toddler and say, if I can't do it to the toddler, I can't do it.
to to the pre-born. I just was struck by how many people on the other side are trotting out the toddler. and saying, well, hey, if it was okay for me to Into life inside the womb, if that somehow provides a level of moral justification. And not everyone's saying that. Not everyone who's on the side of Lindsey Clancy is saying that, but some are.
And if it's okay there, then it should be okay with the toddler. You see what I mean? In other words, it's the trot out the toddler that's been reversed. And that's how culture moves. That's how culture shifts.
There's a shift in the moral imagination. You look back, this is what Tom Holland has been writing about: that Christianity did for the West, so shifted the moral imagination. And what we have seen. in the last especially 40, 50, 60 years. In a Western culture, specifically in American culture, is a shift of the moral imagination.
And these stories aren't irrelevant to that shift.
Well, and that holds true for what we're seeing overseas. The UK, the Netherlands, you know, there was some news there. I mean, Life is life. pre-born life all the way to the end of life. I'm sure you saw the case where the UK reversed its assistance in dying.
uh bill in legislation So how do you, how do you as how should we as Christians develop a I guess a coherent worldview Of life from beginning to end, because it sounds compassionate. I mean, that's the other end of that spectrum. It's compassionate to help this person who's old. And maybe is suffering to die. That's the argument that's used on the other side.
So, how should Christians think about that both for the pre-born and end of life?
Well, first of all, it's part and parcel of the same conversation about what it means to be human, what gives life value, when does life lose value? What does it mean to be made in the image of God? What are the public ramifications of that? Why can't our faith remain private? It's because we're talking about public truths like this.
So, all of that has to be the start of the conversation. And also, as the moral imagination shifts within a cultural setting, it's less like a car headed down a highway, and it's more like a Uh a a boat in a stormy ocean, you know, you might go. 10 feet one way and then 4 feet back. And that's what we're seeing in euthanasia.
So it's been a big, big week as far as doctor-assisted suicide or euthanasia goes. We have places that have already legalized. uh medical assistance in dying or whatever nomenclature, I often say that that there there's nothing in that that title that's true. It's not medical, it's not assistance, and it's not in dying, it's to die. You know, but but that's the the new language of this.
We had a place like the Netherlands where we had another story. of someone who Uh did not have the ability To consent to sign on. This was done without their knowledge, certainly without their will. We're talking about a minor. Uh we were told.
In all the nations in which medical assistance in dying or euthanasia. Was passed as legislation that this just That has to do with who is going to suffer and the choices between suffering Endlessly, he's going to die, or she is going to die anyway.
So, why suffer needlessly?
Now, there's a lot. That that word suffer needlessly is carrying in that sentence. And that reflects a view of what it means to be human and what brings meaning and purpose to human life as well. But we were just never told that it was going to be children. We were never told that it was going to be people who didn't have consent.
We were never told that it was going to involve people who aren't. Suffering towards death, but they just have a quote-unquote hopeless condition, something from which they'll never. get better. And if that sh alarms you, it should, because a lot of us have conditions that we just live with day to day. And suffering, you know, when it becomes unbearable suffering, that's.
You know, that's a pretty subjective category as well. I mean, we all know people who are. Who don't really suffer that much, but you talk to them and they're the most miserable people on earth. And then you also have people who have suffered their whole lives and they're unbelievably strong. And their character and their positive outlook.
All of these things are just kind of moving categories. And in that context, there's always gonna be more and more and more people subjected to a culture. of of death. In Great Britain this week, They went backwards and they did not pass the doctor assisted suicide.
Well, praise God. There were tireless advocates who worked really hard, and there's been some. thought pieces on how they were able to stop that in Parliament. But you also need to know, as we were having this conversation in our editorial meeting this week. Um, this is the second time it's gone, it'll go back there again, and we have seen.
uh liberal and progressive ideals politically And dehumanizing ideas in any sort of moral sense go forward the second, third, or fourth time. There's a relentlessness there. Especially when it touches so close to the heart of the idea itself. Meaning comes from autonomy. in this religious worldview of progressivism or liberalism.
It has to be there is no God above me. It is essentially a systematic violation of the First Commandment. There is no God above me. have to have the the power to decide. If you're thinking that this child in the Netherlands Who was victimized because of this euthanasia law didn't have the ability to decide?
You're exactly right. Because autonomy Put forward always has to involve autonomy for some but not for others, autonomy for me, but not for thee. It becomes essentially a power struggle. to some degree. But That's at least a lesson when we look at this of how culture moves, how the moral imagination shifts.
It shifts. It it goes back and forth. And when these ideas are put into the cultural waters, they do bear fruit. If they're good ideas, it's good fruit. If it's bad ideas, it's bad fruit.
So, so John, I mean, when you think through those, for the, I'll just call it the average Christian out there that may be listening, you know, my Uncle Lou. Uncle Lou is sitting there and he's going, okay, but I don't have anything to do with Great Britain. This is tragic that happened. You know, what should the, I'll call it the average, normal, everyday Christian that's thinking through this. One, how do we develop a coherent view of why this matters?
So that it still feels compassionate, because again, that's. That's always the argument. And two, like, what should we actually do? What are ways that we can prepare both as a church and as individuals in our calling for this.
Well, you know, Johnny Erickson Tata has often said that culture moves like molasses, you know, and it's slow, but it does move in a direction, a molasses flow. And uh We all can play a role in shaping where that goes. Chuck Colson would say it's over the backyard fence. It's around the barbecue grill. But it has to involve at the very beginning thinking about our faith.
uh in public terms, not just private terms. Or, not just personal terms. The Christian faith is the personal revelation. It centered around the personal revelation of God to his creation.
So that we can be made right with God through the work of Jesus Christ.
So that you can be made right with God and I can be made right with God. But that all of that is built on a framework of who God is. And what kind of being God is, that A, a moral being, B, a revelatory being. He wants us to know Him, so much so that He came in flesh, but Jesus came in flesh in the real world. This is not just like my personal Jesus, you know.
It's the Jesus of Nazareth of history. You know, it's interesting that the creeds, I was thinking about this on Sunday morning as we were repeating the Nicene Creed. in our worship service, that there's that statement in there. Pontius Pilate, you know, of all the guys to be included in the great statement of the Christian faith, that dude, right? Why?
Well, because it historically places Jesus in real time and real place. And all we're saying here is that this is a real world faith. It's not a faith of personal preference. It's not a faith of, you know, how I get meaning in my own life, although it can give you meaning for your life. It is a statement.
It is a Christianity is a Religion of reality. It happened in history. And the events that took place around Jesus reverberate throughout the entire. All all of human history. And It is fixing the world that God made.
It's fixing the creatures that God made in his image. This is why there's so many rewords in the New Testament.
So I think Fleshing out, being intentional. That we flesh out. What it is. that we believe in the implications Of that belief has got to be the first start. We hear a lot.
Like, oh, well, that's practically what I should do, practically what. If we're not thinking clearly, the most practical thing we can do is think clearly. Think clearly, right? Yeah. Right.
Yeah. It's like, look. It's like practically, you know, how do I drive from here to California?
Well The first thing is. If you're Windshield's dirty and you can't see out of it because it's raining. The most practical thing you can do is clarify your vision by turning on the windshield wipers. That's the sort of thing we think is really important at the Coulson Center: is like we got to think clearly. We're going to talk in a bit about AI, you know.
I mean, to think clearly about AI. Is the first step before we know, hey, should I get the new iPhone that is going to be released, I guess, what, next week or the next week, or something like that? It's pretty soon. And it's going to put AI in the hands of every American that has an iPhone, which is an awful lot of Americans. That's a whole new level of.
out of adoption, right?
So I need to think clearly before I decide whether or not to buy the iPhone and upgrade, right? I need to think clearly before I decide. You know, to like Grok write my paper or my sermon or my Sunday school lesson. I need to think clearly about. Thing about AI and the role that it plays, because maybe I'll turn around and not do that.
This is a great time to mention an upcoming short course that the Coulson Center is offering on AI and wisdom. Because really, worldview is wisdom. And the wisdom of what it means to be human has to do with work, it has to do with worship, it has to do with our relationships, how we relate to one another. And we're going to put AI in that larger context and talk about whether AI serves our humanity or violates our humanity. That's what that short course is really all about.
So that's upcoming. We want to invite people. We've already got a great response to that short course, but it's all part of this whole process. Like we got to think clearly first about these things so then we know how to live. I mean, I don't have any problem whatsoever seeing how the what's happening in England, what's happening in the Netherlands applies to to to Colorado.
Because we also have doctor-assisted suicide here. But one of the things you can, and we also have some alarming cases of when it was pushed forward on financial for financial purposes. But I also think that there's a lot of states That are also debating. We maybe could learn from how from the UK on the most powerful and effective strategies and arguments that they use to turn that back. Because this is a movement that tends to lie dormant for a couple of years and then comes with a fury.
With all this compassionate language, as if people have forgotten what the headlines really are.
Well, and I think, John, that's part of the challenge that we have with AI. I mean, I think this is going to be the gap that bridges us from. Both the idea of assistance in suicide, assistance in death. you know, compassion of death and we're going to move into transhumanism. at light speed.
It's going to get its foothold in the medical space probably first, right? The ability to help people, enhance people who wouldn't want people to be able to hear or see. And then we're just going to kind of take off from there. I mean, yeah, I just saw this commercial. You probably know about this as a Microsoft guy, but.
Um Last night, Sarah and I were just kind of blown away that Metaglasses. is being they're being provided to blind veterans. In the commercial is you know this blind vet who's able to pick out the right color shirt and Find the flag that he could salute to. And you're like, how do you argue with that? Right.
I mean, this is amazing. Yeah. Yeah, and it's going to be a difficult space. And I think back to your point, this is why Christians have to. Have clarity on the issues.
We need to be engaged. We need to be thinking about it. And really lead with our faith first. I mean, I think that's always the kind of challenge is making sense of it, but then leading with it. As we get ready for a new school year, I'm reminded of the crucial role educators play in shaping the next generation.
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Your Gift Today can help equip more Christian educators and through them, reach thousands of students with the Christian worldview. Help us bring academic affiliates to more schools across the country. Give Today at ColsonCenter.org slash September. You had mentioned AI. I'm looking forward to jumping into this one and our AI short course.
For those of you that want to go sign up, it's at Colsoncenter.org/slash forum.
So you can go to colsoncenter.org slash forum. We do have a great lineup for that. But John, people that may be afraid of AI, because this week the headlines are, you know, AI is going to kill us, we're all dead. It's just the headlines this week. Yeah, you know, the doomsday scenario, which is not new.
We've heard these types of scenarios.
Well, why do you think it was louder this week? There were you know, you had a a a guy from Anthropic and a guy from OpenAI won that was branded in the articles as a whistleblower, right? saying, you know, hey, they're trying to keep this to you, but We're all going to die within a decade, I think he said.
Something like that. Why was it so loud this week?
Well, I I think it's loud for a couple of reasons. One, I do think there's some legitimate safety concerns that people are finally waking up to with AI. both around how models are being trained, how they're being used, but more importantly, Access to children, guardrails, safety nets, you know, what we keep in and out of AI, the policing of the data. I mean, we could go on and on. But then I think the the the second side of this uh equation where I'm a l Always interested in following the money as a business guy.
You know, that both these companies are getting ready to do IPOs, raise a ton of money. If you look at Anthropic, they're really positioning themselves as, hey, we care about humanity. We're willing to slow things down. Look at the evil people from OpenAI and Chat GPT. They started as a non-profit, but now they're for-profit.
You can't trust them, but you can trust us because we're kind of blowing the whistle and. We're taking these safeguards. I think a lot of it is what a great way to raise capital. Right. Just create alarm, create we have to do it.
So you're pretty cynical and skeptical. I mean, we heard that a lot this week in response. I was watching a pretty robust conversation. And this is turning political as well, right? Because you have the president that is saying, he actually said this week that the concerns about AI are a hoax.
And then you have the, it's become a wonderful political football. At some points, the only thing that I can find right now that the right and left seem to agree on, but also not always. uh about data centers going into communities and things like that but then there's kind of the cynical response that people that are asking for government regulation. Within some of these AI companies, they're doing it to position themselves to get the government money. to get the government approval to shut down their opponents.
And if they really wanted to regulate, why don't they self-regulate? That's it. Why don't they self-regulate? They have the capabilities and and the ability. And don't get me wrong, I'm a little bit cynical on the timing.
Right, because th this stuff has been out there and no one has has raised the alarm. You know, prior to now, there's been a few whistleblowers, but it's also kind of interesting when you dig behind the fact that. They're incentivized to not blow the whistle. And then, you know, once their options vest, Then all of a sudden they care about humanity. I'm like, well, how about we care about humanity if this is really that dangerous before our options vest?
And then I'd believe you even more. But I mean, let's not make any mistake about it. I think AI is going to be incredibly dangerous. Not because AI itself is incredibly dangerous, it's because the people that have access to it and use it. It does enhance our capabilities from a technology standpoint.
Just think of something as simple as basic hacking. You know, the ability to hack what used to be government. right you'd had to have massive servers and big computers and You know, was Chinese or the Russians hacking Americans and that type of thing?
Well, now, you know, a 15-year-old that understands coding, has access to AI, can create agents. They can they can take off. I mean, so the The scale of what sin uh can be magnified and amplified will be, you know, kind of through the roof. I think the second thing with AI that we have to think through is that It's a system. It's not just a tool.
It's not just a simple technology. I mean, Uh narrow field intelligence is embedded in everything now. Um you know the you think about multi-factor authentication the annoying little Things where you have to prove her you're a human and not a robot. Proven to robots that you're not a robot is uh John Mulhane. What's his name?
The John Mulhaney or something whoever that comedian is said. Yeah, and yeah, so so that thing uh that that's a real thing and it's already there. The the interesting piece with AI is the more that um generative AI kind of goes into existence, to me the the the question becomes what happens when we begin to trust the AI more than we trust anything else around us? How does reality get reshaped when AI is the thing providing information to us. This gets into the wisdom conversation.
you know, that we've been having around the Coulson Center and and what we're getting ready to do with our AI forum or breakpoint forum. Wisdom is going to be, I think, the most important commodity of the day for Christians because. We're going information knowledge, it's ubiquitous. It's everywhere. That's why the value of it's dropping.
I think. Part of the reason that colleges and universities are struggling, besides the enrollment cliff, is that. people devalue it because you can get it anywhere and everywhere. But can you really make sense of it, right? Do they know how to use it?
But we had a listener right in on this AI thing, and I'd love for you to kind of feel this one. I'm not gonna read the whole question. But their question really gears around: one, if all these algorithms and all these things are that dangerous. You know, we've seen this. They said it's going to kill everybody.
Of course, they don't tell us how. But we hear these kind of, I'll call it more of these doom day scenarios. What do these say about John, our worldview as a culture when we get all up into arms about? About death.
Well, you know, listen, something can be dangerous and not be, you know, an extinction level. Yeah. And that's the The thing that I'm not hearing is making that distinction. I mean, listen. uh the threat of nuclear war Was an extinction level threat, right?
Where you had basically two nations and two bleeders with their fingers on a button, and there was this escalation that took place because of that. That's different than the danger, which was very real of a nuclear reactor in a particular part of the world like Chernobyl. Melting down, right? You're talking about nuclear energy, but you're talking about different threat levels, and that's different. Than if it happens somewhere else where the danger can be mitigated.
What we heard this week was extinction level. Catastrophism. We heard that in the same sort of Tangible terms that we have heard climate change was going to be. This is extinction level. We're killing ourselves, kind of.
language. That's a whole nother level. of uh doomsday scenario, you know, to to the question that we got. That I don't think Christians can entertain. That's just not a Christian.
framework now you know we did hear From someone who, and maybe we'll get to this question later, about our idea that we should tend to the culture and that we should be involved in stewarding the creation. That's just not a Christian position because the Christian position is God's going to blow everything up in the end times. I disagree strongly with that assertion. I don't think he's right about that. Because what I think the Bible talks about is the story of humanity going from the creation to the new creation, from the heavens and earth to the new heavens and new earth.
Not that the world blows up, but that God restores the heavens and earth and then moves. And makes his dwelling among men. That seems to be the message of Revelation.
Now, You know, to what degree the old world is destroyed in that process, that's the stuff that folks argue about over eschatology. But the doomsday scenario is really built on a world view. in which everything can go wrong in a split second. And that has been dramatically enhanced and enabled by the evolutionary scenario. in which there's no mind, there's no purpose driving forward the biological Development or the development of biological life.
There's no. mind or purpose or design behind it. It's just a series of accidents. You know, Stephen Jay Gould, who was probably the top evolutionary theorist of the mid-20th century and late 20th century, you know, has this great mind. He goes, We're only here because an odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that they transformed into legs for terrestrial creatures.
And the Earth never fully froze entirely during the ice age. And a small and tenuous species that arose in Africa somehow managed to survive by hook and by crook. He it's just this, like we have no We should not be here. One little thing had gone differently, and the whole thing would have been kablooey, or we would have never made an appearance. That sort of Tedious and tenuousness of that sort of like life in the balance framework.
Makes catastrophism. inevitable, right? It actually makes it Likely that we're going to screw something up at some point, you know? And when we do, Then it's all going to go kablooey. And so I think that that catastrophism.
is built on a alternative telling of creation. It's also Built. On alternative way of thinking about the fall.
So, if you think, for example, about the Babel narrative. in scripture. A lot of times you you know, get the telling of that story. In sermons and Sunday school lessons, like God got really mad at their tall building. And that's not really what happened.
His division of the language, was not a punishment. It was an accommodation. He actually says, it's an incredible passage where God looks at their project, the Babel project, and goes, hey, listen. If we're going to confuse their language, because if we don't, then as one people speaking the same language, anything they think up will be possible. And they should not do everything that comes into their mind is basically the implication.
And so, and by the way, he had actually told the descendants of Noah coming out of the ark. Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, spread out over the earth. That Babel narrative begins with this pretty important detail that they don't spread out, they gather together. And that's not what he wants. His plan is for humans to caretake his entire universe.
That's still the plan after the fall like it was. Before the fall, this is just what the text itself says.
So, God is accomplishing His creative purposes now, even through. Humans. That Yeah, could do some really dumb things and self-destructive things.
So, my point is. Is that the biblical understanding of God dealing with his world after the fall is a series of accommodations, a series of stepping in, the miraculous? Of course, that ultimately happens in the purpose and work of Jesus Christ, who kind of initiates a whole new world, makes a new humanity. To a new church or a church that is an expression of a new humanity.
So, This is a level of God superintending his world.
So, not only do you have a world that's created with purpose, you have a world that's now superintended. By God. And we also know. from the biblical narrative where it's headed. There's no place that it's headed.
In a naturalistic framework, you don't have God. You have what Henry Ford said about history: that it's just one darn thing after another. It's not headed in any direction. That narrative makes catastrophism the most likely outcome. And I think the alarm.
That you hear. I mean, think about. The irrational And the mental health but people have noticed about somebody like Greta Thunberg. this young girl who has been convinced that the world's going to be come to an end and it's all our fault. She just is not okay.
Listen. It's your way of thinking about reality. If you think all of reality is on the precipice of disaster all the time. You might be super smart like Stephen Jay Gould. You might be super smart.
like some of these AI transhumanist or post-humanist. that are driving these companies, And that's driving your catastrophic vision. And it also, I think, sells well. To a culture that has been in many ways dominated by this kind of perpetual search for meaning and. you know, this rejection of anything given in the created order.
I think catastrophism sells in a secular society, but I don't think catastrophism is an option. For Christians. I don't think catastrophe is what we know about the world. There was a big catastrophe in the flood. There are many, many other catastrophes that.
Jesus talked about there's going to be wars, rumors of wars and floods, and all that's going to happen. But the but that These things Are not outside the purposes of God. They're not outside the purposes of where history is headed. Under his superint intending. And that's the framing that we have to have.
We talk about, we got to keep the story in the moment straight. AI is an incredible Development in the history of the world, but it's still part of this moment. It's not the story, the story is bigger than AI. And we have to keep that moment and story straight here, just like we have to do with. You know, uh climate change or any anything else that scares the you know, the the the the the stuff out of people.
Yeah, and I think what you're saying, John, is that as Christians, we have to be people of hope, and our hope is.
Well, that's ultimately the story. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're people that believe in hope. I think, you know.
Chuck said sin, despair is a sin because we're people of hope. We believe in the resurrection. Uh, we believe in God's restoration of the world, you know. But I do think, if I can say, Pete, is that you know, and you alluded to this already, that doesn't mean that there's not a real danger, that doesn't mean that our Our actions here are irrelevant. That's the weird thing about the biblical story.
Is a lot of these other religions that try to posit these meta-narratives in terms of like. Here's the whole story of the world, a theory of everything, so to speak. You know, humans either are. The only ones responsible for where it's going are humans have no responsibility whatsoever, kind of in some form of stoicism or fatalism. But Christianity holds this together: that our actions actually matter, and that there's still a God overseeing and superintending everything.
So we do have to think, well, About this, you offered a distinction that I think is absolutely essential. And it's not a new distinction. In the information age, but it's more important now than ever in the AI age. which is distinguishing between information and wisdom. It's very, very easy in a culture like ours to distinguish between information and wisdom.
Uh we have to put our minds around around what wisdom is. I think One of the ways that we can talk about that is to say one of the risks of AI is elevating AI. to how we think. About humanity, as if AI is human. It'll never be human, and we should not make it human.
There is a hierarchy to the created order. We need to hold that firmly.
So we should not confuse AI with being made in the image of God. On the flip side, and this is something we've seen with technology throughout the Industrial Revolution and before. It's something that the scripture talks about in Psalm 135, that we become what we worship. If we start to give a level of allegiance and loyalty to AI, one of the effects. will be That we will start to dehumanize people.
We will start to see not only AI and the image of God as a human, but we'll start to see humans as nothing more. We'll evaluate it in the same way that we evaluate our technologies. You know, it's valuable only if it's functional. It's valuable only if it gives me what I want when I want it. It's valuable only if it.
is intelligent in that sense. We've always had that struggle of dehumanizing people according to whatever technologies or technological frameworks are driving our society forward.
So I think there's a dual risk here, and Christians of all people should have the wisdom to keep straight. The difference of AI and what it means to be human. And that's going to be at the core of what it means to be a redemptive. force as the church is supposed to be in culture. Yeah, and I think, John, that ties back into really everything we've been talking about today, which is life.
Like, we have to understand the value. of life, the value of embodiment as as humans. I was thinking about Proverbs 9, 10 and I was just with our friends down at CMDA yesterday speaking on this around AI. It says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
That idea that wisdom, knowledge, and understanding are in tandem, but The foundation of that, the very first thing is if we don't have a grounding in who God is. in a grounding in that Genesis 2.7 Kind of narrative where God breathes life into man and man becomes living. Like that. That is the root that we as Christians have to be anchored in because we have a living God. Yeah, one of the folks who's going to be joining us for the short course has made me think about this in a new way.
Chamberlain Rose is One of the uh speakers for for the the upcoming AI short course. And he has, I think, and rightly so, kind of warned, like, Listen, it If AI gets to the point in its power that it seems omnipotent. and seems omniscient. And is everywhere we want to be omnipresent? Those are the, you know, listen, that's what I learned.
Didn't you learn that in seminary? Like, oh, you know, what do we know about God?
Well, He's omniscient, He's omnipotent, He's omnibenevolent. Um, and you know, we have AI telling us exactly what we want, exactly us, you know, like, oh, that's such a good question, even if it was a dumb question, as Bill Maher said not too long ago. It's not hard to see how humans could lack the imagination. And and give AI not only human like status, but godlike status. You're right that it all begins.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning. Of wisdom. You get God right in our worldview before we get anything else right. And that always obviously is the most important thing to God. I, you know, often talk about.
How important it is. Framing of what it means to be human down. But one of the things you got to remember about Genesis 1 and 2. Is who were the first recipients of Genesis 1 and 2, and that were the Israelites coming out of Egypt, right? This is before God gives them the.
or part of the well, it is part of the law, but before God tells them how to behave in the law. God tells a group of people who had been in Egypt, which was polytheistic. and enslaved there, which is you know and that creates a vision of the kind of world you live in. Before God tells them how to behave, he tells them who he is, what the world is, and who they are. He gives them a new theology first, a new cosmology second, a new anthropology third.
And now he's like, now based on that, here's what it means that you're going to be my people, right? And I think that. Everywhere through scripture, getting God right is where it all begins. It all starts with. Here's what you need to know about God, and it has to do with God's own character.
being willing to be known, wanting to be known. Even as often as we screw that up, he wants to be known. And so getting God, right first is how you get humans right, and it's how you keep this hierarchy of creation. in order that Uh that that's a wordy way of saying world view, I think. Yeah, absolutely.
But it's a good way of saying worldview.
So that's good.
Well done on that one.
So, John, as we close out this conversation on AI, there's a lot to learn. We're going to have more conversations about AI at the Coulson Center. One of those is going to be our forum, which you mentioned. Chandler Rose is one of the speakers for that. He's fantastic.
If people want to sign up for that, you can go to colsoncenter.org slash forum. And learn more about AI. I think we were doing that for four weeks. It's worth mentioning some of the other folks that are going to be joining us. Claire Morrell from the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
Andy Crouch, who has written a lot on technology and humanity and wisdom, I think has a lot to offer. And then also Jonathan Pageot, who spoke at our conference. A couple years ago at the Colson Center National Conference, and was a surprise hit. I mean, as an artist, he's just, he thinks differently, and he has been talking. a lot recently.
about AI. And human distinction, and in a way that is unusual, and I think really helpful. Who am I? Why am I here? Does my life matter?
Only the Christian worldview provides rock-solid truth about who we are and why we're here. Truth Rising the Study will help you understand human identity through the essential relationships for a Christian, starting with our relationship to God. Start the study today at colsoncenter.org/slash study. That's colsoncenter.org/slash study.
So, John, let's. We've had a pretty heavy morning, but let's transition to some new data that. Barna came out with that is a little surprising in a good way and. Dads may interpret this, dads of boys versus dads of girls may interpret this data a little differently. But I think it's a win no matter how you interpret it.
And that is that More people are showing up to youth groups. What I'm curious: one, what's your take on that? Is it a legitimate kind of thing? Is you're meeting with. People in that Gen Z group.
Two, what does it mean that young men are now showing up into youth groups more than even young ladies? You know, there's been so much anecdotal evidence, and then there are these kind of random studies, and then you have kind of the meta-studies that. Folks like Ryan Burch, you know, point to to say, yeah, there's a There there's movement, but it's You know, the movements canceling out each other. You know, there's just as many people leaving the church, especially young people, as joining. Yeah, there's more young men, but less young women.
You know, there's different ways to understand this. And People who want to kind of call this a revival. It's probably a little too premature to, you know, to do that. But God is certainly doing something with an awful lot of people. And a lot of times you see this kind of rumbling.
before you see a big movement. And I'm adopting here the the way of thinking about A work of God that comes from the way that Christians in America long have, thanks to guys like Jonathan Edwards, who talked about the surprising work of God. In the colonies prior to the revolution. It's interesting because it's a way of thinking about how God moves. In a nation, in a land, in a cultural moment, you know, that is distinct to evangelicalism.
And so, anyway, that's a whole nother conversation. I enjoy that history because it's pretty fascinating. Um You also have, I think, biblical support for that sort of understanding.
So, the question is: can we apply that today? You know, I've shared the anecdote for a long time. We've got a whole row of young men at our church that have been there for the last couple of years. Are they care a lot? They show up, they're polite, they're respectful, they're curious, they want to learn, they're at different stages of their own.
journey and we don't have. a row of young women at our church in the same way.
Now, there could be other reasons for that. We might be an outlier. You might go to another church across town and see far more. But you have a lot of other indicators that young men and young women are headed in a different direction and they're views of politics in particular. but also in their views of of certain moral issues.
that you have these kind of cultural Storms or cultural big stories, like the Lindsey Clancy thing, that shows how dramatic that divide can be. At some level, that's certainly been one of the features is that men and women have come down on different sides of this. You could also point to the WNBA and see the same thing. There's just a lot to take in.
So I think it's still a little bit early, but this one was interesting in the sense that it shows that it's more than just anecdotal, that overall, you know, you may not have. the the overall growth of youth groups and the overall growth of churches that we would like to see, but you are seeing some serious and significant movement. That's something that's reflected, I think, across different Christian denominations. Particularly the more conservative ones. In a couple weeks, I'm going to be with a An incredible ministry called Awana.
I grew up in Awana.
Some people did. I'm going to be speaking at their child discipleship forum. And I'm really curious myself of just hearing more. What are they saying and seeing? Because of This sort of, you know, these all these stories that are out there.
Are we actually seeing more young people come to church? Is that what they're seeing on the ground?
So, maybe I can report back a little bit more after that. Yeah, it'll be great to hear that. I know people are closely following this. And, you know, one of the things, kind of even back to AI, though, is. I'm like, whether there's a slight uptick, whether it's real or not real, it's happening.
It's happening in pockets. And I just keep encouraging. pastors and friends of mine in the church, it's embrace it. These young men are looking for leadership. They're looking for guidance.
If they're there, embrace them. I mean, I think this is one of the golden opportunities we're going to have with AI. I get the sentiment that a lot of these kids have been left feeling empty from social media. They recognize those relationships are not real. They're craving something deeper.
And I'm like, the church may have the greatest kind of evangelistic discipleship opportunity. that we've seen in our lifetime just by giving people authentic, real Humans to interact with. It could be an upside of this whole kind of AI. um transhumanistic approach that is so prevalent out there. Yeah, and and some of the other indicators that are interesting too.
is that When they do come, they're looking.
something deep, they're looking for something robust. And that's really, I think, challenging the model within evangelicalism that's been dominant for so long, which has been more kind of seeker-friendly. You know, things. I mean, I remember having this conversation in seminary. You know, well, listen, if a cross.
It's just kind of negative should be take off the you know the cross from the wall.
So you can attract seekers, so you can eventually introduce them to the cross, you know. And I that I just remember that conversation being like, are we really talking about these things? But yes, we were. And a lot of people in church strategy were. And now it's kind of like people are coming, going, give me something deep, give me something serious, give me something intense.
And I know that I need something more than just something that makes me feel good. I think that's, as you said, a reflection of kind of the crisis of meaning that's. you know, bigger than the church, bigger than, but, but is affecting and has affected a lot of young people.
Well John, let's transition to a couple Questions and comments from our viewers. We love to feel these. We really do appreciate. When people respond to the show, we read all of them, so we're thankful for that. And there's so many to pick from, but we've selected a couple.
To go over this week, two that I'd love for us to get to with the remaining time that we have. I'm going to go ahead and read this and then allow you to respond. To that, this came in from somebody from a breakpoint. Commentary. And they said, please stop with the comments that hedge on we steward God's creation.
such a common misnomer among believers. We do not and cannot find a single verse which supports taking care of creation anywhere in Scripture. If God is going to totally wreck the planet in the tribulation, as plainly read in Revelation, Why would we spend any effort to preserve it? Scripture says we are stewards of the gospel, the truth, and the kingdom of God on earth, not creation.
So You want to go first?
Well yeah, I mean I've already said some. It's just the Bible the ho the whole story is about humans stewarding the creation. That's why humans were created in the first place. And it's something that was given by God very clearly. There is a verse, Genesis 1, 26, 27 and 28, Where God actually explains who humans are and what their purpose is.
on the the the planet to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. the filth the earth there was a A direct reflection of the kind of work that God was doing in Genesis 1. He was filling the darkness with light, filling the water with fish, filling the dry ground with living creatures and the upper expanse, with With birds or the lower expanse, I can't remember. There's two expanses in Genesis. I don't quite understand what it's talking about, but one of them gets birds.
That God is filling. And we know that He's filming because Genesis 1:2 says the earth was. Formless and void. It was empty and without form.
So God fills in forms until day six. Day six, he creates humans in his image and he tells them to fill in the form. That's what he tells them to do. And that is a way of stewarding the world. They're not supposed to just live in the garden, they're supposed to fill the earth and subdue it.
And the Genesis 3, when the fall happens, they are prevented from returning to the garden. That was also an accommodation, not just a punishment. I think there was punishment in there, but it was an accommodation. God actually says, we don't want them to go back and eat of the tree of life and live forever in this state.
So we're going to, death actually is an accommodation to their fallen state. And then the promise of the gospel. This is all not something I'm making up. It's not a theological interpretation. It's the plainest reading of the obvious text in Genesis 1.
It's not just something. That exists pre-fall. It also is post-fall. The filling and the forming do not get pulled out of the human purpose. Because of sin.
At the curse, the filling is going to hurt. The forming is going to be frustrating, but the filling and the forming still happens, according to what God says to the woman first and then to the man in Genesis 3 as he is dealing with their disobedience. I mentioned earlier Genesis 6, the story of the flood, the descendants of Noah get the same command. The descendants of Noah are told to spread out over all the earth. And to be fruitful and multiply and fill it and subdue it.
It's like the same language.
So here we have, after the fall, the same thing. Yeah. One of the Arguments that could be made is that, well, Jesus changes all that, right? Jesus suddenly the purposes of human beings. because of Jesus becomes Only spiritual and not physical.
That was a way of thinking about the Christian faith that the church throughout history. roundly condemned as heresy. The Heresy of Gnosticism That basically, this is about the spiritual and not the physical, that the physical is flawed. And the church fathers. And the apostles saw that as a heresy, and rightly so, because it had incredible implications.
For Jesus Christ. Basically, if you take that kind of spiritualism to the extreme that the Gnostics did. Then Jesus could not have been fully human because to be in the flesh is to be evil and to be spiritual is to be good. And everything physical is just going to burn up anyway. They condemn that as a heresy.
Jesus himself. You know, shows his physical body to Thomas and the disciples. It's notable that in his institution of communion or the Lord's Supper. He repeats the language in a restored way. That was used to Bring sin into the world.
The serpent said, Take and eat. You'll be like God. Jesus says, take and eat. This is my body broken for you. And We are also told in the new heavens and new earth that we are going to know Jesus by His scars, the body that was broken for us.
So the physical is emphasized in the person of Jesus Christ. Uh I could point to other things. But I think the Most obvious is The thing that is often used as a A way of saying what our questioner said, which is all we're called to do is to steward the gospel. I think That is the clearest statement of That where that might come from is the Great Commission. Uh Matthew 28.
In Matthew 28, Jesus says Go and make disciples. But that's the thing about Matthew. 28, I think, 18 is that it comes after verse 17. Verse 17 says, All authority has been given to me in heaven and earth, so therefore go and make disciples. They're there for, you always want to know what it's there for.
And There's somehow an obvious, I think, connection between the authority now that Jesus has in heaven and on earth. That is to be reflected. In what it means to be a disciple. I mean, after all, a disciple is someone who follows someone who's in authority. Jesus just said, all authority is mine.
At least Abraham Kuyper believed that the best way to understand that is that there's not a single square inch in the whole domain of human existence over which Jesus, who is sovereign over all, does not cry out, Mine. And so, our job as a disciple, as Chuck Coulson would say, is going to every school. domain of human existence. and cry out his. Wherever it is that we go, the Lordship.
Is of Jesus Christ wherever we go. There's no aspect of the creation that God made that because of sin now is out of control. The end story is a new heavens and new earth, not a blown up world and then just going to heaven disembodied. We have both before the fall and after the fall. direct, explicit commands in Holy Scripture, not just to the j to the Israelites, but to Humanity itself, these are statements of all of humanity.
This is what you're supposed to go do. We have In The New Testament, Paul. and numerous epistles, Romans, Ephesians. who initially Uh describes the power of the gospel and then spends the rest of the the epistle Talking about things like being a citizen, being a son, being a daughter, being a husband. being a worker, being an employee, being a slave, being a master.
This is stuff that Paul talks about very clearly. and having direct implications of the gospel.
So If the only thing we were to steward was the gospel, and the gospel should be reduced down to just how people can get to heaven and survive the tribulation. then we should all quit our jobs right now and spend all of our time talking to as many people as we can. But that's never been the way. That the work of God in the world has been presented in Holy Scripture. It's not how it started, it's not how the work of Jesus is described, and it's not how the work of of the church is described.
The work of church is described holistically in every aspect that we're humans, not just the spiritual stuff, but the physical stuff too. And if the physical stuff actually was created, by God and as part of his renewal project, and we're brought into that. Then yeah.
Now listen. Those who I think prioritize and say the only thing we should care about is stewarding the creation in terms of some ecological sense, then that is. That's wrong as well because it's the whole of human experience. But we live in a time and a place. We live in a time that we're supposed to steward in terms of its ideas and its.
cultural imagination and where it's going and also a place, real stuff. I think God cares. How we take care of the world around us. pretty obvious throughout Scripture.
So to say that there's not a verse is And the Bible that says that is just wrong. To say that all we're supposed to do, Stuart is the gospel, is to, I think, shrink the gospel. in a truncate truncated way. As if the story of Scripture is only two chapters when it's four. It's not just about that we're sinners and we need a Savior.
It's that God created humans in a particular way. Human sin broke the world in a particular way. God became flesh, a human, to bring uh redemption. And the restoration of all things is what we are told is the future.
So that's the best way, as I can see it, is understanding. The Bible, and because it's the best way of understanding the Bible, I think it's also the best way of understanding reality. including what it means to be a Christian. John, I think that's some great analysis for us to wrap up on. I think well done and well said.
Any comments? Closing items from you this week, recommendations that you have. things you were reading or want to encourage people to study or think up on?
Well, obviously, I want to recommend our Breakpoint Forum on AI and wisdom. That obviously is it goes without saying. But you know, in terms of thinking about Christianity and the faith in a holistic sort of way, there are some really wonderful resources.
Some of the classic ones, a book called Creation Regained by Al Walters, another one. Is a wonderful collection and sorry, a translation of. One of the Dutch theologians named Hermann Bawink, the wonderful works of God, that is a Big old book that you will get lost in. Obviously the Coulson Fellows. program which we have our new class that has just started just recently You know, they're wrestling with the full implications, not just in terms of how we live in the physical creation, but how we especially think about the.
All of our relationships, our relationship with God, our understanding of self, our relationship with others, both personally. and our social relationships and then our relationship with the created order. And where we fit, that's really what we're working out in that creation, fall, redemption, restoration story that the Bible tells. And so the fellows program is part of that. But to really get a taste, I mean, this is stuff that.
I think Chuck Coulson and Nancy Piercy wrote so Well, about and how now shall we live. It's a classic. It's one that a lot of people have read. It's a lot of people, it's one of those that a lot of people read. again and again because it is it goes deep and It's one of those that a lot of people tell me, man, I wish I would have read that, or I always thought I should read that.
Well, if that's you, how now shall we live? Pick it up, read it. It'll flesh a lot of this stuff out, I think, in a far more powerful way. Fantastic.
Well, thanks, John, for sharing that with us. Thanks for the opportunity to be together. It was great. I didn't even cry during the whole thing, and hopefully, we get a chance. chance to do it again.
