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Life audio. Yeah. Hi from the Salvation Army, and you're listening to Words of Life. These are the words, these are the words, these are the words of life. These are the words, these are the words, these are the words of life.
Welcome back to Words of Life. This is part three of a three-part conversation we had with our old friend, author, professor, podcaster, Jason Thacker. Jason currently serves as an assistant professor of philosophy and ethics at Boyce College and Southern Seminary in Kentucky. He's the author of several books, including Following Jesus in the Digital Age and the Age of AI. Jason has some great resources, some great books, and a podcast, and we will have links to all of that in the show notes of this episode, so be sure to check that out.
And I also want to remind you that we have a free devotional that we would love to give to you to just help you in your prayer life.
So if that's something that interests you, Check out the show notes and we'll have a link where you can sign up for our free newsletter. And when you do so, you'll receive your free copy of this devotional in your inbox. But as always, you can check out our website to learn more and find a link to that newsletter as well: wordsoflifepodcast.org. I'm old enough being an older millennial that I can remember when Google was still pretty new. And I remember hanging out with some friends, and we were.
debating if an actor was in a movie or not. And someone then just quickly looked it up and found the answer. And my friend was like, Remember when we used to just not know? Like, we don't debate anymore because the answer's right there. And I think we kind of forget that we've sort of been struggling with this for that long.
Where, yes, the. the process of of searching the answer is Part of the point, like you said. And I think you're really onto something there, too, is to note that many of the questions we're facing with the proper or improper use of AI, moral and moral uses of AI, are actually, again, symptomatic of larger problems. This isn't just an AI thing. This isn't just a digital tool thing.
And this, especially when I speak to educators, I say a lot of the challenges we're facing in the classroom right now, honestly, have long been problems. It's just been we didn't notice it or we didn't pay attention to it. How often did you do, you've had a professor one time who's just given the same lecture for 30 plus years and never changed a single thing, never thought through how do I best teach this material rather than just kind of plug and play. This isn't an AI issue per se. This is actually something that long predated that in the information age and even before that.
Just why one of my books, following Jesus in a digital age. It's not the digital age, it's a. It's one of them. We'll have multiple digital ages, but we have this one where God's called us. And to know that His Word is good and sufficient for the task at hand, and that we can trust that.
And He's places that this time and this place for a purpose and a reason and give us everything we need to be equipped for every good work, as Paul tells us in 1 Timothy, to be reminded that scripture is sufficient for the task ahead. And so we don't always have to be looking for the shiny new things. But we take these age-old truths and apply them to the ever-changing landscape of where God's placed us. To me, Instead of that kind of pessimistic or kind of utopian view, it's a more realistic view. of where we are, where we're heading.
but also a very hopeful view. Because I know my Jesus is alive, and I don't have to be fearful about today or tomorrow because the end of the story has been written. He's just calling me to live in light of that now, especially given the challenges we may be facing in the public square today, especially around AI. Amen. Hey, you're listening to the Salvation Army's Words of Life.
We're gonna take a quick ad break and we'll be right back. As the holidays approach, it's time to return to the classics. Flaky pie crusts, perfectly browned butter, and cookies with just the right texture. and one ingredient you cannot compromise on is Kerrygold butter. Carrygold butter is crafted with milk from grass-fed cows that graze on lush green pastures across family farms in Ireland.
The result? A rich, creamy butter with a high butterfat content that elevates every recipe. Whether you're making signature shortbread or browning butter for a nutty depth in your pecan pie, Kerrygold makes all the difference. The flavor is unmatched, and the texture it brings to baked goods is simply divine.
So, this holiday season, if you're baking for loved ones or just for yourself, Reach for Kerry Gold. It's the butter of choice, and your pies, your cookies, and your cakes will thank you. You'd mentioned the resource you're putting together for pastors or teachers about the use of AI. But for our listeners, like what are some kind of practical questions to ask yourself before engaging with it? I think first and foremost, to remember who God is: that he is sovereign, he's our creator, our maker, our sustainer.
None of this stuff catches him off guard. It's not like we're hitting these new novel problems for which God's like, ah, I can't believe y'all created that. Like, I really don't know what to do here. That's how big our God is, He's much bigger than that. And so, I think that's one principle.
I think reminding ourselves of what it means to be authentically human is a huge principle in this. These seem very abstract. But I promise you they're imminently practical when it comes to these questions because it's so easy to dehumanize ourselves or to humanize these machines and blur the difference between man and machine. The other one, again, is that same question we asked earlier: should we do something versus can we? That's a pretty profound question because the reality is you can do a lot of things.
There are going to be things that you can do that aren't that helpful for you, that actually aren't that good for you, or those for your family, or those in your congregation. But then also, I like to say we use these tools not to substitute or replace what we do. But to come alongside and kind of augment our work. Let us be free to do the work that's uniquely human and what God has called us to do, not to substitute for it. To kind of short circuit the process and things like that.
And so, again, it doesn't mean that you can't ever use AI. I've used AI before. I've had it summarize a really complex idea that I was just having a hard time putting in simple words. But I also know when it didn't get it right because I've had the training and the background, the experience that, hey, yeah, well, that's not totally true. Or I've used and edited things and changed it.
I've used it as more of a tool to augment my work rather than substitute for the hard work, especially in those formative years where you're being trained and exposed to things that you're not as familiar with. When you short-circuit the process. It's not like you can just go run a marathon just because you've been watching YouTube videos about running a marathon. You actually have to train for the marathon. And I think sometimes we try to short-circuit it and, like, oh, well, I've watched a lot about it, or I know how to get the answer.
I know what you're supposed to do. And then you get out there and you're huffing and puffing and can't do it. Why? Because you haven't been trained for it. And I think that's part of that training that really is education, seminary training, and the local church and businesses and the workplace.
To know what you don't know, or try to seek to know what you don't know, and then to slow down, ask those hard questions, and especially have that more. kind of critical, thoughtful, kind of critical thinking skills that are really needed today that I don't think are as prevalent as they used to be. And that pre way predates the AI stuff and the digital stuff as well to know kind of how we've In many ways, kind of dumbed down education, just made it about information transfer when it's always been more than that. And that's, I think, recovering that will be a very helpful way moving forward as the church today. We pray that you're enjoying and being blessed by this conversation.
Uh We're gonna take one more ad make and we'll be right back. As the holidays approach, it's time to return to the classics. Flaky pie crusts, perfectly browned butter, and cookies with just the right texture. and one ingredient you cannot compromise on is kerrygold butter. Carrygold butter is crafted with milk from grass fed cows that graze on lush green pastures across family farms in Ireland.
The result? A rich, creamy butter with a high butterfat content that elevates every recipe. Whether you're making signature shortbread or browning butter for a nutty depth in your pecan pie, Kerry Gold makes all the difference. The flavor is unmatched, and the texture it brings to baked goods is simply divine.
So, this holiday season, if you're baking for loved ones or just for yourself, Reach for Kerry Gold. It's the butter of choice, and your pies, your cookies, and your cakes will thank you. One more thing that I really just wanted to point to. At least in this part of the world, our kids are back in school, and I know we have a lot of parents listening. And I know fairly recently you created the Student's Guide to Social Media.
I wonder if you could just kind of share just what that is. We're going to have a link to this resource as well, because I know there's a lot of parents that will benefit from it. Yeah, a student's guide to social media is doing a lot of what I've done in other works, but specifically for teenagers. I think teenagers often hear, especially from adults, That you have a problem, your generation has a problem with X, Y, and Z, especially when it comes to social media and technology. And I always like to remind students, especially teenagers, they know this already: that technology issues, especially things around social media, are not just a young person problem, it's actually an everybody problem.
'Cause mom and dad Are just as bad at their phones as sometimes the teenagers are, at least in different ways. I'm a little older, I remember a day before a lot of these technologies, but many of our students don't. They're what are known as digital natives. This is the world in which they inhabit that they grew up. My boys are a little younger, they're not teenagers yet.
They don't know a day without something like AI or Siri or their home pods or Google and Amazon. They don't remember a day without a lot of these digital assistants. This is the world in which they inhabit. And so, the goal of that little booklet, it's a really, really short little booklet. It's supposed to be short, accessible, especially for teenagers, is just to help them to start cultivating some wisdom, to cultivate some questions about, you know, what is social media?
What is technology? What is it doing to me specifically rather than just to us in general? But as a teenager, how is that changing? What about, you know, I saw this online. Does that make it right and true?
Just because I saw an influencer talk about that, is that the truth?
Well, is my mom and dad are they not telling me the truth? Or is the church not telling me the truth? Or the government efforts and media, different things, to recognize, like, how do you navigate claims of truth today? That's a big question for all of us, but especially for young people who, many of us in general, I won't say I'm that young. have a steady diet of information that we see online.
Many of us get our news, breaking news alerts on our phones and devices and social media, and that changes something. Ultimately, even in that kind of cultivation of wisdom. And so, whether it's truth claims online, whether it's questions of privacy. I think many. Especially young people, but let's be honest, everybody, we post some of the most intimate details of our life online for everyone to see.
And at the same time, as one author said, we just decry these rights, this kind of invasion of our privacy today. We're like, well, this privacy and privacy matters, but let me post the most intimate details of my life online for everyone to see. That irony in that's quite rich. And I think we need to slow down. We need to think about what we're posting online, especially for young people, because that's never going away.
Even the things that you think are private. That are sent in private messages and things like that will live on in perpetuity in some way. One, because it could easily be just captured and kept. But technology companies have access to these things. These things don't go away magically.
They don't just disappear no matter what Snapchat or Instagram or anybody tells you. They're not just disappearing. It's still there. It's traceable. It's trackable.
You need to know that. Not to scare people, but just to have a realistic vision. Or, how to think through the rise of just all of these questions around TikTok and security issues and things like that. How do we talk to the next generation? About these issues, why they're important, not getting lost in all the detail that some of us are really interested in, but do so in a really simple way that's profound, to say these things matter, and this is the world and you're going to inhabit.
So that's why I wrote the little student's guide to social media, was just to introduce students to some of these bigger questions in a really accessible way. to say these things matter and I think you should be thinking about them, but also not to overload you with a huge book that I know you're never going to read. To say, slow down and just say, why does this matter? And how do you think about this? Because I've noticed, especially with teenagers, They're some of the more thoughtful.
They're asking questions that their parents aren't asking. Because they grew up in this world and they're asking different questions. And I think we need to engage those questions and do so from a place of hope. But also a place to say, you know. God can handle those types of questions.
Let's dig into it rather than a lot of the things we see today about deconstructing our faith and X, Y, and Z to say, what if you just slowed down and took these questions seriously? Realize that we all doubt.
Sometimes Thomas gets a bad rap for doubting. We all doubt. We all fear. We all question. But God's big enough to handle that.
And I think that that's kind of a subtle theme that kind of permeates that volume in all of my work. To say, you know, these things matter, and let's equip the next generation to go about that process of disciple-making. Jason, thank you for dropping a mic at the end of this interview. If our listeners want to find you out there on the interwebs through their technology that's available to them, where can they go? Probably the easiest way is through my website, jasonthacker.com, and then also books and things like that.
I'm not as active on social media as I used to be, partially because I'm kind of, I've been preaching to the choir and I'm the one who needed to hear this, to step back a little bit because I realized technology was doing some stuff to me too, especially my diet of social media.
So I'm not as active on that front, but it's still publishing and writing. I'm teaching classes and traveling things, but a lot of that's really kind of housed there at JasonTacker.com. Jason, it was so good to see you. Thank you so much. It's good to see you guys too.
Thanks again for having me. The Salvation Army's mission, doing the most good, means helping people with material and spiritual needs. You become a part of this mission every time you give to the Salvation Army. Visit salvationarmyusa.org to offer your support. You can subscribe to Words of Life on your favorite podcast store or visit salvationarmysoundcast.org.
Join us next time for the Salvation Army's Words of Life. These are the words, these are the words of life. These are the words, these are the words, these are the words of life. Thanks so much for listening to Words of Life. We want to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the show.
Visit lifeaudio.com, where you'll find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They have shows about prayer, Bible studying, parenting, and more. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you next time. This holiday season reached for the one butter that never disappoints.
Carry gold. made with milk from grass fed cows on Irish family farms, it's rich, creamy, and perfect for baking. whether browning butter for cookies or crafting the flakiest pie crust, Kerry Gold's high butterfat content makes all the difference in flavor and texture. Holiday treats will taste extraordinary. Click the Looking for excitement?
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