Can we live humbly and still post that photo on Instagram? In the digital age, humility isn't so straightforward. With the smartphone at our fingertips, is pride just one selfie away? Many of tech’s biggest names have been anything but humble. Tesla, Edison, Jobs, Zuckerberg, Musk. Does that mean their inventions will re-make us in their image? Or is there a way to hold humility in one hand and our smartphones in the other? Drawing from Christian wisdom, Greek virtues, and modern theologians, Ad...
Jul 30, 2024•57 min•Season 10Ep. 3
The word "temperance" may make us think of prohibition, but this virtue isn't some outdated legislation. Today's technologies are creating all new challenges. Should we be prohibiting them now? It’s the season of Virtues! We’re exploring the old-school virtue of Temperance—including how a technology in the 1800s changed the course of American politics, spawned hundreds of Christian organizations and even changed the US constitution! Plus, why ice cream could be an moral issue. >> Voicemail...
Jun 11, 2024•49 min•Season 10Ep. 2
Can we live simply without tossing our smartphone-life in the trash? We found answers in Sister Act II and walk-in closets. This season, we're doing something new, and it begins with the virtue of Simplicity. We live in a complex world. Can technology help simplify it? Or does it only make things worse? Chris and Adam look at Simplicity in the face of social media, smartphones, and artificial intelligence. IN THIS EPISODE If you ever feel fragmented, this episode is for you. Drawing on insights ...
May 28, 2024•43 min•Season 10Ep. 1
Wow, we've got a new set of episodes coming our way—and Adam & Chris have decided to unveil a twist—while possible moving even closer to the Platonic ideal of Device & Virtue. Support our new season at https://www.deviceandvirtue.com/patreon Leave us a feedback voicemail at https://www.deviceandvirtue.com/talk-back Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
May 21, 2024•4 min
If not, what about our soundboards and electric guitars? If you thought the answer would be straightforward, you don't know us! Adam and Chris deep into the intertwining histories of church music and technology. From early debates over instruments in worship services to the effects of platforms like Spotify on today's songwriting, they explore the tensions between tradition and innovation. NEW THIS SEASON! Leave us a 90-second voice message about this episode. We may feature it in a future segme...
Feb 05, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Season 9Ep. 6
NEW THIS SEASON! Leave us a 90-second voice message about this episode. We may feature it in a future segment! Pulpit AI could save your church hours of social media work every week. Could it kill the sermon in the process? We interview pastor and entrepreneur Michael Whittle. He wants to make the sermon more valuable than ever, and he created Pulpit AI to do it. We talk to him about his new AI platform does and the future he’s dreaming for it. Plus, Chris and Adam discuss how Pulpit AI might af...
Sep 12, 2023•1 hr•Season 9Ep. 5
Ownership is not an option. Forget magazines—does it seem like today we subscribe to just about everything? You’re not wrong—from reading books to driving cars—80% of new businesses offer a subscription. Has software changed ownership forever? Chris & Adam explore how technology has changed how we pay—and all the implications. No longer do we buy Microsoft Office in shiny boxes from Best Buy! That model that used to be magazines and the CD of the month club has moved to practically every dig...
Aug 16, 2023•48 min•Season 9Ep. 4
NEW THIS SEASON! Leave us a 90-second voice message about this episode. We may feature it in a future segment! When’s the last time you got a handwritten letter, or stared out the window, or went on vacation without checking email? Did the Internet kill the good ol’ days, or is this just nostalgia talking? Chris and Adam dive into the book 100 Things We Lost to the Internet and explore the difference between true wisdom and mere wistfulness. Tech has become the de facto symbol of progress, but i...
Jul 25, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Season 9Ep. 3
THREADS is the all new social network launched by the founders of Facebook, and it launched big and fast—over 100 millions accounts in the first week. Chris reflects on how social networks work like societal mirrors, and reflect some of the same issues that vexxed the early Christian church. Short Circuit episodes skip the argument—Adam or Chris grab the mic on their own for a more personal reflection on technology & faith. These shorter entries are a bonus to our full-length Device & Vi...
Jul 12, 2023•7 min
NEW Leave us a 90-second voice message about this episode. -- This month, Apple announced the new Vision Pro headset. 10 years from now, will we look back and say it changed our life? Can we ever know whether something is a Flop or the Future? Think about it. When they first came out, did folks know that the electric refrigerator or the microwave oven would change modern life as we know it? How about when Apple launched the iPhone? Sure—today we think about that as a turning point in history. Bu...
Jun 26, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Season 9Ep. 2
NEW THIS SEASON! Leave us a 90-second voice message about this episode. We may feature it in a future segment! “Minority Report” was just a movie, right? Well, not anymore. Beat cops from Los Angeles to London are using Artificial Intelligence to forecast tomorrow’s murders. Is every crime predestined? Artificial Intelligence is everywhere, including the police station. From forecasting burglary to heading off homicides, predictive policing is more than 10 years old, and your city is probably al...
Jun 12, 2023•50 min•Season 9Ep. 1
Welcome to Device & Virtue, Season 9! Leave Us a Digital Voicemail! Starting this season, *in these show notes* and at deviceandvirtue.com, you can leave us a digital voicemail. We’ve been arguing the wrongs and rights of technology and faith for 4 years. We think it's time you spoke up. If you’ve ever wanted to hear yourself featured on a podcast, this could be your debut! There will be a link in the show notes for every episode of Season 9! Tap through and start recording! Tell us... - som...
Jun 05, 2023•4 min
Christians used to be known as "people of the book." Do we lose something big if we become the "people of the screen"? From Moses to Gutenberg to YouVersion App, we’re talking the digital bible with our guest John Dyer. Chris talks with John about his newest book People of the Screen. We explore how evangelicals created the digital Bible and how it is shaping Christians interpretation of scripture today. In his research, John found that people read print and digital Bibles at different times dep...
Mar 06, 2023•59 min•Season 8Ep. 8
“Hey Chat GPT, write a script for a podcast arguing the wrongs and rights of technology and faith…” Could AI write that? The shocking answer is… it’s close. Maybe a full yes. The revolution of Artificial Intelligence chatbots got a rocket boost in the last months when on Nov 30, 2022, OpenAI released a language model called ChatGPT, which can interact in a conversational way. The results were heads above what we’ve experienced with Siri or Alexa, immediately launching fears and possibilties. Ada...
Feb 21, 2023•54 min•Season 8Ep. 7
Device & Virtue friend & author John Dyer jumps on the podcast talking about the 10 11 year updated edition of his book From the Garden to the City. Wow, a lot changes in a decade! Ten years ago, nobody knew what Zoom was, and online church meant having a Facebook page. No matter how fast tech changes, John Dyer says it still has a place in the story of God. Adam asks John about “The virtualization of culture” The definition of technology Why technology is not netural Tools vs devices An...
Jan 17, 2023•44 min•Season 8Ep. 6
Who hasn’t heard about Twitter these days? With all the controversy, Adam & Chris are talking about how private tech becomes a “public square”—and does Twitter have a future in 2023? Big Questions What is “free speech”? What is the idea of the public square and how does it relate? How has the long history of communications technology been controlled by the rich or the royal? Who owned the most powerful communications network in the middle ages? How should Christians speak and interact in the...
Jan 03, 2023•54 min•Season 8Ep. 5
Stained glass, digital photos, or a pile of rocks. Today, we join the co-hosts of the Embedded Church podcast and talk about how the church builds memories. It’s a podcast inside a podcast. Memories help people establish identities and build communities, and physical places are fertile ground where memories take root. But are new digital spaces uprooting our memories, or giving them new soil to grow in? As Christians, God consistently calls us to remember all that he has done and the ways he has...
Dec 14, 2022•1 hr 18 min•Season 8Ep. 4
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...
Dec 07, 2022•52 min•Season 8Ep. 3
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. ...
Nov 14, 2022•1 hr 8 min•Season 8Ep. 2
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 uniqu...
Oct 31, 2022•58 min•Season 8Ep. 1
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. Are electric vehicles the eco-friendly choice? How would life change if everyone went electric? What's the cost/benefit compared to gas vehicles? Could electric cars kill the great American road trip? Ho...
Aug 22, 2022•1 hr 4 min•Season 7Ep. 8
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 Ma...
Aug 08, 2022•1 hr 5 min•Season 7Ep. 7
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. Why does technology hate me? Is technology making us dumber? Where did technology come from? Where has technology gone wrong? Wha...
Jul 26, 2022•1 hr 2 min•Season 7Ep. 6
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 sta...
Jun 27, 2022•57 min•Season 7Ep. 5
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 ...
Jun 13, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Season 7Ep. 4
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? BIG TOPICS INCLUDE This episode floats into all sorts of things: The 31 year old digital marketer that has become the tech mastermind behind Ukraine’s digital offense and defense Some of the history of the world being very slow to recognize online attacks as “real attacks” What is...
May 30, 2022•59 min•Season 7Ep. 3
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! IN THIS EPISODE… Why Tony thinks non-Christians will be innovators more often than Christians. What Tony imagines the future fate of technology will look like. Ho...
May 16, 2022•1 hr 15 min•Season 7Ep. 2
CELEBRATING 50 EPISODES 50 technologies. 50 arguments. 50 episodes. After 6 seasons, we’re celebrating with clips from our greatest hits. Get ready for flashbacks. We dug into the archives, and dusted off a handful of clips that have stuck with us, going all the way back to Season 1! We add some updated thinking and reflect on why these episodes were chart-toppers for us. Plus, sample some episodes that might be new to you. As fast as tech changes, these episodes are still worth your ears. With ...
May 02, 2022•58 min•Season 7Ep. 1
New! We are launching www.patreon.com/deviceandvirtue and have a goal to have 50 listeners become brand-new members of our DV crew! We need you! (And join by May 2 for a special bonus!) Special message from Adam + Chris: "Hey there! We love our listeners! You're smart. You notice the tech around you. And you know that our mission has always been to "argue" about the wrongs and rights of technology and faith in everyday life. We’ve heard from so many of you who know that this conversation is incr...
Apr 19, 2022•6 min
Does he use Alexa in his own house? We've got a interview with the founder of Alexa, Jeff Adams. MORE QUESTIONS INCLUDE What’s the story of how Alexa came about? How does your faith affect your work in technology? What are the next big things coming with voice technology? PLUS, CHRIS & ADAM DISCUSS: Are we good at predicting the next big technology? (seems like… no) How the first automobile relates to the Alexa project Should Alexa be emotionally intelligent? ABOUT JEFF ADAMS Jeff Adams has ...
Mar 01, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Season 6Ep. 8
