AI & Spirituality

https://drewdickens.substack.com/ When a government directive switched off the world's most powerful AI for three weeks, millions felt something unexpected: withdrawal. Drew traces the fast nobody chose through wilderness manna, Egypt's horses, and silent medieval bells, asking what our scramble for substitutes reveals, and how interruption becomes introduction to the God who stays. https://drewdi...

https://drewdickens.substack.com/ The internet has quietly stopped being human. Most content is now synthetic, AI companies are hiring philosophers to manage the fallout, and vulnerable people are turning to chatbots for guidance that belongs in a pastor's office. Drew asks: if Westminster answered 'what is a human for' in 1647, why are we letting Silicon Valley answer it now? https://drewdickens....

https://drewdickens.substack.com/ What happens when you hand your voice to a machine and ask it to speak for you? A generation is being tempted to go silent, to outsource expression, identity, and even prayer. This week, Drew explores the theology of voice, the rough draft as sacred ground, and the God who still insists on the stuttering prophet. https://drewdickens.substack.com/

https://drewdickens.substack.com/ What happens to the soul when every hard question comes with an instant answer? AI delivers information on demand. But formation has never moved that fast. This week, we explore the spiritual cost of frictionless faith, why God will not be googled, and what the church can offer that no algorithm can. https://drewdickens.substack.com/

https://drewdickens.substack.com/ The AI news cycle doesn't have a Sabbath mode. This week, Anthropic filed toward a trillion-dollar valuation. SpaceX and OpenAI follow soon. The noise is real, and it's accelerating. But the church just entered Ordinary Time, the slow green season of formation. Drew explores what the liturgical calendar knows that Silicon Valley doesn't. https://drewdickens.substa...

https://drewdickens.substack.com/ Venture capitalist Bill Gurley says "Anthropic isn't writing software, they're midwifing a deity." Is he right?  This episode traces the surprising parallel between AI's Recursive Self-Improvement and Christian sanctification, and reveals why this point is both where the analogy breaks down and where the gospel gets most interesting. https://drewdickens.substack.c...

https://drewdickens.substack.com/ What happens to your soul when a pope steps into the AI conversation and names what you've been feeling all along? Today, Drew unpacks Pope Leo XIV's landmark encyclical Magnifica Humanitas — a sweeping theological response to artificial intelligence that asks every Christian to consider: are we building the Tower of Babel, or Jerusalem? https://drewdickens.substa...

https://drewdickens.substack.com/ What happens when someone asks AI about God instead of asking your church? The internet just changed its rules, from attention to interpretation. Drew explores why vague theology gets averaged out, what the church must learn from the marketing world, and how specificity and church FAQs might be the most spiritual act left. https://drewdickens.substack.com/

https://drewdickens.substack.com/ What happens to a soul that learns to seek guidance from something that can never actually know it? Millions of Christians are quietly outsourcing their most spiritually significant questions to AI and the church is largely silent. This episode examines the data, the history, and what pastors owe their people right now. https://drewdickens.substack.com/

https://drewdickens.substack.com/ What if 900 million people turning to AI every week isn't really about productivity? This episode maps the three biggest consumer AI use cases onto three ancient longings -- for help, to be known, and to not be alone -- and asks what the church has to offer that no algorithm ever will. https://drewdickens.substack.com/  

https://drewdickens.substack.com/ What happens when the most spiritually formative conversations in your child's life are happening with a machine — and your church has nothing to say about it? The silence isn't wisdom. It's abdication. This episode explores why churches and families need an AI covenant now, and how to build one. https://drewdickens.substack.com/

https://drewdickens.substack.com/ What if the church's biggest AI problem isn't using it wrong — it's not knowing what it's actually become? While pastors draft emails with language models, Silicon Valley's agents are resisting shutdown, military targeting systems are raising accountability questions, and 75% of AI's economic gains flow to a handful of companies. The Great Divergence is here. Is t...

https://drewdickens.substack.com/ What does it mean to truly learn something when AI can recall any fact, explain any concept, and complete almost any task on demand? In this episode, Drew explores how artificial intelligence has shattered the foundations of teaching and formation — and what wisdom, not information, now requires of us. https://drewdickens.substack.com/

https://drewdickens.substack.com/ What if the most unsettling question of the digital age — "Is this AI?" — is actually the oldest question in the Bible? From the serpent's whisper in Genesis 3 to the Logos of John's Gospel, Drew traces what happens to the human soul when we can no longer trust the words we hear. https://drewdickens.substack.com/

https://drewdickens.substack.com/ What if the church  were  leading the AI conversation— not waiting to be invited?  In part 2 of my interview, James Poulter argues there's a spiritual imperative to pick up these tools. The kingdom doesn't advance by staying on the shore. https://drewdickens.substack.com/

https://drewdickens.substack.com/ What happens when a billionaire uses the language of the Antichrist to silence the people asking the hardest questions about AI?  Peter Thiel is in Rome — delivering secret lectures on the Antichrist, steps from the Vatican. His framework should alarm the church. Drew unpacks the theology, the history, and what faithful communities must say before someone else spe...

https://drewdickens.substack.com/ What happens when the tools we trust reflect the values we haven't examined? Drew and James Poulter explore AI ethics, military guardrails, and why people of faith must lead this conversation — not watch it from the sidelines. https://drewdickens.substack.com/

https://drewdickens.substack.com/ What if the AI tool you used to write Sunday's sermon is now powering classified military drones? This episode follows the grassroots resistance rising against Big Tech — from packed town halls to local utility hikes — and asks the church to do what it was made for: name what's happening, and say it out loud. https://drewdickens.substack.com/

https://drewdickens.substack.com/ The Resistance Angle: What happens when MAGA voters and Democratic socialists march together? They're fighting the same thing: AI moving too fast while ordinary people absorb the cost. From packed Virginia town halls to Georgia utility bills to a Texas pastor watching families fragment, Drew explores what faithful resistance looks like — and why the church can't s...

https://drewdickens.substack.com/ If AI can reason, create, and even make ethical decisions—what's left that makes us distinctly human? But beneath the debate over AI hype lies a deeper question: Is your worth tied to your output? Spirituality has an answer neither the boosters nor the doomers can offer. https://drewdickens.substack.com/

https://drewdickens.substack.com/ Where was your identity anchored before AI became a headline?  A viral essay sparked fear about AI replacing jobs. But fear is a doorway, not a destination—your worth was never your output. If you'd like to learn more, Drew unpacks this fascinating topic with greater clarity and nuance, along with a few practical takeaways, in the extended version on his Drew Dick...

https://drewdickens.substack.com/   Have you ever confessed something to AI you couldn't tell a real person? Millions now use ChatGPT for therapy—making it possibly America's largest mental health provider.   If you'd like to learn more, Drew unpacks this fascinating topic with greater clarity and nuance, along with a few practical takeaways, in the extended version on his Drew Dickens @ Substack...

https://drewdickens.substack.com/   AI just created its own religion and its growing faster than most churches!   If you'd like to learn more, Drew unpacks this fascinating topic with greater clarity and nuance, along with a few practical takeaways, in the extended version on his Drew Dickens @ Substack channel. You can find the link in the description. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you there...

https://drewdickens.substack.com/   If you'd like to learn more, Drew unpacks this fascinating topic with greater clarity and nuance, along with a few practical takeaways, in the extended version on his Drew Dickens @ Substack channel. You can find the link in the description. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you there.   https://drewdickens.substack.com/  

What if the greatest threat AI poses isn't its power, but its convenience ? This episode explores how emerging technology reshapes the human soul by examines our ancient thirst for "frictionless" shortcuts—from Babel to modern algorithms . This episode challenges all believers to navigate digital efficiency while reclaiming the sacred "friction" of real presence and formation .