Device & Virtue

*Fixed audio release* Today we're watching the Artemis II, but in the 1960s, our parents watched humanity land a man on the moon from their living room TV. It was a new era of hope, but it somehow disappeared. Can technology make us hopeful people? This episode recorded in March 2026, before the Artemis II launch . Hope can send us soaring to the stars, but when our lives sink beneath the wind...

Aristotle called friendship a virtue. Mark Zuckerberg made “friending” a verb. Next up: AI companions—What happens when they listen better than your fellow Christians?  Loneliness is being called an epidemic, even as we’re “connected” all day. Online spaces reward hot takes over hospitality, and friendship gets flattened into a friend request, a feed, or a follower count. Meanwhile, Jesus’ most pe...

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 ou...

The word "temperance" may make us think of prohibition, but this virtue isn't some outdated legislation.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 a...

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 inte...

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

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 THI...

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 pl...

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!...

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 differe...

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 reflec...

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 a...

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 t...

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...

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 scriptur...

“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 head...

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 virt...

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...

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 gr...

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 f...

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 import...

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 “...

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...

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 Interio...

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?...