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 segment!

IN THIS EPISODE

• Trace the twists and turns of church debates over instruments vs voices
• Can instruments help Christians worship in Spirit and truth?
• Strong opinions from ancient church fathers, the Reformers, and denominational creeds
• Is AI just another "instrument," or something more disruptive?

Watch the TikTok Worship Song clip: https://www.tiktok.com/@jonathanogdenmusic/video/7221950505486945541

Read Chris' AI worship song about the blind man in John 9

LINKS

• “The first AI Christian artist” JC (@jc.theartist) • Instagram photos and videos
• Worship.ai by John Dyer (create your own worship song in “modern worship music”, “classic hymn”, or the “Psalms (KJV)”
• Spotify has reportedly removed tens of thousands of AI-generated songs (Engadget May 2023)

TALK BACK

NEW! Leave us a 90-second voice message about this episode. We may feature it in a future segment!

• Follow Device & Virtue on Instagram and Twitter.
• Follow Chris and Adam on Twitter.
• Support Device & Virtue. Learn how.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 affect pastors, preaching, and the work of discipleship.

In this episode 

• Is the sermon just “content”? 
• Why Pulpit AI won’t write your sermons
• What does Pulpit AI look like in 2033? 
• Risks for pastors and churches

Megachurches have used social media to build massive platforms and stir up plenty of controversy. If Pulpit AI gives that platform to every pastor, how will it affect the church?

Links

Michael Whittle is the Founder and CEO of PulpitAI and Vast Media. He’s obsessed with the intersection of faith, business & entrepreneurship, a topic he explores in his podcast, "Kings & Priests." Over the past decade, he has built companies spanning media, advertising, and consumer products in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York, and Singapore. Michael also serves on the pastoral team at C3 Los Angeles and resides in South Pasadena, CA with his wife Jillean and their two children, Rook and Willa.

Learn more about Pulpit AI on their website. 

Talk Back

NEW! Leave us a 90-second voice message about this episode. We may feature it in a future segment!

• Follow Device & Virtue on Instagram and Twitter.
• Follow Chris and Adam on Twitter.
• Support Device & Virtue. Learn how.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 digital product in our daily world. Chris’s business degree 101 taught him that all purchases fell into two two obvious categories—product or service. But now? Who knows!

Add complaints about inkjet printers, Tesla, and thought on the spiritual implications of ownership, and we’ve got a roving convo that mixes tech, economics & daily life.

Links

• How Tesla changed owner’s car battery capacity by unlocking software
• My Printer is Extorting Me by Charlie Warzel (The Atlantic)

Listener Voicemail

This episode features a talkback voice message from listener Toby B. Thanks Toby!

Leave Your Own Voice Message

Patreon

Patreon supporters get a raw video cut of this episode! Check out how to support us here.

Talk Back

NEW! Leave us a 90-second voice message about this episode. We may feature it in a future segment!

• Follow Device & Virtue on Instagram and Twitter.
• Follow Chris and Adam on Twitter.
• Support Device & Virtue. Learn how.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 is everything new a true advancement? How could we know the difference.

In this episode

Among the 100 Things We Lost are…

• Boredom
• Getting Lost
• Relying on the Doctor
• Uninhibitedness
• The Spanish-English Dictionary
• Solitude
• Your Attention Span
• Spelling
• The New Kid
• Memory
• Scrabble Tiles
• Social Cues
• Closure

Links

• Learn more about the author Pamela Paul and her book 100 Things We Lost to the Internet

Talk Back

NEW THIS SEASON! Leave us a 90-second voice message about this episode. We may feature it in a future segment!

Follow Device & Virtue on Instagram and Twitter.

Follow Chris and Adam on Twitter.

Support Device & Virtue. Learn how.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 & Virtue episodes. Enjoy!

Feedback? Send us a voicemail from your phone:

https://www.deviceandvirtue.com/

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. But then?

Discerning and predicting new tech is hard. You’ll find naysayers and you’ll find worshippers from the first minutes it appears. Who’s right? And how would we know?

APPLE VISION PRO LAUNCH (JUNE 5, 2023)

“In the same way that Mac introduced us to personal computing, and iPhone introduced us to mobile computing, Apple Vision Pro will introduce us to spatial computing.” …“The first Apple product you look through, and not at.” — Tim Cook

Watch the 2 hour event (Apple Vision Pro begins at 1hr 20min)

APPLE IPHONE LAUNCH (JANUARY 9, 2007)

“Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything” — Steve Jobs

MORE LINKS

• Professor Scott Galloway was unimpressed with the Vision Pro launch

TALK BACK

NEW! Leave us a 90-second voice message about this episode. We may feature it in a future segment!

• Follow Device & Virtue on Instagram and Twitter.
• Follow Chris and Adam on Twitter.
• Support Device & Virtue. Learn how.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 already using it. 

What is predictive policing, and what should Christians think about it? Chris and Adam unpack the ethics of prediction and beliefs about predestination. They look some of the risks that come with crime statistics, and the solutions that don’t merely reduce crime but actually increase justice. 

Plus, if you’ve ever used Google Analytics, stick around for the Bible story of David’s census

In this episode

• What is predictive policing?
• Is crime predictable? Is it predestined? 
• What personal data is being tracked?
• How can crime statistics be biased?
• What should Christians think?

Links

• Predictive Policing Explained (Brennan Center for Justice)
• 2021: Predictive Policing and Crime Control in The United States of America and Europe: Trends in a Decade of Research and the Future of Predictive Policing (Social Sciences Journal)
• 2022: ​​Algorithm predicts crime a week in advance, but reveals bias in police response (University of Chicago)
• 2022: The never-ending quest to predict crime using AI (Washington Post)
• 2020: Predictive policing algorithms are racist. They need to be dismantled. (MIT Tech Review)
• 2017: How strategic is Chicago’s “Strategic Subjects List”? (Equal Future)
• 2020 Update: Chicago police end effort to predict gun offenders, victims. (Associated Press)

Talk Back

NEW THIS SEASON! Leave us a 90-second voice message about this episode. We may feature it in a future segment!

Follow Device & Virtue on Instagram and Twitter.

Follow Chris and Adam on Twitter.

Support Device & Virtue. Learn how.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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...

- something we should discuss in season 9

- a technology and faith dilemma that you have

- a Vice or Virtue that we should do

...90 seconds or less.

We’ll see you soon with our next episode on AI Cops and the world of predictive policing!

Thanks for listening!

Adam & Chris

https://www.deviceandvirtue.com/talk-back

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 depending on where they are and what they’re doing.

We cover a lot of ground:

• How digital reading influence our Bible interpretation
• The history of the Bible technologies, from Moses to Gutenberg
• The four eras of the digital Bible, from universities to YouVersion
• How Christians can better understand digital’s influence on their own Bible reading

If your Bible reading ever leaves you feeling judged or confused, John’s research illuminates some surprising reasons why that might be the case. 

What’s the future of print Bibles? Find out what John thinks will happen as the Christians go deeper into digital. Plus, hear about John’s latest Bible project: the Y’all Version. 

ABOUT JOHN

John Dyer is Vice President for Enrollment Services and Educational Technologies & Assistant Professor of Theological Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary. 

LINKS

• Visit John Dyer’s website
• From the Garden to the City: The Place of Technology in the Story of God
• People of the Screen: How Evangelicals Created the Digital Bible and How It Shapes Their Reading of Scripture
• Y’all Version—putting the “y’all” back in the Bible where it belongs
• Follow John on Twitter

REACH OUT TO ADAM & CHRIS

Reach out to Device & Virtue on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Talk back to Chris and Adam on Twitter

Support Device & Virtue. Learn how.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

“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.

Adam and Chris explore what ChatGPT can do, and talk about the implications for society and faith. What does this change for the future? Are we witnessing one of the biggest tech moments of our lifetime?

Bonus this episode: find out if Chris can pronounce the word 'specificity.' (Spoiler Slert: it’s rough)

WHAT/WHO IS THE VOICE FOR CHATGPT IN THE EPISODE?

This version of ChatGPT is text only, but for our podcast, we used another AI product called Descript to generate an artificial voice to read ChatGPT’s parts. And guess what? OpenAI is one of the investors in the Descript product—one we use regularly for our podcast production.

LINKS

• OpenAI’s original introduction to the world in 2015
• “Why Does ChatGPT Lie?” from Noah Smith
• A New Chat Bot is Code Red for Google’s Search Business via New York Times
• Business background: The Best Little Unicorn in Texas: Jasper Was Winning the AI Race—Then ChatGPT Blew Up The Whole Game from The Information
• 
  

MORE ABOUT CHATGPT

HOW FAST DID IT GROW?

WHO IS BEHIND IT?

Starting as a non-profit, in 2019 Microsoft invested more than $1 Billion dollars, and in January 2023, after ChatGPT exploded, they upped their investment to $10 billion.

REAL CHATGPT EXAMPLES CHRIS TRIED

What is my future?

As a language model, I do not have the capability to predict the future. I can provide information and answer questions based on my training data, but I cannot predict events that have not yet occurred. It's best to consult with experts or make your own plans for your future.

SEE THE REST OF THE CHATGPT EXAMPLES AT DEVICEANDVIRTUE.COM

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

And don’t miss the end where we debut our special guest segment, Settle This Argument Between Adam & Chris.

MORE ABOUT JOHN DYER

Adam & Chris think John Dyer is one of the best voices writing on technology & faith. Dr. John Dyer is the Vice President for Enrollment Services and Educational Technologies & Assistant Professor of Theological Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary. Channeling Eric Liddell, John likes to say, “When I code, I can feel God’s pleasure.” This desire to glorify God by showing how our creativity is an important aspect of our role as image bearers, drives John’s work and teaching. A former youth pastor, he enjoys working with students to see how the biblical story brings insight and clarity to the ideas found in science, sociology, and culture. John is married to Amber, a literature and philosophy professor and has two lovely children.

LINKS

• Visit John Dyer’s website
• Best Commentaries.com—”rotten tomatoes for biblical studies”
• Y’all Version—putting the y’all back in the Bible where it belongs
• Follow John on Twitter

REACH OUT TO ADAM & CHRIS

Reach out to Device & Virtue on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Talk back to Chris and Adam on Twitter

Support Device & Virtue. Learn how.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices