God and Technology with Heidi Campbell cover art

God and Technology with Heidi Campbell

God and Technology with Heidi Campbell

Listen for free

View show details
Can technology save us? That question has been asked since the Industrial Revolution, and Heidi Campbell has spent 30 years studying how religious communities keep answering it. In this conversation, she walks through her Religious Social Shaping of Technology framework, showing that even the most conservative groups do not reject technology outright but filter it through their core values and authority structures. From the kosher cell phone in Israel to Zoom communion during the pandemic, the research reveals a consistent pattern that most popular narratives get wrong. The conversation then turns to AI, where Campbell draws a sharp line between knowledge and wisdom. GPTs can organize information; they cannot interpret or embody it. She explains why religious AI chatbots inherit hidden biases from their construction, why the field's failure to distinguish between predictive, generative, and agentic systems is its biggest blind spot, and why the internet has shifted from a supplement to a substitute for religious life, especially among Gen Z. She closes with the recalibration that has redefined her own career: for a growing number of people, the first port of call for religion is no longer a physical community but a screen. TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Start 1:29 How a 1996 Essay on Virtual Church Launched a Career 3:40 The Religious Social Shaping of Technology: Theory & Examples 7:32 Kosher Cell Phones, Chabad, and Evangelical Christians: Unlikely Parallels 8:45 Agency vs. Technological Determinism: Can We Still Choose? 11:42 Heidegger, Neutrality & the Market Forces Behind Technology 14:32 The Inherent Conflict Between Tech Values and Human Values 16:31 How Churches Responded to the Pandemic: Theology or Sociology? 19:11 The Communion-on-Screen Debate: Transubstantiation vs. Symbolic Practice 22:48 European Studies: CONTOC, RECOVERA & the Rise of Hybrid Worship 24:21 Four Models of the God-Technology Relationship 33:10 AI Chatbots, Jesus Bots & the Heidi Bot 35:02 Why GPTs Give Knowledge But Not Wisdom 39:10 The Blind Spot: AI Literacy in Theology & Religious Studies 42:36 From Supplement to Substitute: How the Internet Became the First Port of Call 45:06 Upcoming Books: Agentic AI, AI Slop & Religious Brain Rot READ & LISTEN Read key insights and the full transcript here: https://tiagovf.com/posts/podcast-god-and-technology-with-heidi-campbell FOLLOW https://substack.com/@tiagovf https://www.instagram.com/tiagobooks/ MUSIC CREDIT Intro song by Lief Sjostrom, titled Peril, from the album 'Impossible Parade' Website: https://liefsjostrom.com/ Album: https://liefsjostrom.bandcamp.com/album/impossible-parade
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1
No reviews yet