For the past three years, Ryan has been working with an interdisciplinary group of scholars to produce a narrative podcast about Genealogies of Modernity. Today’s episode is a sneak preview of the first episode of that series, which will be released in its own feed starting the first week of November. In the thread of the Beatrice Institute podcast, Ryan has focused on interviewing scholars who are interested in the complex relationship between the past and the present. This narrative podcast doubles down on those interests with focused inquiries into the nature of modernity, the genealogical imagination, and the ways the past continues to be present and available to us today. Each episode tells a story, or set of stories, that echo but also challenge a particular standard narrative of what it means to be modern and how a particular modern phenomenon came about.  We’ll be releasing the first three episodes in the Beatrice Institute stream so that you, our core audience, can have early access. And we’re also hoping that you will share the series with your friends. That would be a huge help. For now, enjoy episode one, “Mountain Modernity.”  

This episode is brought to us by SpirituallyIncorrect: We all love a good story. We watch movies, listen to friends talk about their last vacation, or listen to podcasts (this one included) just to hear an entertaining and provocative tale. But one story trumps them all: the story of how we have arrived at our modern world. With technology evolving every year, drugs lessening the effects of illness, and possibilities undreamt of just a few decades ago, it's easy to imagine that the story of how we got here is one of triumph. We've conquered the stone age, overcome every obstacle, and now the march of progress of inevitable. Yet with lessening resources, dying environments, and threats of war and crises flavoring every news broadcast, it's time to ask, is the story we tell ourselves real? Or have we been lying to ourselves the whole time? Are we really progressing? Here to help us through this tricky issue is Dr. Ryan McDermott, who runs the Genealogies of Modernity project. If you've ever felt not at home in the modern world, this is the episode for you.

Anthony Bradley is a professor of religious studies and director of the Center for the Study of Human Flourishing at the King’s College in New York City. He gives a personalist analysis of the criminal justice system (touching on everything from architecture to food) and the Black Lives Matter movement. In this rerun episode, Anthony and Ryan discuss the relationship between Afro-pessimism, hope, and Eastern Christianity, and how Black experience informs trinitarian theology. They also touch on the dangers of missional narcissism and the invention of whiteness. 

If happiness is to be had, it must be studied. Tal Ben-Shahar acted on this belief when he created the Master’s of Arts in Happiness Studies in partnership with Centenary University, through which students of eighty-five nationalities learn how to achieve well-being and how to impact others’ flourishing. In this episode, Tal joins Grant to discuss the study of happiness in an academic setting. They ask: How successful are the liberal arts in teaching students how to be happy? What does religion have to offer in the conversation on happiness? What is the ideal profile for the teacher - or student - of a happiness course? And, is happiness the missing key to uniting the University?  

David Brenner engages the fundamental values of the world’s major religions in modern ethical technological debates. Topics include the overlap between spiritual questions and AI ethics, the attraction of AI, generative AI creating art, distancing from spirituality while embracing the virtual, and finding commonality among different faiths to develop AI ethics.

Mary Harrington, contributing editor for Unherd and author of Feminism Against Progress, discusses the apocalypse, gender, and eros. They challenge the conventional understanding of a traditional family and explore the origins of the sexual revolution. The mythic and symbolic aspects of conspiracy theories are explored, along with the connection between taboo and pornography. The author also discusses the disbelief in the better quality of married sex.

Although the intersection of faith and artificial intelligence is a modern topic, it can be seen as a new version of an old question famously posed by Tertullian: what does Athens have to do with Jerusalem? Today’s podcast guest, Derek Schuurman—computer scientist, author, and professor at Calvin University—rephrases that question for those living in the age of AI: what does Silicon Valley have to do with Jerusalem? In order to answer this question, Derek posits that it is vital to have an ethical imagination that is formed by story, viewing ourselves as participants in the narrative of Creation, the Fall, and Redemption. When our daily actions are suffused and shaped by this narrative, technology—along with the rest of our daily lives—is taken up into that story.  Derek and Gretchen play out what this story-shaped ethics looks like in relation to technological questions. Are computer bugs the result of original sin? What does open source software have to do with Genesis? What’s the difference between predestination and technological determinism, and what do both mean for our freedom? Listen to their conversation as they ponder how we might sanctify technology for the glory of God’s kingdom.

Where has a manifest God gone? In his recent book, The Bulwarks of Unbelief: Atheism and Divine Absence in a Secular Age, Joseph Minich explores this question. A teaching fellow at the Davenant Institute, Joseph helps provide resources for retrieving an intellectual heritage to build up the contemporary Church. Join Joseph and Ryan in their discussion as they ask these questions of modernity: Why has the existence of God become unobvious in modern times? What does it mean to believe in orthodoxy in an age in which it’s not the norm? How has technological artifice affected our understanding of reality? Does it matter that we understand ourselves to live in the modern age?

What is the person, and why does it matter in psychiatric care? Brent Robbins, professor of psychology at Point Park University and director of the Psy.D. Clinical Psychology Program, has decided to put this question at the forefront of his research and teaching. Grant and Brent join in conversation to discuss scapegoating, stigma, and reductionism, asking: how do we find personal meaning in and through mental illness?

As technology develops at an ever more rapid pace, it can seem that ethics struggles to keep up with it. While science and technology advance by building on discoveries of the past, virtue and moral knowledge must be cultivated afresh in every individual and each generation.  This is where Brian Green comes in. As director of technology ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, his areas of research are many, ranging from transhumanism and artificial intelligence, to catastrophic risk and the ethics of outer space. This diverse array of interests all pivot on the intersection between technology and humanity.  In this rerun episode, Brian and Gretchen dive into many areas of tech ethics that both impact our present lives and promise to shape our future. From immediate ethical dilemmas like self-driving car crashes and responsible tech development, to long-view issues like the establishment of extra-terrestrial colonies and the achievement of artificial general intelligence, they reflect on a large range of themes that can affect human lives for both good and ill. Listen in as they discuss old and forgotten tools for answering ethical questions, the Christian commission to work miracles, which human qualities can’t be programmed into machines, and more. Together they ask, should our predictions about technology and ethics be dire, or hopeful? What choices are we making now that will shape coming generations?