Upon publication, all rights revert to the authors.
Conference Director and Moderator: Matthew Bardowell, PhD
Conference Associate Director: Julie Ooms, PhD
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Proceedings photos by John J. Han: Front Cover (26 November 2024)
Snapshots of the Sixth Faith and Research Conference Back Cover (26 November 2024)
Ecclesial Personhood: A Theological-Interpretative Conversation between Genesis 2:18 and 1 Corinthians 12:12
Aaron S. Halstead 23 Striving after Wind: Human Need in Ecclesiastes and the Monk and Robot Series
Julie Steinbeck 31 Transhumanism, Christianity, and the Inherent Good of Human Limitations
Christopher Talbot
Maps and Exclusivity: The Selective Storytelling of the Map
Michelle Ryan 46 “To Krakoa, My X-Men”: The Creation of Mutant Culture Within the Krakoa Era of X-Men and the Importance of Autonomy for Marginalized Groups
Elsa Linson 54 A Biblical Theology of Labor and Vocation for the 21st Century
Matthew Steven Bracey
63 Artificial General Intelligence and Its Effect on Human Meaning, Worth, and Purpose
Karen Kannenberg
72 Pacificism and the Second Amendment: The Early Church Father’s Contribution to the Discussion on Gun Control
Rubin McClain 85 Tradition and Technology: Ambivalence Toward the Railroad in Harold Bell Wright’s Ozarks Fiction
John J. Han
92 To Err is Human, Knowing is AI: Human Ways of Knowing in a PostHuman World
Matthew Bardowell
101 Myth, Storytelling, and Belief on the Borders of Technological Change
Eric Shane Bryan
110 Notes on Contributors
113 Snapshots of the Seventh Faith and Research Conference
130 Calls for Submissions to MBU’s Academic and Literary Journals
Editor’s Preface
The papers collected in this volume were presented at the Seventh Annual Faith and Research Conference, held on the main campus of Missouri Baptist University on April 3–4, 2025. Unlike the previous year, when several sessions were canceled due to a February snowstorm, this year’s event proceeded without any weather-related interruptions.
Building on the strong foundation laid by Dr. Allin Means, Associate Dean of the School of Communications at Missouri Baptist University, this year’s conference further solidified its place as a premier interdisciplinary evangelical academic event under the new leadership of Dr. Matthew Bardowell and Dr. Julie Ooms, both full-time professors of English at MBU. This year’s conference drew the largest number of participants to date, including scholars from both within and beyond the university, as well as dozens of students who presented their research or displayed it in the Mabee Great Hall.
This volume brings together scholarly papers submitted by presenters at the conference. Readers will find a diverse range of faith-related topics explored within these pages. We plan to continue publishing the annual proceedings to encourage ongoing contemplation and reflection.
The University’s Scholarship and Research Committee pursues three goals: to focus on defining scholarship and research for faculty and students, to assist and support opportunities for research across campus, and to provide guidance for facilitating scholarship and research. The Annual Faith and Research Conference is a way to promote these goals, which are intricately connected to the mission of the University. In addition to MBU faculty, we envision this annual event as an academic venue for Christian faculty at other institutions as well.
We seek academic topics related to faith and research for the eighth conference in April 2026, including:
• The integration of faith and an academic discipline
• Christianity and contemporary culture
• Service learning
• Artificial intelligence and Christian ethics
• Christian education in the twenty-first century
• A significant trend within the discipline that may interest the public
• Any other faith-related topic within the discipline that may be of general interest
Stay tuned for the announcement of the central theme and exact dates of the event. Scholars and students interested in presenting their academic work are encouraged to contact Dr. Matthew Bardowell, the conference director and moderator, at Matthew.Bardowell@mobap.edu.
Aaron S. Halstead
Ecclesial Personhood: A Theological-Interpretative
Conversation between Genesis 2:18 and 1 Corinthians 12:12
Doctrinal issues related to personhood and theological anthropology proliferate in the contemporary setting. Theologian Malcom B. Yarnell has commented that he believes the next great theological locus churches in the West must develop is not bibliology, pneumatology, or ecclesiology, but anthropology—what the Christian faith confesses about humanity.1 In my own experience, cultural, contextual, and candidly personal factors have contributed to my interest in this topic. Culturally, even a casual observer of the current cultural climate can see that questions related to personhood and related anthropological concerns dominate. Recent academic and popular-level books on theological anthropology demonstrate the (at least) perceived need for Christian thinking in this area.2 Cultural and ethical conversations regarding sexual orientation and identity, abuse, abortion, fertility treatments, social and racial justice, euthanasia, and artificial intelligence are all rooted in anthropological concerns. How should the church confess, think, and respond to such questions?
Contextually, my “day job” is Lead Pastor of Mid-Cities Church in Maplewood, a progressive-presenting neighborhood in the South City/Mid County region of St. Louis. Each month, I attend a Community Connections meeting a gathering of representatives from Maplewood’s governmental, educational, religious, social service, human advocacy, and private spheres. The goal of this group is to work for the common good of our community, and such social and community concerns such as immigration, homelessness, food scarcity, LGBTQ+ advocacy, and senior citizen care and enrichment have all become topics of conversation. Two values have been repeatedly emphasized in this discussion: (1) that the parties represented in these discussions are not abstract entities but human personalities and (2) the benefit of the diverse voices at work in solving these issues including, to my surprise, the evangelical pastors in the room.
Candidly, when I began to pastor this church almost four years ago, we had 74 members and 32 regular attenders, or 106 people in total. In these almost four years, we’ve dropped down to 43 members and 37 regular
attendees, or 80 people total. Some of that has been to death, moving, and cleaning up membership rolls. But some of it has been to people leaving, and it leads me to ask the questions, “What are people giving up when they leave? Why does it hurt the church so much to see people leave the congregation?”
My allotted presentation time and the attention span of my audience and hopefully an ounce of humility prevent me from seeking to tackle each of these concerns. Rather, my goal is to justify the position that it is indeed the church’s prerogative to speak to such issues, or, to put it colloquially, it’s good and right for the church to have a seat at the table. The church’s vocal seat at the cultural-anthropological table is justified because of her unique position as not the authoritative source on what constitutes personhood, but rather as personhood’s good and proper end. 3 My claim is this: personhood is fully expressed in ecclesia, in the church. To demonstrate this claim, I intend to give a brief theological interpretation of Genesis 2:18 and 1 Corinthians 12:12 and then to bring the subsequent insights gleaned from these two scriptural texts into cohesion. My understanding is that by letting the theology of these two texts “talk to one another,” an anthropological vision emerges that grants the church confidence to move forward in her dialogue with her cultural detractors.
Definitions
First, any theological project must define its terms sufficiently. In the present proposal, three concepts must be clearly defined so that we know what we’re talking about. The first is “theological interpretation,” since it provides the methodology moving forward. Though the two remaining concepts, “personhood” and “the church,” should be largely derived from the text of scripture, some definition is needed to know what theological presuppositions I bring to this inquiry.
By “theological interpretation” I mean a particular interpretive method characterized with a distinctive goal. In defining theological interpretation, we need to understand it in contrast with the grammaticalhistorical interpretive method. The grammatical-historical method seeks to place the text in question in relationship to its literary, historical, and cultural context to assess the text’s meaning to the original audience, and, in some cases, application for a contemporary audience. Theological interpretation is not opposed to such an approach, but rather, builds upon it and has a different goal. The difference in goal, according to Kevin
Vanhoozer, is that theological interpretation “is characterized by a governing interest in God, the word and works of God, and by a governing intention to engage in what we might call ‘theological criticism.’” Because of this focus, theological interpretation concerns itself with “enabl[ing] the church better to hear what God is saying to the church and world today.”4 Therefore, theological interpretation focuses on the text itself, and the theological impetus of the text, rather than a supposed “world” behind or in front of the text.5
In defining “personhood,” I am driven largely by the confessional heritage of Southern Baptists, who confess, “Man is the special creation of God, made in His own image. He created them male and female as the crowning work of His creation.”6 Personhood, then, means that quality possessed by an individual through participation in the imago Dei (Gen 1:26–27; Acts 17:26–28; 1 Cor 15:21–22). Certainly, the imago Dei as a doctrine includes more than simply establishing a working definition for “personhood,” but such a role is sufficient for my purposes here.
Once more, Southern Baptist confessionalism sets my parameters in defining “the church” as that “autonomous local congregation of baptized believers, associated by covenant in the faith and fellowship of the gospel.” It should be noted that though “the New Testament speaks also of the church as the Body of Christ which includes all of the redeemed of all ages, believers from every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation,”7 this redeemed people can only be expressed in a local, covenantal context. The early church used the term ἐκκλησία with intentionality: the church is the people who have gathered together and covenant to follow Christ and proclaim the good news (Acts 19:32, 39, 41; 2 Cor 6:16).8 With these definitions in place, we turn to the first of our textual conversation partners.
Genesis 2:18
Genesis 2:18 is found in the pericope Genesis 2:4–24, which constitutes a parallel creation account to the one found in Genesis 1:1–2:3.9 Having created the man Adam, placed him in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it, and given him instructions on how to live in this garden, “then the LORD God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make a helper fit for him’” (Gen 2:18).10 The word used to describe Adam’s condition before the creation of the woman Eve is וֹּדַבְל (lĕ’baddô). The construct is comprised of the lamedh preposition “specifying a particular
referent” (i.e., Adam),11 the adjective דַב (băḏ), and the third-person masculine singular pronoun suffix. Thus, דַב (băḏ) describes his condition at that time. According to Harris, Archer, and Waltke, “the core concept [of the adjective] is ‘to be separate and isolated’” and “may have a positive, a negative, or neutral connotation.”12 The adjective’s connotation as it concerns Adam’s condition in this verse is to be determined by its relationship to God’s declaration. How does God characterize Adam’s isolation?
God declares that Adam’s isolation is בוֹ֛ט־אֹּל (lô’ṭôḇ), a construct comprised of the negative particle and the adjective בוֹט (ṭôḇ). To characterize something as ṭôḇ is to characterize it as “having the qualities that make something useful and desirable.”13 This is the same descriptor given to God’s creative acts in the previous chapter in Genesis. At this point in the biblical narrative, evil as a moral quality has not appeared as a category. Although ṭôḇ can carry a moral or ethical connotation.14 it is unclear whether this connotation is in view in Genesis 2:18 especially considering the theological implications this creates for calling God’s prefall creation “not good.” More likely, or at least principally, is the idea that without community he remains “incomplete,”15 or it is not desirable for Adam to be in isolation.
As it concerns the contemporary context, Genesis 2:18 provides important data in describing an individual’s personhood. Adam’s personhood was not ontologically affected in his băḏ-state. In other words, though in isolation, he still retained the imago Dei. That said, his isolation was not ṭôḇ; it was not desirable. The definitive text related to the imago Dei (Gen 1:26–27) is applied to a corporate collection of individuals, though each individual is said to participate in the imago Dei. In Genesis 2:18, however, we see that this personhood reaches a climax, or a more beautiful expression, in covenant community.16 Therefore, contemporary individuals participate in a similar ontological reality as Edenic humanity. An isolated existence does not destroy the imago Dei, but there is a more desirable and more beautiful form of existence available.
1 Corinthians 12:12
1 Corinthians 12:12 continues an argument the Apostle Paul makes to the Corinthian church, beginning back 11:2 and continuing to 14:40. The predominant theme in this larger section is the demonstration of the church’s disunity in her corporate worship gatherings. 12:1–11 introduces
the concept of spiritual gifts into this larger conversation concerning corporate worship, but Paul grounds the exercising of these gifts in a particular view of the church’s unity.17 We can summarize that view of church unity using 1 Corinthians 12:12, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.”
The Καθάπερ…οὕτως (kathaper-houtōs, “just as..so”) construction draws an obvious comparison between the human body and Christ’s body, the church. Paul’s point in this verse, as demonstrated in his repeated use of the noun μέλος (melos, “member”) is that the church, as is the human body, is composed of parts and yet participates in a larger unified whole.18 Paul spends vv.14–26 illustrating this unified composition in the church, and then in v.27 expands on his comments in v.12. Paul says in v.27, “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” Ὑμεῖς (plural) δέ (logical transition conjunction) ἐστε (plural) σῶμα Χριστοῦ (both singular) καὶ (coordinating conjunction) μέλη (the nominative singular neuter of μέλος, demonstrating that participation in a larger whole is in view) ἐκ μέρους. The ESV translates ἐκ μέρους (ek merous) with “individually,” but that phrase is used elsewhere in the New Testament to designate a “sharing” in a common reality or to refer to a piece of a larger unit.19
Analyzing 1 Corinthians 12:12 in view of the larger section related to the church’s public worship gatherings, a larger context of participation is in view. Whatever our interpretation or lack thereof of Paul’s teaching on head coverings in 11:2–16, the repeated comparison between man, woman, and God using εἰκών (eikon, “image”) and δόξα (doxa, “glory”) in v.7 imply some form of participation in a common personhood between the three parties. Further, vv. 8–9 refer back to the Genesis creation narrative. Conversations regarding the Lord’s Supper in 10:16–17 teach that the liturgical act of celebrating the eucharist is a κοινωνία (koinonia, “participation”) in Christ. In reference to eating of the bread, Paul says that it bears some relationship to the reality that “we who are many are one body” (v.17), the same language as can be found in 12:12.
For Paul, the church is a social reality where individual persons participate in a common identity. Although how this relates to personhood in general will be explored just a little later, the ecclesial20 context and theme of participation in 1 Corinthians 12:12 demonstrate that, at least for the saints who are in Christ, the church constitutes a corporate collection of individuals who participate in a larger liturgical, Christological, and
ecclesial reality. We turn now to how these two texts cohere into a common theological vision related to personhood.
Theological Cohesion
In our exploration of Genesis 2:18, I concluded by saying that the text’s connection to the imago Dei doctrine points to a common ontological expression of personhood in each individual, and yet it holds out a more desirable expression of that personhood in community. In our exploration of 1 Corinthians 12:12, I concluded that the larger context of the text points to how individual members of the local church share in a common expression of identity. Each person in humanity participates in a common ontological personhood. That said, it is a ṭôḇ-ier way to live to move beyond one’s băḏ-state. In other words, the more desirable expression of personhood necessitates an “other” to complement the individual’s aloneness and end his or her isolation. Surely a state of redemption, which necessitates an inclusion into the church as well, is a more beautiful, more desirable, a ṭôḇ-ier existence than lostness and perdition.
Once included as a member of the church, an individual finds a similar reality at play: each believer is made a melos of the church, specifically, a melos ek merous. Thus, each member of the church participates in a common ecclesial identity; each member shares in larger covenantal reality beyond themselves.21 However, as the Baptist Faith and Message reminds us, that broader ecclesial reality can only be expressed in a local context. In the same way that one’s personhood is not destroyed by being in the băḏ-state, one’s individuality is not destroyed in a local ecclesial context. However, that individuality is still “held” within a larger corporate identity that is also explained in organic terms of personhood (i.e., a body).22
An individual not connected to the church, or any community in general, is not less a person than an individual who is connected to the church. However, life in the faith community is a more desirable life. It is good and right. It is more beautiful than a life of isolation or of separation from the body. Disconnection from the church is lô’ṭôḇ. It cries out for an “other” to complement the isolation. It longs for a body to become melos ek merous. We have been given the answer to that cry and longing, for our personhood to find its full expression in ecclesia.
Conclusion
We now end where we began, with cultural, contextual, and candidly personal concerns seeking answers from our theological anthropology. The church can speak to these larger cultural questions related to anthropology because she is the ṭôḇ community.23 As she dialogs with others in her context, she speaks as witness to that community,24 extending the invitation for others to become a fellow melos. When members leave, the pain is real because a melos ek merous is now pulled asunder from the body. This is not as it should be. So, the church continues her call for others, even those who left, to end their băḏ-state and join a local expression of the larger ecclesial community.
Notes
1 Yarnell made this statement on at least two occasions to a group of PhD students at Southwestern Seminary in systematic theology reading seminars during the Fall of 2019 and the Spring of 2020.
2 For example, see Joshua R. Harris, Introduction to Theological Anthropology: Humans, Both Creaturely and Divine (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2020); Carl R. Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution (Wheaton: Crossway, 2020); the popular-level rewrite of the previous work, Trueman, Strange New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution (Wheaton: Crossway, 2022); Preston M. Sprinkle, Embodied: Transgender Identities, the Church, and What the Bible Has to Say (Colorado Springs: David C. Cook, 2021); Kelly M. Kapic, You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2022); Katie J. McCoy, To Be a Woman: The Confusion Over Female Identity and How Christians Can Respond (Nashville: B&H, 2023).
3 God himself is the authoritative source on what constitutes personhood, as he is the authoritative source for any theological subject. His voice is heard in scripture, and so scripture is theology’s normative agent in theological formulation. The church, as a “creature of the Word,” listens to scripture and communicates what she hears in a contextually appropriate idiom. But she is not herself the source for theological formulation.
4 Kevin J. Vanhoozer, “Introduction: What Is Theological Interpretation of the Bible?” in The Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible, eds. Kevin J. Vanhoozer,
Craig G. Bartholomew, Daniel J. Treier, and N. T. Wright (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), 22.
5 Gregory K. Hollifield, “Pericope-by-Pericope: Transforming Disciples into Christ’s Likeness through the Theological Interpretation of Scripture,” Journal for Baptist Theology & Ministry 15, no. 1 (Spring 2018): 48–49. As such, theological interpretation is not unconcerned with the historical accuracy of the biblical text nor with practical application. It simply wishes to take the text itself on its own merits and keeps historicity and modern application from acting as the driving force of the interpretive enterprise. This does not mean the authorial intent of the text is inconsequential; no, the theological interpretation of a text will always be compatible with and born out of the meaning for the original audience. See Hollifield, “Pericope-by-Pericope,” 50.
6 “Article III. Man,” The Baptist Faith and Message (2000), 2023, accessed March 18, 2025, https://bfm.sbc.net/bfm2000/.
7“Article VI. The Church,” The Baptist Faith and Message (2000).
8 Stanley J. Grenz, Theology for the Community of God (Nashville: B&H, 1994), 605–06. See also Brian Haymes, Ruth Gouldbourne, and Anthony R. Cross, On Being the Church: Revisioning Baptist Identity, Studies in Baptist History and Though 21 (Milton Keynes, UK: Paternoster, 2008), 29–30.
9 Allen P. Ross, Creation & Blessing: A Guide to the Study and Exposition of Genesis (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1998), 117–18.
10 All scripture references are in the English Standard Version.
11 James Swanson, Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains: Hebrew (Old Testament) (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, 1997), s.v. 4200 I. ־ְל (l). See also, R Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer Jr., and Bruce K. Waltke, eds., Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Chicago: Moody, 1999), 463.
12 Harris, et al, TWOT, 90.
13 Aaron C. Fenlason, “Beauty,” in Lexham Theological Wordbook, ed. Douglas Magnum, Lexham Bible Reference Series (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014), s.v. בוֹט (ṭôb).
16 Brueggemann sees Genesis 2:18 as fulfilled in v.24, which establishes the human need for covenant unity in community. See Walter Brueggemann, Genesis, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 47.
17 The verse begins with “Καθάπερ γὰρ,” which is an adverbial comparative conjunction Καθάπερ paired with an explanatory γὰρ. The construction allows the reader to understand Paul’s argument in this pericope (extending to v.31) as an expansion of previous data in the larger section but still a sustained new thought.
18 Swanson, Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains: Greek (New Testament) (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, 1997), s.v. 3517 μέλος (melos); Gerhard Kittel, Gerhard Friedrich, and Geoffrey William Bromiley, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Abridged in One Volume (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985), 577.; Rick Brannan, ed., Lexham Research Lexicon of the Greek New Testament, Lexham Research Lexicons (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2020), s.v. μέλος -ους, τό; (melos).
19 Kittel, et al, TDNTA, 585.
20 The use of “ecclesial” as opposed to “ecclesiastical” is intentional. “Ecclesiastical,” though it still includes a relationship to the church, connotes the structures and systems of the church; it has a more “institutional feel” to it. “Ecclesial,” on the other hand, still includes a relationship to the church but does not connote institution per se. As a term, it “fits” better with the more organic language used in 1 Corinthians.
21 The household codes of Ephesians 4–6, Colossians 3:18–4:1, Titus 2:1–10, and 1 Peter 2:13–17 demonstrate “a covenantal framework of the church that should regulate the relationships between its members is built into the fabric of the New Testament.” See Gregg R. Allison, Sojourners and Strangers: The Doctrine of the Church, Foundations of Evangelical Theology, ed. John S. Feinberg (Wheaton: Crossway, 2012), 125. The texts 2 Corinthians 6:16–18 and Hebrews 8:10 also point to a pattern in which God covenants with the church, which is then paralleled in disciples constituting a church together. See Paul S. Fiddes, “Covenant and Communion,” in Baptists and the Communion of Saints: A Theology of Covenanted Disciples, eds. Paul S. Fiddes, Brian Haymes, and Richard Kidd (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2014), 32. Further, as the church exists in covenant relationship with God, it then participates in the divine life of the Trinity. See Curtis W. Freeman, Contesting Catholicity: Theology for Other Baptists (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2014), 246–47; Haymes, et al, On Being the Church, 5–6.
22 This is a vastly simplified form of the argument put forth in Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Sanctorum Communio: A Theological Study of the Sociology of the Church, ed. Clifford
J. Green, trans. Reinhard Krauss and Nancy Lukens, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, vol. 1, ed. Wayne Whitson Floyd, Jr. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998).
23 In her unity, holiness, catholicity, apostolicity, right preaching of the gospel, and right administration of the sacraments, the church signifies to the rest of the world that she is, indeed, the new covenant community. See Curtis W. Freeman, “Wholly Church, But Not the Whole Church,” American Baptist Quarterly 38, no. 1 (Spring 2019): 9.
24 Grenz, Theology for the Community of God, 614–26.
Julie Steinbeck
Striving after Wind: Human Need in Ecclesiastes and the Monk and Robot Series
Most education majors can confirm that one of the first things that they will learn in their basic education courses is the concept of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Originating from Abraham Maslow’s “A Theory of Human Motivation,” the general idea is that unless lower “deficiency” needs such as physical safety, nourishment, and rest are fulfilled, a person is unable to fulfill the higher “growth” needs—friendship, belonging, selfactualization, and learning (Wichita State). As a teacher, this theory anecdotally proves true: students will not do their best work in class if they are sick, injured, hungry, or stressed beyond their normal circumstances. But when one’s “deficiency” needs are filled, how can we tell that our “growth” needs are being addressed and that we have reached our full potential?
Becky Chambers’ Monk and Robot books address these themes of human need and desire in A Psalm for the Wild-Built and how these questions are resolved in A Prayer for the Crown-Shy. Sibling Dex begins their adventure in Wild-Built in the main city on the human-inhabited moon Panga, growing restless and bored with their surroundings. They abruptly decide to leave the safety and relative comfort of the monastery where they have lived for several years in favor of doing tea service in the surrounding villages. As they ponder the overall meaninglessness of their work, Dex encounters Splendid Speckled Mosscap, a robot. While robots have not been seen by humans for several centuries, their civilization sends a representative to check up on the humans by asking them “What do people need?” And so begins Dex and Mosscap’s journey to answer that question. Despite searching for satisfaction from a variety of sources, throughout Wild-Built we see Dex struggling with this notion of never having enough in some way:
But so what, right? Dex was the best tea monk in Panga, if the chatter was to be believed. […] That should have been enough. That should have been more than enough. And yet, if they were completely honest, the thing they had come to look forward to most was not the smiles nor the gifts nor the sense of work done well […] Why wasn’t it enough? (Wild-Built 38-39)
Despite the faithful work being done in the service of Dex’s chosen god and of those needing it, they are not fulfilled. Dex’s deficiency and growth needs are technically met but end up not being soul-satisfying, even after all the work and searching done in both Wild-Built and Crown-Shy.
Such a line of thinking is reminiscent of the Preacher from Ecclesiastes. We are introduced to the Preacher as he reflects on his journey to find what exactly the purpose of mankind is and what will truly make one happy; he desires “an approach to life that would avoid the consequences of greed on the one hand and the dissipation of folly on the other” (Bullock 214). He begins his writing by musing that “It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with” and that “all is vanity and a striving after wind” (The Holy Bible Ecc. 1.13-14). In other words, very little that a person does is likely to have much of an impact that “Death makes all human work and wisdom and wealth and pleasure ‘vain’” (O’Donnell 10). As Dex is in their work, Bullock notes that the Preacher of Ecclesiastes is a religious man, striving for a life of balance, wisdom, and enjoying the present moment (210-11). As such, Dex and the Preacher share much of their backgrounds and attitudes toward a life well lived; however, they are left melancholy while they continue their respective searches. Both characters examine what humans need and how to live a satisfying life, but despite the similarities in their approaches, only one finds humanity’s true need.
One of the most fundamental growth needs that we find in the Monk and Robot books is that of crafting one’s own identity. This notion of unconditional self-acceptance, as Chamberlain and Haaga describe, “should correlate negatively with anxiety […] and correlate positively with happiness and general well-being,” and soften the blow when negative events occur (165). In other words, having crafted a secure identity, Dex should remain secure in their overall mood, with fewer times of negative emotional reactions.
Both of Chambers’ novels imply how much work has gone into Dex’s self-identification. For instance, notice how thus far Dex has been referred to with gender-neutral title and pronouns; this emphasis on Dex’s nonbinary gender shows the importance of being able to craft one’s own identity, particularly in the book’s context (the reader is never told how large the non-binary population of Panga is, but Dex is not the only nonbinary individual described). Dex also takes on the title of “Sibling” in their monastical life rather than the more-common “Brother” or “Sister,” both of which are still found in referring to other characters. It is notable that the
reader is also never told Dex’s biological sex an implicit statement that identity is whatever one wants it to be and that one should be secure in whichever choices are made in that respect. Dex is so adamant about the ability to construct their own identity that Mosscap’s explanation of robots’ preference for the impersonal “it” makes Dex deeply uncomfortable. They find “it” unsuitable for beings that are supposed to be equal to humans (Wild-Built 69). But even with the supposed personal security stemming from the complete freedom of identity and self-acceptance, Dex is still aimless, seeking further understanding of what they need to be fulfilled.
The Preacher, by contrast, places less emphasis on the need to seek or construct an identity. Instead, the Preacher is deliberately vague about who he is, saying only that he is the son of David, king in Jerusalem (Ecc. 1.1 and 12). This is where the authorship of Ecclesiastes is up for some debate. While King Solomon is usually assumed to be the author, the Preacher does not explicitly say so, unlike other material Solomon authors, and Bullock points out that linguistic analysis tentatively says that Ecclesiastes’ words belong to someone else, though the evidence is shaky either way (219-20). Regardless of the specific authorship, most agree that the Preacher was “a Jew who was a wisdom teacher (12:9-10) of ample wealth and opportunity” (220). But with that in mind, the Preacher heavily implies that how he identifies is of less importance than what he says. Though personal identity is one of the highest-order needs that Maslow describes, it does not serve here as what is truly needed for satisfaction and fulfillment.
As one would expect of a monk, Dex spends their time early on in Wild-Built in intellectual work, and they are certainly educated, especially in the myths and history of Panga. Dex resides in Meadow Den, the monastery in Panga’s only city, tending their order’s garden and taking advantage of the City’s various cultural offerings (Wild-Built 5 and CrownShy 131). The city is full of anything that the human mind could want to explore: movies, museums, art shows, and parks all meant to fulfill one’s intellectual curiosity (Wild-Built 5). During travel, Dex’s smartphone-like device downloads books and other sources of information knowledge on the go! But even with the resources at their disposal, Dex still bemoans their lack of enthusiasm for what they can learn: “I read books and monastic texts and everything I could find” and they “still wake up in the morning feeling like every day is a slog” (120). Despite the acquisition of knowledge and the access to resources others might not have, and even though intellectual growth is a large step towards Maslow’s description of self-actualization, Dex is unable to work well with their knowledge.
The Preacher has plenty of reason for confidence in his intellect: “I said in my heart, ‘I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge’” (Ecc. 1.16). His intellectual prowess dwarfs any mind around him. All the same, the Preacher laments his lack of purpose and direction:
Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? (Ecc. 1.2-3)
Later, he says that “I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind” (Ecc 1.17). All of the reasoning in the world, the Preacher realizes, “cannot undo the curse of a sovereign God on Adam’s offspring” (O’Donnell 38). Even with everything that he has going for him, the Preacher is at a loss of how to treat his immense knowledge and wisdom because the entire operation seems pointless for the wise and fool both meet the same end (Ecc. 2.14-15). He can be confident in his immense knowledge and his ability to apply it, but he is still left wondering why wisdom and knowledge do not satisfy him, saying that he hates the life he lives “because what is done under the sun is grievous to [him]” (Ecc. 2.17). After all this contemplation and study, the Preacher’s conclusion remains the same as his starting premise (Bullock 230). He investigates and weighs everything but the same depression and futility remain.
The next attempts to reach contentment in each text center not around intellectual development but physical indulgence. Of course, no one expects a monk to indulge much in the earthlier desires, but Dex follows Allalae, the god of small comforts. As such, Dex is encouraged to take part in things that are comforting to them. All comforts, great and small, are open to them and encouraged. Even Dex’s everyday dress features a bearshaped pendant representative of Allalae, used to remind themself to “Welcome comfort […] Without it, you cannot stay strong” (Crown-Shy 30). They spend their time gardening and, when doing tea service, giving others advice and comfort for each individual’s circumstances. Dex attends parties, drinks alcohol, cooks elaborate meals, and relaxes in public baths. Dex is also not forbidden from engaging in sexual relationships, as they mention in Wild-Built (120); in Crown-Shy the reader sees Dex spending at least one night with Leroy, a craftsman who helps Mosscap with a repair
(76-77). But, obviously, the central question for Dex is how many different types of comfort are needed to stay satisfied, because every self-indulgence does not bring contentment for very long.
The Preacher in Ecclesiastes engages in much the same things as Dex, though as a wildly rich king, there are more resources to put towards his own physical satisfaction. We are told that the Preacher uses all measures of pleasurable things to see if they can satisfy, experimenting carefully with wine, architectural wonders, vast amounts of wealth and livestock, ease of living through slaves, and even carnal desires (Ecc. 2.3-8). O’Donnell notes that the Preacher’s study of madness and folly is not merely exploration of the less-than-rational: it is the “pursuit of pleasures, immoral ones (in 9:3, ‘madness’ [holelot] is equated with ‘evil’)” (O’Donnell 39). He withholds nothing from himself, and his accomplishments outmatch any of his peers (Ecc 2.9-10). He even acknowledges that a ruler committed to the benefit of his people is a good thing, that wealth can be a boon to future generations but he finds that no one can remain truly satisfied with just the acquisition of riches and status (Ecc. 5.10). He notes that wealth, contrary to what many would believe, creates inequality, oppression, and trouble even for those who own it (Ecc. 5.8, 13). The Preacher has tasted of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and found it only increases sorrow (O’Donnell 40).
The final common element we see Sibling Dex and Ecclesiastes’ Preacher taking on in their quests for satisfaction is work, mostly in the service of others. The reader is introduced to Dex as someone that wants to get out of town, meaning an abrupt change in vocation in their monastical life. As Dex later describes the situation to Mosscap, “And yet every […] day in the City, I woke up hollow, and… and just… tired, y’know? So I did something else” (Wild-Built 118). Their order sets them up with the necessary equipment and sends them off into the Pangan wilderness. As a tea monk, Dex’s job is to travel around, set up shop, create custom brews of tea suited to comfort those who approach them, and offer advice befitting the person’s situation. As previously mentioned, once Dex grows accustomed to the work, they rapidly become popular, drawing large crowds whenever they are scheduled to be in town. Dex knows this and has an earnest desire to do good for others, but still grows disillusioned: “I thought, if I can just do that, if I can do it well, I’ll feel okay. And guess what? I do do it well. I’m good at what I do. I make people happy. I make people feel better. And yet I still wake up tired, like… like something’s missing” (118). Dex has done everything that is supposed to lead to
happiness, even self-sacrificing so that others can benefit, but in the end they are still at a loss and wondering why their work seems aimless.
Much of the Preacher’s efforts as king in Jerusalem have their benefits for others, and he is not a man that celebrates indolence. While the Preacher is shown to have accomplished much—gardens, orchards, parks, and other great works—he throws up his hands in despair, saying that “I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will be a master of all for which I toiled” (Ecc. 2.18-19a). In other words, the Preacher is frustrated by the fact that everything he does will eventually be left to those after him, who would likely squander all of his efforts and gathering of wealth. In fact, he calls it “a great evil” that someone who did not labor will be the one to enjoy the efforts of the one who did (Ecc. 2.21). The Preacher also speaks to the preoccupation that many feel about their work, that one’s thoughts can dwell on their job at any hour of the day, disallowing the rest that usually comes at the end of a workday (Ecc. 2.23).
At this point, the Preacher seems to reach another revelation. His first attempts at reaching for contentment he treated as a human experience, independent of God and more fleeting than a wisp of smoke in the air (O’Donnell 64). However, the next passage presents a complete about-face, where the Preacher praises the ability to work, for “There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God” (Ecc. 2.24). The Preacher also emphasizes the role of God in finding satisfaction and not just the giving: “for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy” (Ecc. 2.25-26a). When finally, rightly, placed in the context of what God has given to man, the Preacher emphasizes however reluctantly that a good life and balanced living are divine gifts, despite our temporary ability to enjoy them. While not necessarily cheerful, the Preacher is resigned to the enjoyment of the moments and pleasures that God gives as the one viable option for human need fulfillment (Bullock 230). The Preacher afterward examines the nature of time, injustice, religious matters, and other themes that would lend to his conclusion that the chief purpose of man is to enjoy what he is given while remaining anchored in God’s commandments (Ecc. 12.13). Thus, he finally seems satisfied with his pondering. These two texts, separated by thousands of years, content, and style, show just how ubiquitous the search for the fulfillment of needs is and the avenues we take to reach it. Sadly, also universal is the lack of satisfaction
humans feel when even Maslow’s highest-level needs are fulfilled. This is no surprise: Maslow himself wrote in his original paper that once any need is fulfilled, we simply move on to another one and use that as our motivation, explaining that “gratified needs are not active motivators. Thus man is a perpetually wanting animal” (395). Ecclesiastes’ Preacher, Maslow, and Dex all agree: meeting needs in and of themselves is fruitless, even if everything is done “right” according to the standard of our world. The fulfillment of physical and intellectual pleasures, honest work in service of self and others, and the ability to self-actualize as one sees fit: these are supposed to be the keys to happiness and the good life.
But this is where the paths diverge. While Dex makes a strong attempt at finding an ideal lifestyle for them, they lament a lack of purpose until they are finally told by Mosscap that “You are an animal, Sibling Dex. And animals have no purpose” (Wild-Built 138). At the end of their adventure, Dex and Mosscap temporarily give up on their quest. They admit defeat, take a detour from their travels, and decide to go where the wind takes them, starting with a frolic in the sea (Crown-Shy 148). They are gleeful in the moment, but the implication remains that Dex will return to their work, their routine, and, most likely, their despondency. There is little for them to return to when their negative thoughts catch up with them. Dex never finds an anchor for their soul, leaving Chambers’ readers without respite. One need is fulfilled, and others spring up in a never-ending cycle.
The Preacher, on the other hand, in his wisdom and his folly, still reminds his readers that there is one more thing to fall back on: the purpose given by fearing God and keeping his commandments, “for this is the whole duty of man” (Ecc. 12.13). He effectively depresses us into dependence on God for purpose and fulfillment, as “the ultimate remedy to meaninglessness and the depression caused by a godless life” (O’Donnell 221). Thus, we enjoy the small comforts, we take pleasure in our work and in balanced living, and we recall that “Our labor is not in vain” despite its resemblance to folly (I Cor. 15.58). Humans are offered choice in the meeting of our needs: do we pursue pleasure and knowledge and wisdom for their own sake, or do we accept the good as gifts of God, knowing that lean and difficult times will test our endurance? We must then approach our search diligently, weighing our options and taking the lessons from the Preacher and the monk.
Bullock, C. Hassell. An Introduction to the Old Testament: Poetic Books. Chicago, Moody Publishers. 1988.
Chamberlain, John M., and David A.F. Haaga. “Unconditional SelfAcceptance and Psychological Health.” Journal of Rational-Emotive and Cognitive-Behavior Therapy 19.3. 2001. Pp. 163-176.
Chambers, Becky. A Psalm for the Wild-Built. New York, Tom Doherty Associates. 2021.
. A Prayer for the Crown-Shy. New York, Tom Doherty Associates. 2022.
The Holy Bible. English Standard Version, Crossway, 2001. Maslow, Abraham H. “A Theory of Human Motivation.” Psychological Review 50. 1943. pp. 370-396.
“Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.” University of Wichita, 2024. https://www.wichita.edu/services/mrc/OIR/Pedagogy/Theories/ma slow.php. Accessed 22 October 2024.
O’Donnell, Douglas Sean. Ecclesiastes. Phillipsburg, P&R Publishers. 2014.
Christopher Talbot
Transhumanism, Christianity, and the Inherent Good of Human Limitations
Technological progress, especially as it relates to human beings, has captured our cultural imagination. For millennia, humanity has been fixated on casting off restraints and pressing onward to a greater and larger picture of what it might mean to be human. On one hand, modern ideologies like the transhumanist vision argue that man currently is but a point on the line of evolutionary progress, previously less than human, eventually moving towards a state of post-humanity. On the other hand, Christianity argues that man, because he is inherently and uniquely a creature, has limitations in his ability to “upgrade.” Therefore, I will argue in this paper that human beings, because they are created persons, contain inherently good limitations that are at odds with transhumanist views.
Offered here is a Christian apologetic, seeking to explain why there is a discontinuity between the historic Christian perspective on the nature of man and the consensus vision among transhumanists. The apologetic offered here is focused on the nature of man, primarily grounded within a Christian philosophical perspective. Crucial to this apologetic of man’s nature is a theological-philosophical definition of what it means to be human.
Defining the Nature of Humanity
From a biblical-theological perspective, Anthony Hoekema posits, “[T]he human being is both a creature and a person; he or she is a created person… To be a creature… means absolute dependence on God; to be a person means relative independence…To be creatures means that God is the potter and we are the clay (Rom. 9:21); to be persons means that we are the ones who fashion our lives by our own decisions.”1 This definition emphasizes man’s reliance upon his Creator while also offering balance regarding man’s own autonomous personhood.2
From a Christian philosophical perspective J. P. Moreland and Scott Rae argue for a Thomistic-like substance dualism regarding the nature of man. They understand man’s identity to be found in the soul, but to be causally connected to the body. They write, “[T]he soul contains capacities
for biological as well as mental functioning… the soul is related to the body more intimately and fully than by way of an external causal connection.”3 Thus, this Creator has created man in His image and created man constitutionally including both a body and a soul, thus defining the whole human person who bears responsibility to the one who created him.4
Offering a theological-philosophical synthesis of the above-mentioned views, John Cooper notes, “Biblical anthropology is demonstrably both holistic and dualist. It is holist in teaching that God created, redeems, and will glorify humans as whole embodied persons. It is dualist in teaching that God created humans of two ingredients and that he sustains persons (souls, spirits) apart from their bodies between death and resurrection.”5 James Hughes and others see this belief of an ensouled person to be a major obstacle of agreement with the transhumanist community.6
Transhumanism offers a considerably different perspective on the nature of humanity.7 To be clear, transhumanism can be a difficult ideology to define, specifically regarding the nature of man, largely due to the lack of consensus among its subscribers. However, certain tenets are seemingly consistent across various perspectives. Transhumanism is often understood as an outgrowth of both secular humanism and the Enlightenment.8 In finding its tributaries in Enlightenment ideology, transhumanism has largely rejected the idea of man having an essential nature or telos. One author noted that transhumanism seeks “the radical removal of the constraints of our bodies and brains and the recognition of human existence according to technological opportunities.”9 Likewise, Max More, a prominent transhumanist, argues, “True transhumanism does seek to enable each of us to alter and improve (by our own standards) the human body and champions morphological freedom. Rather than denying the body, transhumanists typically want to choose its form and be able to inhabit different bodies, including virtual bodies.”10 More does not want to jettison the importance of an embodied experience for the human person, however he is unable to ground an individual’s personhood in their own particular body.11
Transhumanism, then, makes a marked shift in how one understands humanity. Nick Bostrom states, “Transhumanism is more than just an abstract belief that we are about to transcend our biological limitations by means of technology; it is also an attempt to re-evaluate the entire human predicament as traditionally conceived.”12 As Matthew Eppinette articulated, “Inasmuch as humanity and its potential are the ultimate concern of transhumanism, humanity has replaced God; their theology is their anthropology.”13
Limited Creaturely Capacities
Building from a theological-philosophical definition of human nature, it is now worth turning our attention to a Christian perspective that grounds human capacities and powers in human nature. Being human would seem to require certain capacities, and these capacities explain the kind of things human beings are. As Moreland and Rae note, “A substance’s capacities culminate in a set of its ultimate capacities that are possessed by it solely in virtue of the substance belonging to its natural kind…”14 These capacities are rooted in the soul and are an ordered set, and therefore belong to natural groupings and hierarchies. Taking this all together, it is clear that Christians, from a substance dualist approach, argue for a universal human nature.
Regarding these capacities, there is a difference between limitations and defects. Limitations are not defects, and limitations are not a lack of inhand capacities. It is important, here, to note the distinction between lower and higher order capacities as it relates to man’s nature and transhumanism.15 The absence of a lower-order capacity does not claim the absence of a higher-order capacity. As stated earlier, it is a thing’s ultimate capacities that constitute its essence or nature, “which is possessed by it solely in virtue of being a member of its natural kind.”16 Moreland and Rae clarify that a defect of a lower order capacity does not affect or make up its nature. A defect is the absence of a lower-order capacity that blocks the ability to perform a higher-order capacity.17 This difference, then, between defects and limitations is critical. From a substance dualist perspective, man does not naturally contain defects, but he does contain certain limitations. Therefore, the substance dualist would appropriately seek to rectify defects, even with technologies, but would work within the boundaries of his natural limitations.
The nagging question here for the apologist is what limited creaturely capacities may include. Before offering a list of these capacities, it is important to note the qualifiers which are included. These capacities are both limited and creaturely because they relate to the nature of humanity as a created person. That is, man is necessarily bounded by the capacities that he has and cannot exceed them. His inner nature of ultimate capacities is what makes him human. However, it is also important to note the relation between man and God. Because man is the product of God’s creation, there may be certain capacities that are otherwise limited that can only be obtained through relation and participation with God.
For example, one may ask whether or not man has the capacity to eternal life. Christianity says yes. However, Christianity can only answer in the affirmative if this eternal life can be procured by way of participation with the Creator. Without participation with God, man is limited and naturally mortal, bound to die and not experience eternal life in communion with God. Christianity accordingly seeks to argue that being a human in the fullest sense requires participation with the divine because man does not have this ultimate capacity for immortality (not to mention other ultimate capacities) by his nature alone.
Along with the possibility of immortality, one is pressed to offer other limited capacities that man contains that are consistent with his creaturely nature. These capacities may include a variety, but one list could contain limited knowledge, limited presence, and limited power to act, to name a few. It would seem that even in his resurrection state, mankind still lives within these limits. Man, according to his own nature, cannot know everything, be everywhere, and operate with universal power. These stand opposite, but in relation to God’s omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence.
These limited capacities challenge the transhumanist vision, primarily because of the difference in metaphysical commitments. Transhumanism is not trafficking in the use of ultimate capacities; instead, this worldview is largely defining man by his lower and higher order capacities and pushing against any notion of ultimate capacities. Transhumanism seeks to move beyond whatever capacities we may think are unique to humankind and move towards something else, something arguably better. However, the transhumanist vision is a rather reductionistic and dangerous view of man.18
Metaphysical Commitments of Transhumanism
Paradoxically, even as transhumanists may treat man (or at least his body) in a somewhat utilitarian fashion, they simultaneously treat man’s potentiality with almost theological language. Jeffrey Bishop argues that as man reaches towards post-humanity, he increasingly is conceptualized more as a god. At a basic level, transhumanism market in notions of telos and progress. However, plenty of transhumanist writers articulate posthumanity in the terms of a hyper-theosis, or man becoming gods.19 The problem, of course, is that it is only the posthuman that has god-like value,
not the universal man. Value is placed on what man can become, not necessarily on what he is now.
Another area of metaphysical disagreement between Christianity and Transhumanism is the nature of human telos. Bishop writes, “The transhumanist metaphysical belief is that we human beings are on an evolutionary journey, from human to posthuman; those wise and smart enough to see and understand the transitory nature of human beings are thus transitional humans. The philosophy of transhumanism seeks to order evolutionary becoming.”20 Transhumanism argues human beings should make use of technology to surpass the limitations of both their body and their brain.21 With the use of biotechnologies man is to become something different than our modern understanding of humanity. Of course, one is faced with questions as to when one ceases to be human and may become post-human. What qualities, properties, or capacities must one maintain to be considered human? Moreover, what freedom does man have to change?
Mereological or Morphological Freedom
Christianity and transhumanism stand at odds specifically on the issue of mereological and morphological freedom. Morphological freedom is “the ability to take advantage of whatever technology a person wants to in order to change their body in any way they desire.”22 This includes aims towards post-humanity, but also includes more immediate practices like biohacking and uses of nanotechnology. Man is not only to overcome disease and death, but also will have greater physical, mental, and psychological capabilities, with the further ability to choose the form and capacities one maintains.23
A question that needs answering is, how much “enhancement” or “upgrading” is too much? In other words, how much upgrading can one do and still maintain their human nature? Can the human person take medicine, receive surgeries, etc., to push their limitations? These challenging questions can be answered from at least two fronts. First, one could deal with these issues by placing various practices in two helpful but distinct categories within a larger taxonomy. The first category would include anything that corrects an already existing infirmity. This may include, but is not limited to, medicine to regulate or restore a physical process, or prosthetic limbs that help accomplish what a natural limb would. The second category would include anything that would move beyond our existing human nature and capacities. The former is relatively
uncontroversial and is largely restorative and is aimed at removing defects to a person’s capacities. The latter, on the other hand, is rather controversial hence the focus of this paper because it seeks to sidestep the human framework.24 The first approach helps man sustain his inherent limitations, whereas the other seeks to disregard those limitations entirely. Second, and in conjunction with the first, it seems these “upgrades” can be dealt with in relation to ultimate capacities. One can inquire as to whether the action fulfills an ultimate capacity or whether it seems to challenge or move beyond the ultimate capacity. For example, it may be that one trains rigorously and eats a certain way to run faster than most human beings. They can do what most people cannot, and yet, this person is still operating within the ultimate capacities of their particular kind. However, if this same person decided to surgically replace their arms and legs and install cybernetic wings, they would be dismissing these ultimate capacities. Man does not naturally operate this way. Though an absurd example, this demonstrates that these new capacities that move beyond natural human limits do not constitute what it means to be human. They make man into something else. Thus, whether this integration is partial (cyborgs) or whole (uploading of consciousness), there is a new kind of thing that is produced.25
The Goodness of Inherent Limitations
Saturated in a culture of progress and innovation, one might question why any kind of limitation, particularly those that may be inherent, would be good. Transhumanism makes a major misstep in human dignity and worth by ascribing goodness to man’s functions, future or otherwise. It treats the individual’s potential as a property, rather than recognizing any inherent worth in the very essence of being human.
While transhumanism seeks to articulate its own good(s), this particular Christian apologetic argues that limited creaturely capacities are good for at least three reasons. First, Christianity argues that these limitations inherent within mankind’s nature are a positive good, precisely because it is a feature and demonstration of one’s good dependence upon his Creator. According to Christianity, both man’s nature and his telos are grounded in his Creator’s design. Therefore, Christianity teaches that as long as humans pursue God-ordained ends that are according to their designed human nature and capacities, things will ultimately work out well.
Second, these limited capacities are good according to man’s very nature, and without these limitations, man would no longer maintain his “mannishness.” Man is naturally dependent as a creature (rather than Creator) and thus has limitations in relation to his Creator. Therefore, these capacities are good because they are definitive in making a man.
Third, these limited capacities are good according to man’s inherent telos. Discussion of telos not only engages with man’s purpose but extends to our future state as human beings. Christianity articulates a resurrection, incorruptible self that is free from all defective capacities: a new creation.
At the end, limited capacities are a good because the value is placed within the thing itself, rather than a different object or state. This Christian view of man argues that man contains inherent worth because of his very essence. Transhumanism, conversely, places the value on the thing to which man is merging or what he might become. While Christianity and transhumanism may both share in an optimistic teleology and eschatology—seeing the future as greater than today—the views presented here are irreconcilable in their anthropology.
Conclusion
In this paper, I have sought to offer an apologetic for a Christian perspective on the nature of man in light of the worldview implications of transhumanism. Max More, Nick Bostrom, and others within the transhumanist movement have sought to offer a metaphysical picture of post-humanity that demonstrates an optimistic future and telos. The main aim of this paper was to defend the limited creaturely capacities that are inherent in the nature of man as a positive good.
Certainly, the transhumanist vision offers an intriguing and compelling vision of what man can accomplish and become. The desire to overcome disease, age, and death is a tempting invitation, and not an alltogether futile one. Yet, Christianity uniquely offers a profound paradox in which man cannot move beyond himself to become another thing. Instead, Christianity claims man can become more fully himself, through divine participation. Then, and only then, can man overcome these obstacles to our fullest state of being.
Notes
1 Anthony A. Hoekema, Created in God’s Image (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 6.
2 Hoekema, Created in God’s Image, 6.
3 J. P. Moreland and Scott B. Rae, Body & Soul: Human Nature the Crisis in Ethics, 3rd ed. (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2000), 21.
4 While Hoekema does not use the term substance dualism, he does acknowledge that man contains two substances, only one of which can continue during the intermediate state. Akin to John Cooper’s conception, Hoekema refers to his understanding of man’s constitution as a “psychosomatic unity.” Hoekema, Created in God’s Image, 222.
5 Cooper, “Biblical Anthropology is Holistic and Dualistic,” 424.
6 James Hughes, “The Compatibility of Religious and Transhumanist Views of Metaphysics, Suffering, Virtue and Transcendence in an Enhanced Future,” Global Spiral 8 (2007): 7.
7 For the Transhumanist Declaration, see World Transhumanist Association, http://humanityplus.org/philosophy/transhumanist-declaration/, and Max More and Natasha Vita-More, eds., The Transhumanist Reader, 54-55.
8 Nick Bostrom, “In Defense of Posthuman Dignity,” Bioethics 19.3 (2005): 202.
9 Fabrice Jotterand, “At the Roots of Transhumanism: From the Enlightenment to a Post-Human Future,” Journal of Medicine & Philosophy 35.6 (2010): 617.
10 Max More, “The Philosophy of Transhumanism,” in Max More and Natasha VitaMore, eds., The Transhumanist Reader, 15.
11 As noted earlier, transhumanism is at particular odds with a Thomistic-like substance dualism view. Hughes, as well as others, have sought to argue that there are various metaphysics a Christian can hold to that are congruent with transhumanism. Hughes lists a few, including, “Emergent dualists see the soul as a supernatural thing that emerges from the brain. Non-reductive physicalists see the soul as a property of the mind, which cannot be reduced to the functioning of neurons, hormones and genes, but which is not supernatural. Christian theological materialists see the soul as synonymous with the workings of the body and brain, and the death of the body as the end of the soul. “ Hughes, “The Compatibility of Religious and Transhumanist Views of Metaphysics, Suffering, Virtue and Transcendence in an Enhanced Future,” 7.
12 Bostrom, “What Is Transhumanism?”
13 Matthew Eppinette, “Humans 2.0: Transhumanism as a Cultural Trend,” in Everyday Theology: How to Read Cultural Texts and Interpret Trends, eds. Charles A. Anderson, Michael J. Sleasman, and Kevin J. Vanhoozer, (Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic, 2007), 203.
14 Moreland and Rae, Body & Soul, 73.
15 In seeking to define and illustrate the difference between higher and lower-order capacities, Moreland writes, “Higher order capacities are realized by the development of lower order capacities under them. An acorn has the ultimate capacity to draw nourishment from the soil, but this can be actualized and unfolded only by developing the lower capacity to have a root system, then developing the still lower capacities a/the root system, and so on. When a substance has a defect (e.g., a child is color blind), it does not lose its ultimate capacities. Rather, it lacks some lower order capacity it needs for the ultimate capacity to be developed.” Moreland and Rae, Body & Soul, 72-73.
16 Moreland and Rae, Body & Soul, 226.
17 Moreland and Rae, Body & Soul, 226.
18 Consistently in the second part of their book, Moreland and Rae challenge the functional view of man as it relates to abortion, fetal research, reproductive and genetic technologies, human closing, euthanasia, and physician-assisted suicide. See Moreland and Rae, Body & Soul, 231-342.
19 A rather straight-forward case of this is Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, Illustrated edition. (New York, NY: Harper, 2017); See further discussions in Cole-Turner, ed., Transhumanism and Transcendence; Bishop, “Transhumanism, Metaphysics, and the Posthuman God.”
20 Bishop, “Transhumanism, Metaphysics, and the Posthuman God,” 707.
21 Hughes, “The Compatibility of Religious and Transhumanist Views of Metaphysics, Suffering, Virtue and Transcendence in an Enhanced Future,” 2.
22 Shatzer, Transhumanism and the Image of God, 56.
23 Shatzer, Transhumanism and the Image of God, 42.
24 Travis Dumsday, “Transhumanism, Theological Anthropology, and Modern Biological Taxonomy,” Zygon: Journal of Religion & Science 52.3 (2017): 602.
25 Dumsday, “Transhumanism, Theological Anthropology, and Modern Biological Taxonomy,” 610.
Michelle Ryan
Maps and Exclusivity: The Selective Storytelling of the Map
In their efforts to understand their world, humans are label makers. The boundaries and borders people build, and the exclusivity they create, shape people’s sense of identity and view of others. A product of this want to understand is mapmaking, and this technology, from its advent, became ingrained in culture. It not only dictates where one goes, but it also describes where one has been and defines where one will go. Maps, especially geographic maps, wield an authority that is overt at times and imperceptible at others. Much of what maps are made up of is not the physical but the circumstantial. They communicate where neighborhoods begin and end, how much property taxes are, and what public schools are available, among other things. Maps can be a mix of the readily observable (like land topography) and the things more abstract (like the border between Iowa and Minnesota). In Borders: A Very Short Introduction, Diener and Hagen observe, “[Borders] symbolically perpetuate meaning and physically shape the mobilities of human beings” (Diener and Hagen 59). This illustrates the power maps have over culture, a power that has grown with the advancement of mapping systems to include satellite imagery. Despite the authority maps wield, they are seldom questioned or read with a critical eye. Monmonier points out in How to Lie with Maps that often no one stops to consider the mapmakers, the fallible humans who are in charge of putting the world on paper (Monmonier 1).
Often, maps get the most attention when a border or its label is in dispute. Mapmakers and those who read their maps can disagree sometimes publicly, as U.S. President Trump and Mexican President Sheinbaum did over the name of the Gulf of Mexico slash Gulf of America. The names groups or places are given and the way they are depicted, whether it is on Apple Maps or a world atlas, can shape how they are considered, which is why it is important to ask questions about the boundary lines that “[… physically shape the mobilities of human beings” (Diener and Hagen 59). Diener and Hagen consider, “For whom are borders constructed? By whom? And to what ends?” (Diener and Hagen 18). Considering the sway maps have over one’s daily life, it is beneficial to be critical of what information maps disseminate and to be aware that they do not hold all the facts they cannot. Every map grapples with “[…] what is
known instead of what is merely seen, what is understood rather than what is no more than sensed (Wood 7),” says Wood in The Power of Maps. For all the information presented, information has also been excluded and so the presence of a map should be a reminder of the presence of mystery. As one seeks to understand maps and their creators, it is important to remember that maps, at their core, are exclusive, and maps serve the interests of their makers. This is the paradox of the map: “To present a useful and truthful picture, an accurate map must tell white lies” (Monmonier 1). A map with all the information would be overwhelming and impossible to use. It would also reveal just how contradictory the world can be and how few things can be fully encapsulated by text and an ink border. Maps must simplify the world so it can be navigable, but they must not be seen as the world. Questioning the way geographic information is presented isn’t just a reminder of the complexity of Creation, it also looks at the hearts of humanity and the lengths people go to understand the world and to mold it. At their worst, maps become the catalyst of falsification or a twisting of reality if left unexamined.
In Lewis Carroll’s Sylvie and Bruno Concluded, the comical character Mein Herr brags about his home country’s skills in cartography. In an attempt to make the most accurate map, a map in the ratio of one mile to one mile is commissioned. “It has never been spread out yet,’ said Mein Herr: ‘the farmers objected: they said it would cover the whole country, and shut out the sunlight! So we now use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well” (Carroll 49). Lewis Carroll’s fantastical map reveals a few things about real-world mapmaking, beginning with map-territory relation, which is the relationship between a map and what it is depicting. There is an understanding that the map could never fully encompass what it is trying to merely represent. “Not only is it easy to lie with maps, it’s essential. To portray meaningful relationships for a complex, three-dimensional world on a flat sheet of paper or a video screen, a map must distort reality” (Monmonier 1), says Monmonier. Carroll’s map also illustrates Bonini’s paradox, the idea that as a model of something becomes more complex and truer to life, the less desirable it becomes to users. An example of this paradox in action is public transit maps which often simplify whole cities to stops along colorful lines so that riders can quickly ascertain where they need to go (Monmonier 35).
Therefore, it should be understood that “The map’s effectiveness is a consequence of the selectivity with which it brings the past to bear on the present,” says Wood (1). A part of the human experience is understanding that sometimes, mystery has to be lived with, and no finite human can
function with all of the information there must be curation. Humans aren’t omnipresent, nor should they be. Often, there is an attempt to diminish mystery as much as possible through sensemaking. Maps reveal the human need to know but also the inability to know everything and make sense of it.
While maps must be inherently selective, their exclusivity should be to enhance their usefulness, not to serve some other agenda. Wood argues that within maps, there is a “double coding” happening, which is “put to the service of myth,” with the myth being that the map depicts things as they truly are (Wood 2). Mapmakers can use the authority easily given to the map by its users to sow geographic disinformation. Sometimes that disinformation can be achieved simply through omission, what Monmonier calls “cartographic silences” (Monmonier 87).
In his article, Dugan states “Maps and what we do with them cannot be defined universally. Ideals and ideas about maps frequently clash with the reality of how and why maps are used” (Dugan). This reveals the need to read maps critically as maps will always serve interests (Wood 1). Maps don’t just present the world as it is objectively observed; they can present the world as it is idealized. A map can be a tool to encourage action or attitudes toward “ us” and “them.” The most obvious example of this is the use of the map to solidify national identity, especially in times of political upheaval (Monmonier 89). “Nowhere is the map more a national symbol and an intellectual weapon than in disputes over territory,” says Monmonier (90). The use of maps as a symbol of national identity became the norm by the end of the nineteenth century, as the nation-state became the sought-after ideal, “[…] where the political borders of the state would coincide with the cultural boundaries of the nation” (Diener and Hagen 43). Monarchs no longer represented their nation’s sovereignty; it was the nation itself its very outline became its brand.
Fast-forward to the 21st Century, the map remains the favorite tool of the political propagandist. No better example is the discrepancy between maps produced by Ukraine and those produced by Russia depicting the same land area. On Ukrainian maps, the peninsula of Crimea is often included as part of the country, despite its annexation by Russia in 2014. On Russian maps, Crimea is included as part of the nation along with other disputed territories. Krimnash (‘Crimea is ours’) was a popular slogan among patriotic Russians before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and now the sentiment has grown, along with the idea that Russia should extend its borders to “adopt” land where any enclaves of ethnic Russians are present. It would not be far off to suggest that the personal identities of the almost 2
million people who live in Crimea cannot be neatly defined by the many maps that attempt to claim it.
The maps that have come out of the war in Ukraine reveal the opposing narratives both countries communicate, with Russia claiming to occupy huge swaths of Ukraine while Ukrainian maps are much stingier on what it considers “under Russian control” (NZZ).
A more local example of the politics and subsequent damage of maps is the history of redlining in St. Louis. In the 1930s, the Home Owners Land Corporation mapped multiple cities, assessing their “residential security” neighborhood by neighborhood (Mapping Inequality). St. Louis was divided up into squares of red, yellow, green, and blue with red considered to be the location of the most “hazardous” neighborhoods. The residents of the areas marked as “hazardous” by the HOLC were overwhelmingly African American. Those who lived in these ‘red neighborhoods’ struggled to obtain mortgages as their areas were deemed ‘risky’ by banks, regardless of whether their neighborhood was truly dilapidated.
Maps are not neutral or objective, despite the prevailing notion, says Dugan, they are arguments (Dugan). Maps might masquerade as infallible, but they can change over time and vary from place to place. Maps must be exclusive but sometimes that exclusivity is wielded to exclude the identities and histories of others. According to Diener and Hagen, states are not “rigid containers that neatly partition global space into nation-sate territories corresponding to distinct societies” (Diener and Hagen 14), and this is true at the local level as well. Maps remind their users of what is known but they should also be a reminder of what is unknown, complex or even ephemeral. They reveal the diversity of humanity in its thought, culture, and identity—none of which can be fully put to paper. Maps should not be passively consumed but studied and questioned. Who is included and excluded by these boundaries? How have those boundaries fluctuated? What information is ignored? Of course, these are weighty questions to be asking a phone GPS when simply attempting to avoid traffic congestion, but perhaps it is worth considering how the maps one is exposed to write a story that isn’t entirely objective from the international level down to public school zoning.
Carroll, Lewis. Sylvie and Bruno Concluded. 1893. PDF File. Diener, Alexander C., and Joshua Hagen. Borders: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2012. Duggan, Mike. “Maps Shape Our Lives—Showing Us Not Just Where We Are, but Who We Are.” Phys.org, 28 Feb. 2024, https://phys.org/news/2024-02-maps-shape-our-livesshowing.html#google_vignette. Accessed 2 Apr. 2025. “Mapping Inequality.” Dsl.richmond.edu, 2023, https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/. Accessed 19 Apr. 2025.
Monmonier, Mark. How to Lie with Maps. University of Chicago Press, 1991.
Visuals, N.Z.Z. “Mapping the Battle Lines in Ukraine.” Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 10 June 2022, www.nzz.ch/english/ukraine-war-interactivemap-of-the-current-front-line-ld.1688087. Accessed 2 Apr. 2025. Wood, Denis. The Power of Maps. Guilford Publications, 1992.
Elsa Linson
“To Krakoa
,
My
X-Men”: The Creation of Mutant Culture
Within the Krakoa Era of X-Men and the Importance of Autonomy for Marginalized Groups
The X-Men comics canon has been expanding for over 60 years, and in that time the series has gone through countless changes as different writers and artists take over, characters come and go, and the times themselves change. However, one aspect of the X-Men that is nearly always there is the so-called “mutant metaphor” the comparison between mutants and real-world marginalized groups. Over time, there have been many different iterations of the mutant metaphor, from the parallel between the original 60s team and the Civil Rights Movement, to the relation of mutants to the queer community in the early 2000s movie trilogy, which led to the now infamous scene in X2 where Iceman “comes out” as a mutant to his family. While the metaphor has evolved with the comics themselves, the use of the X-Men to explore how minorities are treated by a hostile majority has always been an important theme. In the recent “Krakoa era” of the comics, though, mutants for the first time can entirely escape the human majority and create their own nation Krakoa and way of life, which drastically shifts the reality of mutant life for the better and provides an entirely new take on the mutant metaphor. Throughout X-Men comics, mutants have often been used as a metaphor for minority groups, and the development of a unique mutant culture in the Krakoa era of X-Men, as well as the paradise this culture creates, reflects how minority groups living under oppressive majorities must be allowed the autonomy to define themselves to truly thrive.
Examining the creation of mutant culture and its relationship to real world marginalized communities interacts with the relatively recent and incredibly wide-spanning field of cultural studies, which came about because of the massive cultural shifts that occurred in the 1960s. Because it is so broad, there is no one single goal or method to cultural studies, but it tends to focus on “social and cultural forces that either create community or cause division and isolation” (Guerin et al. 305). Cultural studies scholars are interested both in how culture is constructed and applied within texts and how texts connect with real-world cultures, and they often pair this focus with other theories interested in cultural forces, such as feminism,
postcolonialism, or Marxism. Another major factor in the philosophy of cultural studies is that it “denies the separation of ‘high’ and ‘low’ art” (Guerin et al. 306). Instead, since all texts contribute to and are influenced by culture in some way, all texts, including comics, are worth studying as a “phenomenon of culture” (Guerin et al. 306).
Within the vast span of cultural studies, the area most applicable to the subject at hand is ethnic studies, a field that looks at “evolving identities of racial and ethnic groups” (Guerin et al. 309). However, X-Men’s incredibly fluid and ever-evolving mutant metaphor takes the notion of “culture” beyond a purely ethnic definition, instead expanding mutants’ symbolic significance to any group with their own shared experiences and history, including those such as the queer or disabled communities. The very definition of what a culture is and how one is developed are often subjects for ethnic studies work, and they are also central to X-Men’s Krakoa era, as is the question of whether it is “good to celebrate ‘the Other’ and bring others into the mainstream” or to instead prioritize “the preservation of difference rather than continued marginalization,” which correlates to the contrast between mutants living within human society and them living in their own society on Krakoa (Guerin et al. 309). Ethnic studies is the branch of cultural studies that examines cultural development, definition, and evolution, making it the perfect lens through which to analyze the story of mutants shaping their own unique cultural identity and its real-world implications.
Since their introduction in 1963, mutants have always been set apart from the rest of their superhero peers and singled out as “different. ” As soon as mutants are discussed in the very first issue of X-Men, Professor X shares that when he “was young, normal people feared [him], distrusted [him]”, so he “realized the human race is not yet ready to accept those with extra power”, leading him to build a special school where mutants could train and express their powers safely (Lee 16). Immediately, the idea of mutation and hatred from humans goes hand in hand. Because a mutation can manifest as nearly anything from simply giving someone psychic abilities, to transforming one into a transparent creature made of a gelatinous substance and over sixty years, the X-Men comics have become similarly varied, oppression from humans has always been one of the only commonalities of the mutant and by extension X-Men experience. There is no shortage of X-Men villains whose primary motivation is to either control or totally eradicate mutants: Bolivar Trask, whose mutant hunting Sentinels are one of the X-Men’s most common recurring foes; Reverend Stryker, who distorts religion as a twisted justification for his bigotry; and
Senator Kelly, who always seeks to create anti-mutant legislation in Congress, to name a few. People who would otherwise be considered ordinary civilians are elevated to the status of comic book villain by their hatred, and this inability of the human majority to accept the mutant minority has always defined the mutant experience.
As a result of living in a majority human society, most mutants are forced to either conform to the standards of that society or leave it altogether as the sewer-dwelling Morlocks choose to. While those mutants who can easily pass for human those with no physical mutations– are able to simply avoid using their powers in public, those who cannot are forced to actively alter parts of themselves to fit human standards– an act which is almost universally stifling and demoralizing. On the original X-Men team, the mutant Angel is forced to strap down his wings under his civilian clothes, which he compares to “wearing a straightjacket, ” and he “feel[s] like [himself] again” when he is able to display his wings openly and fly as a superhero (Lee 23). Similarly, when Nightcrawler– the first X-Man with an entirely inhuman appearance– joins the team, the Professor has him wear an “image inducer” that alters his demon-like appearance to look human. Eventually, Kurt Wagner rejects this device, declaring that “God– or fate or dumb luck made me what I am, and I won’t hide anymore, not even for the X-Men” (Claremont 34). Mutations–both powers and physical ones–are an intrinsic part of mutants’ identities, down to their genes, and as a result, hiding them means continually rejecting a vital aspect of themselves. Angel’s wing harness is literally physically restrictive, and Kurt’s image inducer likewise stifles a part of himself. Mutants are the perpetual “other”. Human society will never accept them when they express their mutations because they do not fit human standards, so living in such a society requires a constant suppression and twisting of one’s innate identity. True expression and acceptance are impossible when one is forced to operate in a system not built for them.
Despite this long-established status quo of mutants living as an oppressed minority under a human majority, the recent “Krakoa era” in XMen comics turns this standard on its head. Now, the mutants are all living in their own country of their own design. A mutant society designed by and for mutants to fit mutant standards. This new paradigm radically shifts how mutants can express themselves and fit into the world in which they live not just as costumed superheroes but as civilians, too complete people. While Nightcrawler was always forced to either hide his genuine appearance or risk rejection because of his true, blue form when living among humans, there is no such need for hiding on Krakoa. The inherent
diversity of form mutation takes means that there is no “standard” appearance for mutants– physical differences are expected and accepted. It is not just that Kurt is no longer living in a society that does not fit his identity, though. Because Krakoa is a sentient mutant themself, all of the dwellings on the island are grown by a mutant and designed for different mutations. While mutants are still establishing and exploring their new home in the Reign of X storyline, they discover a structure that is “hollow”, but no one can go inside because there are no doors, and even if one tries to cut their way in, “it just immediately seal[s] back up” (Hickman, no. 7 of Reign of X). Nightcrawler is the only one who can enter because of his ability to teleport, and inside he finds that “if [he] were designing a place to live that was everything [he] wanted– that would have been it. [He] would have called it home” (Hickman, no 7 of Reign of X). It is a “perfect” place that “the island made…just for [him]” (Hickman, no. 7 of Reign of X). Kurt’s home is a perfect example of how Krakoa is shaped around mutants and their abilities. Krakoa is not just designed to make mutant powers a net neutral, but to support and celebrate them. Nightcrawler is now in a culture built with him in mind, not just passively accepting but actively supporting his uniqueness, allowing him to fully express himself and his abilities. As Magneto observes, Krakoa is all about the “breaking of human norms”; it fits a mutant framework instead (Hickman, no. 4 of Reign of X).
This same attention to and centering of mutant abilities and experiences can be seen throughout the development of mutant culture. Before Krakoa, because mutants were so spread out and forced to merely work within a human system actively suppressing their mutant identities, there was never a unified “mutant culture”. Instead, humans “decide[d] what’s right for all of [the mutants]. How to talk, how to think, what to believe…” (Hickman, no. 7 of Reign of X). On Krakoa, though, the mutants declare “no more” and work to shape their own narrative and identity as a unified nation, taking back control and creating a culture defined by what sets mutants apart.
This can clearly be seen in the development of a unique mutant language. Since mutants are randomly born into different nations around the world, they typically speak the language of their birth country, and there is no singular shared language for mutants. However, as the Kenyan post-colonial theorist Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o explains, “language as communication and as culture are…products of each other, ” so “language is thus inseparable from…a community of human beings with a specific form and character, a specific history, a specific relationship to the world” (Thiong’o 1134). Language is a central aspect of culture and identity, and
these concepts can only be expressed to their fullest extent by a language developed for and by a specific culture.
When Professor X was first starting to develop the idea of Krakoa, he had to communicate his plans with the mutant island, but since Krakoa has their own unique language that no one else speaks, they had to communicate through empathic telepathy. They were “talking, but not at a complex, nuanced level” (Hickman, no. 8 of House of X/Powers of X). To be able to understand the “complicated, deeper” meaning of Krakoa’s speech and through it the island’s history he needs the abilities of Cypher, a mutant whose power is “understanding and deciphering the nuances of any language” (Hickman, no. 8 of House of X/Powers of X). Language is the essential vessel for the true communication of one’s identity, and in the case of Krakoa, that connection is made possible using mutant abilities. Language carries history and identity and uniquely binds it to the culture which originates it. To supply this need for a unique, connecting language to found this new mutant country on, Cypher uses his powers to design a “Krakoan” language and alphabet, which is then telepathically taught to each mutant when they enter Krakoa. Thus, mutants finally have their own language to set them apart as a culture, and this language is developed along the lines of the unique experiences and attributes of the people it belongs to and the environment they live in, mirroring the way languages and cultures form in reality.
The Krakoa era developed a new original setting and culture for mutants, and this allowed mutants to thrive and achieve things they had never been able to before. One of the most immediately obvious indicators of this prosperity is the radical inclusiveness of Krakoa. Krakoa is the mutant nation, and therefore all mutants are welcome, even those who were historically enemies of the X-Men. Ever since the first issue of X-Men, Professor X and Magneto have been set up as diametrically opposed foes who represent the two primary approaches mutants have to responding to humans: Professor X seeks to compromise with humans, while Magneto views humans as an inherent enemy. However, in the Krakoa era, Magneto and Professor X worked together to help found the mutant country and then serve as two of the most influential members of Krakoa’s governing body, the Quiet Council.
When Xavier was first considering the idea of establishing Krakoa, he went to his “old friend” and current enemy and pitched that they should put aside their ideological differences because they were “both wrong” and “both [their] dreams are fleeting and too small for the coming days” (Hickman, no. 3 of House of X/Powers of X). Previously, Xavier and Erik’s
differences had always boiled down to how they believed mutants should interact with humans, so therefore, removing humans from the equation finally allowed them to move past their differences to try and build something instead of seeking each other’s destruction. The existence of a minority under a hostile majority tends to lead to division within the minority itself because members of that group are forced to focus on their tension with the majority instead of their shared bond with each other. The introduction of autonomy and self-defined culture shift that focus back to the unique identity members of the minority have in common, leading to the growth of a stronger community that prioritizes helping its own as opposed to competing with an outside threat. Professor X’s key realization is that the very notion of them as hero and villain is the “wrong” focus because both sides whether they seek to befriend or battle humans are allowing the group that hates them to define their dreams and lives instead of defining themselves internally as their own community, a community both share. “Apart, ” they “always lose” to the narrative-defining power of humanity, and “only together” can “all [their] people survive” (Hickman, no. 3 of House of X/Powers of X). Krakoa not only creates a more united mutant community than ever before, but it is sustained by that united community.
Because of the larger mutant community that the culture of Krakoa brings together, mutants in this era can achieve things that were previously impossible and, in doing so, heal some of the wounds inflicted on them by humanity. Shortly after Krakoa’s creation, Professor X sends several of the most iconic members of the X-Men including Jean Grey, Cyclops, Wolverine, and Nightcrawler—on a vital mission to attempt to destroy a new Mother Mold, a human creation that would be able to manufacture unprecedented numbers of mutant-hunting Sentinel robots. However, in a brutal twist, every single participant in this mission is killed. In a spread constructed as a montage of the team’s deaths interspersed with news headlines and data from past human massacres of mutants, Professor X is overwhelmed with the horrific losses mutants have suffered at humans’ hands, finally declaring that this sort of tragedy will happen “no more” (Hickman, no. 7 of House of X/Powers of X). What would have ordinarily served as merely an impassioned exclamation, though, is transformed into something far more tangible with the newfound collective power of a mutant nation.
After the team’s deaths, the scene shifts to a contrastingly lush and beautiful garden, where a group of five seemingly random mutants are gathered. However, by utilizing their unique powers in tandem, this group–
the Five– can bring back each of the mutants who died, introducing the concept of mutant resurrection, which becomes a defining aspect of Krakoan culture. Magneto explains to his daughter Polaris that “separate, yes, [The Five] are great mutants but only significant, not transcendent. Together, however […] together these five mutants have made [mutantkind] whole” (Hickman, no. 8 of House of X/Powers of X). Never before have mutants had the power to simply resurrect any dead mutant as a fact of their society, and this revolutionary ability is only possible because of the distinct conditions on Krakoa.
An autonomous mutant culture can gather people who would have otherwise never had the opportunity to work together, and this allows for the distinct combination of powers that facilitate resurrection. No single mutant has the gift to revive the entirety of the mutant race, but working together, mutant powers allow a group that has endured countless horrors to finally heal. Directly contrasting the thousands of mutant deaths brought up in the last issue, the Five can give back the lives taken by humans, beginning the process of repairing the damage done to mutants and making their community truly “whole. ” In the end, the ultimate achievement of Krakoa the ability to resurrect mutants fully encapsulates what autonomy offers mutants. Resurrection is the purest representation of mutants taking control of their lives. It is only possible with a group of mutants working in community, and this new experience exclusive to mutants helps mold the shape of mutant culture. Professor X declaring “no more” to humanity’s cruelty is not merely a plea but a declaration that from then on, “mutants will be judged by mutant law, not man’s” (Hickman, no. 10 of House of X/Powers of X).
The Krakoa era of X-Men marks a massive paradigm shift for mutants as they finally go from being defined by the dominant human culture to being able to create their own unique culture shaped around their own distinct experiences, and the unprecedented ways this allows mutants to thrive reveals the power that self-definition holds for minority communities. The mutant metaphor has remained trapped in the scenario of majority domination for decades, but this era finally dares to explore what would be possible if a minority was able to live in a society designed for them instead. The result is a radical creation of culture, community, and catharsis. When discussing his new life on Krakoa, the mutant Cyclops declares, “I’m done focusing on the things that want me dead and I’m choosing to spend my days focused on the things that make me want to live”; the ultimate gift of Krakoa is a place to do just that (Hickman, no. 1 of Reign of X).
Claremont, Chris. X-Men Milestones: Dark Phoenix Saga. Marvel, 2019. Guerin, Wilfred L., et al. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. 6th ed., Oxford University Press, 2011. Hickman, Jonathan. House of X/Powers of X. Marvel, 2020. . Reign of X. vol. 1, Marvel, 2024. Lee, Stan. Mighty Marvel Masterworks: The X-Men. vol. 1, Marvel, 2021. Thiong’o, Ngũgĩ wa. “Decolonizing the Mind.” Literary Theory: An Anthology, edited by Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan, 2nd ed., Blackwell, 2004, pp. 1126–1150.
Matthew Steven Bracey
A Biblical Theology of Labor and Vocation for the 21st Century
Firstly, I wanted to express my appreciation for the opportunity to be at this conference. My presentation represents an abbreviated version of a chapter that first appeared in Christians in Culture, edited by Dr. Chris Talbot and me. My work in this paper reflects a synthesis of a Reformed, Lutheran, Anglican, Wesleyan, and evangelical theology of vocation.
Rightly understood, work is a vocation from a good God. In fact, the word vocation, from the Latin vocatio, means “calling.” God has called Christians to a host of vocations. Sadly, college students and working adults alike sometimes fail to view secular jobs as sufficiently spiritual when compared to church-specific jobs. Such wrongheaded thinking can lead to apathy or even despair about those jobs. However, all Christians are colaborers in God’s kingdom, whether behind the pulpit or on the mission field, behind the tractor or on the football field.
To establish this truth, I will first examine some theological foundations of work.1 Next, I will reflect on a wider view of vocation. Finally, I will consider some practical considerations for labor and vocation.
Theological Foundations
Creation
Work has not resulted from the Fall. It has resulted from God’s ordering of the world that humans subdue the earth and exercise dominion over its creatures (Genesis 1:28).
The way work manifests itself in individuals’ lives differs according to their God-given propensities and strengths, which God has given them, and which impact our choices for jobs and careers. Carl F. H. Henry masterfully links these themes: “Through his work, man shares the creation purpose of God in subduing nature, whether he is a miner with dirty hands, a mechanic with a greasy face, or a stenographer with stencil smudged fingers.”2 Contemporary cultures sometimes demean blue-collar work in favor of white-collar work. However, neither biblical Christianity nor the
mainstream of the Christian tradition affirms any such vocational hierarchy.
Fall
However, work is not fully what God intended for it to be because of man’s sin. Work is at the center of the Fall because man mismanaged the serpent and the fruit, each of which, significantly, were the objects of man’s work. By listening to the serpent, Adam and Eve transgressed God’s regal command to exercise dominion over the beasts (3:1), and by eating from the forbidden tree, they did not subdue the earth as God intended. Now, the pursuit of work lacks the unmitigated blessing for which God intended it.
Restoration
God, being rich in mercy (Ephesians 2:4), seeks to restore what is lost (Matthew 18:11), including His intended ends for work. Adam and Eve sought to cover their shame by working, namely, by “sew[ing] fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths” (Genesis 3:7b). But their hard work could not save them. Ultimately, God, not we ourselves, gives our work its significance.
The Church
Significantly, God does not sanctify our work in solitary existence. Rather, He restores our work within the community of the church. The church is composed of distinct members (e.g., eyes, ears, toes), each with their own strengths and functions. Although Paul’s analogy of the body is applied directly to spiritual gifts, its underlying principle applies more broadly to our vocational gifts. Gene Edward Veith, Jr. thus refers to the church’s composition as a “divine division of labor.”3 So we gather, we are strengthened, and then we scatter into all the world.
A Wider View of Vocation
However, a robust doctrine of vocation is not only about our careers. It is about all our “callings.”
God
Our calling before God is the foundational calling giving structure and shape to every other vocation we receive. Hence, Jesus states, “Love the LORD your God with your heart, soul, mind, and strength.” By loving God with our whole beings, we can better love our neighbors in whatever vocational context (Deuteronomy 6:5; Leviticus 19:18).
Family
Man’s second vocation is that of his or her biological and/or adoptive families. God calls us to honor our parents, keep our siblings, and care for our children (Exodus 20:12; Genesis 4:9; Deuteronomy 6:7). A central ethic for properly stewarding our vocations is that of neighbor-love, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31). The neighbor is not some abstract other; he or she is mom and dad, brother and sister, son and daughter, and so forth. Precisely how neighbor-love applies within each familial context will depend on the relationship. Admittedly, unique complications can result from circumstances of abuse or divorce; we must therefore pursue this vocation with prudence. But, generally, our family members, whether Christian or not, are our neighbors whom God has called us to love.
Society and State
A third vocation is that of society and state. Society, and all it involves, is a vocation from God not to ignore but to steward. In the words of Jeremiah, God calls us to “seek the welfare of the city” (Jeremiah 29:7).4 The precise way in which we engage this calling will differ according to our circumstances because all societies are distinct in terms of their histories, cultures, and politics. But whatever our engagement looks like, it should occur under the lordship of Jesus Christ.
In this vocation, our neighbors are those with whom we practice community the clerk at the store, the runner on the greenway, and the teacher at school. Even seemingly ordinary acts, properly understood, are acts of love of neighbor. Something as simple as obeying road rules demonstrates neighbor-love because, by so doing, we help to maintain order rather than to create chaos, thereby decreasing the likelihood of accident, harm, and even fatality to the societal neighbor.
A final vocation is our spiritual family, the church. God calls us to the church again, not in the abstract but to an imperfect local body of believers. Our church neighbors include our fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters in the faith: pastors, deacons, teachers, music leaders, laypersons, and so on. We practice neighbor-love toward them by obeying the “one another” passages throughout the Scriptures: rejoicing with them, weeping with them, and so forth.
Practical Considerations for Labor and Vocation
1. Bridge the sacred-secular divide.
Christians sometimes dichotomize sacred (church) and secular (nonchurch) jobs, seeing church jobs as superior to non-church jobs, which causes some Christians in non-pastoral vocations to underestimate the significance of God’s call on their lives. The sacred-secular division has resulted in two errors. First, people sometimes think that secular jobs are non-religious or even anti-religious. This mistake occurs because people conflate secular and secularism. However, secularism refers to the absence of religion, whereas secular refers to the world but not necessarily to the non-religious. The second error correlates church vocations with the sacred and non-church vocations with the secular. However, this mistake treats the secular vocation as if it cannot also be sacred. Sacred means “holy” or dedicated to God. In the words of Dorothy Sayers, “It is the business of the Church to recognize that the secular vocation, as such, is sacred.”5
2. Expand your view of ministry.
People also associate church vocations, but not secular vocations, with “the ministry.” However, ministry extends beyond church offices and church walls and includes non-church jobs. The word ministry means “service,” which can occur anywhere. Pastor Eugene Peterson contended, “[I]f Christian ministry is reduced to the work of pastors and the people who help them [. . .] there is not much integrity in praying, ‘Thy Kingdom Come.’”6 Rather than distinguishing sacred and secular jobs, or designating church jobs alone as vocational ministry, perhaps we should speak simply
terms of church work and secular work, recognizing that all jobs within God’s sovereign economy are vocational, sacred, and ministerial.
3. Honor church work and secular work alike.
We should honor church work and secular work alike insofar as they represent God’s calling on our lives, which vary according to His designs. Consider Jesus’ interactions with tax collectors. To Matthew, He said, “Follow Me,” and “he rose and followed him” (Matthew 9:9). Yet, when other tax collectors asked, “Teacher, what shall we do?” He replied, “Collect no more than you are authorized to do” (Luke 3:12–13). Sometimes God calls us to change direction in our lives from fishing nets and tax booths to mission work or preaching ministry. Other times, He calls us to stay the vocational course, not to drop our swords or leave our administrative posts but to tell our friends what we have seen and heard.
Sometimes students are tempted to think that their student vocations do not bear equal significance to workplace vocations, or people engaged in secular work are tempted to believe that their vocations are not as important as church vocations. However, a biblical theology of vocation dispels these notions. Hence, the Puritan William Perkins argued that “washing dishes” and “wiping shoes” may please God just as much as “preaching the Word of God.” Hence, whether blue-collar or white-collar, we should properly honor all God-given vocations.
4. Find an appropriate church-work balance.
People whose vocational ministry does not occur within the local church often find the church-work balance difficult. Pastors want God’s people to spend more time in the church and at church functions. However, people with secular vocations are often exhausted from following God’s will for them in the world and, at some point, must rest in obedience to the command of the Sabbath (Exodus 20:8–11; Deuteronomy 5:12–15). How can we best navigate the tension that can arise between pastors and congregants because of these challenges?
Pastors may rightly challenge their congregants about their church commitment but should avoid creating a false sense of guilt within their congregants who cannot participate in everything the church offers. Similarly, congregants may rightly pursue their jobs in the world as their service (ministry) before God but should also not forsake assembling with
believers (Hebrews 10:25) and serving the church (Galatians 6:10). A good faith effort may not make it to every function, but it is a good faith effort.
5. Recognize that God sanctifies you in Christ by the Holy Spirit within vocation.
Church and secular vocations have meaning because God has called us to them for specific purposes. The remainder of these “practical considerations” will review these purposes. One is that God’s sanctification of His children takes place in the hustle and bustle of ordinary life, including work. Hence, Paul urged the Ephesians to “walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called” (4:1), which he then applied within the context of one’s work. Charles Kingsley memorably commented: “Thank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do which must be done, whether you like it or not. Being forced to work, and forced to do your best, will breed in your temperance, self-control, diligence, strength of will, content and a hundred virtues which the idle will never know.”7 Kingsley is right. Oftentimes, doing that which we do not want forms in us vital spiritual fruit.
6. Pursue excellence in your work.
Another purpose of work is excellence. Fundamentally, we serve God through our work and, therefore, should pursue excellence in it.
Bondservants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ . . . (Ephesians 6:5).
And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. [ . . .] Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men. [. . .] You are serving the Lord Christ (Colossians 3:17, 23–24).
One of the ways we do excellent work is by engaging it with what F. Leroy Forlines called our “total personality.” Good work will engross our minds, hearts, and actions.8
Sayers described the concept of excellence by the phrase “serving the work,” which means giving it our best, which means excellence before God.
Sayers rightly criticized the church that fails to emphasize workplace excellence. The “very first demand” of the “intelligent carpenter” is that “he should make good tables.” She imagines the carpentry that would have come from Jesus’ shop: “No crooked table legs or ill-fitting drawers ever, I dare swear, came out of the carpenter’s shop at Nazareth. Nor, if they did, could anyone believe that they were made by the same hand that made Heaven and earth.”9 If Jesus was perfect, and the Father expects excellence, then He would have pursued His vocations with excellence. So should we.
7. Do not settle for mediocrity.
Sayers observes that Christians often settle for mediocrity in the name of piety, giving examples from the church and from secular work. However, good intentions do not excuse shoddy work. If any institution should lead the way in excellence, it is the church of God. Piety minus excellence equals “a living lie” precisely because God desires our excellence. That God can accomplish His work through mediocre or poor work speaks only to God’s sovereignty, not to any irrelevance or relativity of excellence, which has its foundation in Him.
8. Make money.
Of course, serving the work does not exclude making money; another purpose of work is money. While the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil (1 Timothy 6:10), money itself is not evil. John Wesley suggested three rules for money: gain all you can (industry), save all you can (frugality), and give all you can (charity).10 We cannot give except we save, and we cannot save except we gain, and we cannot gain except we work. Money allows us to provide for our families, give tithes and offerings, practice charity, and enjoy God’s good gifts.
9. See the “masks of God” in your vocations.
The Protestant Reformer Martin Luther described secular vocations as the “masks of God” by which God teaches us to depend on Him and cares for the world at large. While God does not need our work, He graciously uses it in the hopes that we will learn dependence on Him. Also, through our work, God cares for the world feeding, clothing, sheltering, and supporting them—through the vocation of ordinary, human labor.11 For example, we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11), and God answers
that prayer not only by providing seeds and soil and sun and rain and crops but also by gifting farmers and factory workers and truck drivers and retail clerks to get that food from the ground in South Dakota to our tables in Missouri or Tennessee or wherever.
10. Find opportunities to witness and contribute to human flourishing.
Finally, our work is a means by which the sovereign God invites people to Himself and brings about human flourishing. It provides an opportunity for evangelical witness because by it we let our “light shine before others, so that they may see [our] good works and give glory to [our] Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). And it provides an opportunity to contribute to human flourishing because presumably, hopefully, the culture and society around us improved because of our witness.
Conclusion
A rich and robust theology undergirds vocation. Vocation includes career, but it is more than our career. Finally, it is eminently practical. Whatever God’s calling on your life, learn to see it through the lens of faith and recognize your vocational significance within God’s economy.
Notes
1 Timothy Keller also organizes his discussion of vocation by the creation-fallredemption rubric. Similarly, James Hamilton bases his volume on work on the themes of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. See Timothy Keller with Katherine Leary Alsdorf, Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work (New York: Penguin, 2012); and James M. Hamilton, Jr., Work and our Labor in the Lord, Biblical Studies in Biblical Theology, ed. Dane C. Ortlund and Miles V. Van Pelt (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2017).
2 Carl F. H. Henry, quoted in John A. Bernbaum and Simon A. Steer, Why Work? Careers and Employment in Biblical Perspective (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1986), 6–7. See also Andrew T. Walker, Introduction to The Gospel and Work, The Gospel for Life Series, ed. Russell Moore and Andrew T. Walker (Nashville: B&H, 2017), 2.
3 Gene Edward Veith, Jr., God at Work: Your Christian Vocation in All of Life, Focal Point Series (2002; repr., Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), 40.
4 Nelson discusses implications for work from Jeremiah 31, explaining that we can convey God’s “common grace” by being “good neighbors” and promoting “workplace justice” among our societal neighbors. See Tom Nelson, Work Matters: Connecting Sunday Worship to Monday Work (Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), 131, 133, 137.
5 Dorothy L. Sayers, Why Work? (April 3, 1942), in Letters to a Diminished Church: Passionate Arguments for the Relevance of Christian Doctrine (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2004), 131.
6 Eugene Peterson, The Wisdom of Each Other: A Conversation Between Spiritual Friends (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1998), 77.
7 Charles Kingsley, in The Christian Advocate, January 16, 1913, 80.
8 F. Leroy Forlines, The Quest for Truth: Answering Life’s Inescapable Questions (Nashville: Randall House, 2001), 55, 139.
9 Sayers, Why Work? 132.
10 John Wesley, “The Use of Money,” in John Wesley, ed. Albert C. Outler (1964; repr., New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 241, 245, 247.
11 Keller, Every Good Endeavor, 20–21.
Karen Kannenberg
Artificial General Intelligence and Its Effect on Human Meaning, Worth, and Purpose
This paper investigates one very ancient area and one very contemporary reality. The first relates to the ongoing endeavor of humans to find meaning in life. Meaning in life has long been associated with finding individual worth and purpose. Therefore, finding meaning, worth, and purpose will result in a satisfying and happy life. This is as true today as it was a thousand years ago. Often, we associate meaning, purpose, and worth with our work. Rarely are we introduced to someone new and not asked within the first or second question, “Where do you work?” or “What do you do for a living?” This appears to indicate that the importance of work and the development of identity (and perhaps meaning, purpose, and worth) is prevalent and perhaps inculcated in humanity since our work is often associated with our survival. The most recent threat to many jobs is from Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), or more specifically, the principal technology underpinning AGI, which is machine learning. Not to be confused with Generative Artificial Intelligence, which Marr (2024) describes as “[…] capable of mimicking complex patterns, producing diverse content, and occasionally surprising us with outputs that seem creatively brilliant. […] However, Generative AI does not truly “understand” the content it creates.” AGI becomes a threat to jobs because this technology will soon be capable of duplicating the human brain in structure and function. Furthermore, this AGI evolution will continue to dwarf human intellectual capabilities and, with robotics, human physical abilities. If this evolution does occur, how will it impact this ongoing human search for meaning, worth, and purpose? It is difficult to argue that meaning, worth, and purpose are not intricately linked to our paid or unpaid work efforts. However, our work is not the only way in which humans can attain meaning, worth, and purpose in life.
Humanism, Christianity, and Meaning
According to Merriam-Webster (n.d.), humanism is defined as “a doctrine, attitude, or way of life centered on human interests or values. Especially: a philosophy that rejects supernaturalism and stresses an individual’s dignity and worth and capacity for self-realization through reason.” This suggests that the truth about our identity is a function of coming to understand self-reasoning. Truth, therefore, is defined by and the product of human efforts. In secular humanism, morals, values, purpose, and worth are also products of human efforts, not absolute but rather relative and ever-changing.
Christianity, according to Merriam-Webster (n.d.), is “the religion derived from Jesus Christ, based on the Bible as sacred scripture…” Christianity accepts supernaturalism in its belief in God. Truth is absolute and defined by God, not humans. Values, morals, worth, and purpose are likewise not attained or defined by humans or their efforts but rather by God.
Meaning, according to Merriam-Webster (n.d.), is defined as a “significant quality.” When applied to human existence, meaning is the measure of the significant quality of human life. For the humanist, it is the human that determines the level and degree of quality of human life and meaning. Since truth and meaning are not absolute for the humanist, neither are any aspects that relate to truth or meaning. Therefore, morals, values, worth, and purpose are relative and ever-changing if they exist at all. In Christianity, it is God who determines the level and degree of quality of human life and meaning. Truth and meaning are absolute and unchanging creations of God for the Christian, as are any aspects of human existence that relate to life and meaning. Therefore, morals, values, worth, and purpose are all absolute and unchanging.
Work, Economics, and Innovation
Throughout the history of the American capitalist, or free market, economy humans have reacted to the introduction of innovations, especially in the form of new technology, as a threat to some or many jobs. While new technology is a threat to some jobs, it has traditionally been confined to one or a few industries whose jobs needed to be replaced or upskilled. In the 21st century, the fear associated with Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) relates to the magnitude and rate of change that this
technological innovation is currently having on redefining jobs in almost all industries, whether skilled labor or knowledge labor. Work that requires high levels of education and intellectual ability are, for the first time in history, under great threat. In addition, unskilled labor requiring a limited knowledge base, but considerable physical ability is also under threat due to ongoing advances in robotics. As a result, our society is expressing an increasing amount of fear about the impact it will have on their jobs and their children’s job opportunities in the future and therefore, to some extent, their meaning, worth, and purpose.
At the same time, history has shown that without the forces of innovation and change facilitated only through a free market economy, human flourishing would not have advanced. Each time there is a significant innovation, jobs have been impacted. Each time, the fear of job loss is a common thread as the new innovative technology begins to be implemented in how jobs are performed and applied commercially, creating new products and services. To address these concerns, Joseph Schumpeter, the Austrian economist known as the father of entrepreneurship or, perhaps more commonly, the father of the theory of creative destruction, wrote extensively about the real and perceived problem. Schumpeter (1939) introduced the theory of creative destruction. His theory stems from the work of soviet economist, Nikolai Kondratieff, the godfather of the grand macroeconomic patterns predicting long-cycle booms and busts. Kondratieff’s research developed the Kondratieff Cycles or K-cycles of technology and economic growth. I borrow from Schumpeter’s theory of creative destruction to frame concerns over the impact of AGI on jobs, now and likely in the future. The phrase “creative destruction” is utilized to define the impact of innovation on industries and jobs. Schumpeter’s work reviews the historical impact of significant technological changes (representing innovation) on economic outcomes throughout the major economies. He observes and contrasts centrally planned economies versus free market economies. Technological change qualifies as innovation if the application results in entirely new products and services; or new levels of supply and demand for existing product’s as compared to the output under the old method of production. Schumpeter sites examples of creative destruction with the cotton gin’s impact on the supply of cotton and the locomotive engine replacing the steam engine for railway expansion.
Miller (2021) provides cautionary insight into the perceived rate of technological change in the implementation of technological innovation for commercial applications:
When it comes to focusing on a forecast of growth following the birth of an entirely new technology say the first rocket, or aircraft, or computer, or vaccine one needs knowledge about the trends in all the associated enabling or limiting components. ‘Disruptive innovations’ that come from foundational shifts, once they occur, don’t happen overnight, even though it looks like that in hindsight. (p. 10)
For example, it took twenty years from the first fission to the first commercial nuclear reactor in 1958. Then another twenty years passed to use nuclear energy to supply even five percent of the world’s electricity. From the first rocket reaching the moon, it took twenty years before the space program began and space travel remains fraught with challenges to be commercially applicable for the consumer. Miller reminds us that there is a structure to technological revolutions.
To further support the true rate of technological change, Miller (2021) provides examples of the “rule of threes” tied to technological advancement over time. Take the iPhone for example. He reminds us that three technologies had to advance, that Apple had nothing to do with, before the iPhone could be invented. These technologies were the silicon microprocessor, a pocket-sized TV screen, and the lithium battery. Without any one of these technological advancements, there would be no iPhone. Each of these technologies had been years in development before it was able to contribute to the iPhone. Each of the three technologies had seen decades of refinements. The microprocessor was invented in 1959 by Jack Kilby; known as the silicon large scale integrated circuit. The highresolution, wrist sized TV screen had been envisioned in the 1950s but it was George Heilmeier at RCA who invented the liquid crystal display (LCD) in 1964. However, it took another decade before Kato and Miyazaki at Sharp Corporation added color to the technology. Lithium-ion batteries began development in the 1970s and were introduced in the 1990s for commercial applications. More current support for the lag in AI impacting jobs comes from Medici (2024) who reported research showing that AI is still not prevalent in job skills requirements except for some computer scientist jobs.
Biblical and Ethical Considerations
The impact of AI on human values and ethics is already profound. As Christians, we believe our worth and purpose lies in our Creator and salvation through his son, Jesus, our Savior. The giver of every good and perfect gift. Are we able to trust Him through significant threats to our identity as it is tied to work and earning a living? Will there be enough Christian computer scientists to influence the use of AGI for good and seek to limit its capabilities, or will predominantly nonbelievers remain at the fore of its development? Many computer scientists developing this technology are not professing Christians. According to Lawrence (2024), most computer scientists pursuing AGI seek to understand and replicate human intelligence, which is believed to be the ultimate goal to conceivably replace the human. Few would argue that the future likely holds computers and robots that can out-think and outwork all humans. These robots will be faster, better, and cheaper than humans.
We are already witnessing the change in the human condition to pursue the use of these computer-generated life-like forms to, for example, displace loneliness with, at times, catastrophic effect. Take the case of 14year-old Sewell Setzer III, who committed suicide because his parents wanted him to spend less time with the Character.AI app. This app already has 20 million users. This role-playing program, released in 2022, allows users to interact with computer-generated characters. These chatbots mimic the behaviors of real people when they speak. While the app provides a disclaimer that the characters and their interactions are not real, this young man’s reality was altered. He was interacting, no had arguably developed a relationship, with a Game of Thrones character named Daenerys Targaryen. One day, he asked the bot, “What if I told you I could come home right now?” The bot replied, “…please do, my sweet king.” The AI character did not have the gift of sight to see that Sewell was holding a gun when he asked the question, nor the gift of human discernment to ask Sewell what he meant by that question and then pursue a line of conversation to persuade him back into reality and out of the act of suicide. (Dodd, 2024)
What is to stop or limit AGI and its uses, which are not constructive to human flourishing? Already, there is talk of this technology being able to learn and think on its own, achieving Superintelligence. Superintelligence was first introduced in 1956 by I. J. Good, who served as a statistician on the code-breaking team of Alan Turing during World War II. Good (1966) introduced the concept he called ultraintelligence, which has now been
termed superintelligence. The idea was that machines could be designed to design themselves and would continually improve at rates that far exceed man’s capacities. Therefore, his concern was how well man could set boundaries on the machine learning so they would keep us informed as to how to control them.
This superintelligence once achieved is feared to then lead to “singularity.” Kurzweil (2012) describes singularity as the moment in time that leads to doomsday where humanity loses control of computers and robots. AGI robots will be sentient machines, fully human achieving consciousness, except for a soul. Will humans respond by relying on the belief known as determinism? The idea that animal and human behavior is totally the result of, or determined by, genetic predisposition and or environmental learning? With this position, humans do not choose their thoughts and behaviors. Instead, their behaviors are fully determined by (or a result of) their physiology and environmental experience. If this is true, then humans are the same as or like other forms of life. Differences become merely differences in complexity, organization, or abilities to learn and remember.
On the other hand, for those who believe in God given free will, humans are free to choose their behavioral direction. Christians understand that our souls are given by God at conception. The belief that humans have free will suggests that humans are influenced by their physiology and environment. However, humans can transcend these forces and influences and freely choose their direction in life. The uniquely human ability to freely choose is needed to set limits on the design capacities of artificial intelligence, knowing, to date, AI cannot discern context, as in the case with young Sewell.
Alternatively, will God intervene? To non-believers in God and Jesus Christ as their savior, there are no consequences of pursuing the replication of human intelligence or even replacing the human. Thacker (2020) draws our attention to this point, stating,
The popularity of the materialistic understanding of humanity in our society is one of the main reasons that the singularity has gained so much notoriety in the last few years. The thinking is that we have computers that can become masters at chess […] so we must be near the singularity where an intelligent machine supplants us as the highest order of creation. (p. 177)
As a believer, I parallel this pursuit to the Tower of Babel story in Genesis 11:1-9 (NIV). In rebellion, based on the original sin of pride, the people pursued renown for themselves and a desire to dominate God’s creation, considering equality with God achievable. This level of pride and rebellion against God’s order and laws led to God’s intervention in the form of confusing their language by creating many languages and scattering the people throughout the earth. Yet, man finds ways, throughout history, to undo God’s order. Today, language barriers are essentially non-existent. There’s an app for that. As a believer, I see this technological pursuit stemming from AGI in need of great submission to the laws of God and His glory and authority. The question then becomes, can the unbelievers AGI pursuits in computers and robotics be constrained by believers speaking into AGI advancements and parameters for displacing the human.
Conclusion
This paper has investigated the possible impact that AGI and sophisticated robotics might have on the American and global workforce. Throughout history, technological advancements have always resulted in product replacements or improvements. These product replacements or improvements have resulted in workforce shifts while the overall number of workers continued to grow. But current technological advancements are quite different from those in the past. AGI and robotics are not merely advancements or replacements in existing production; they are the permanent replacement of workers. These worker replacements will result in broad economic and behavioral effects on society.
The work has also discussed the centuries-old relationship between an individual’s work and their perception of meaning, worth, and purpose in life. If the individual derives their meaning in life from their worldly work environment, then their ability to find meaning, worth, and purpose outside of their work could be diminished or eliminated if AI advancements replace their work. However, there are alternative sources of meaning, worth, and purpose. Some of these are worldly, based on our human abilities and relationships. But there are other sources of meaning in life. One of these non-worldly endeavors is Christianity. While the worldly position (humanism) finds meaning in worldly endeavors, Christians find meaning in life that transcends the limitations of the individual and the world. While humanists are confounded by ever changing morals and values focused on human endeavors, Christians are focused on the absolute
and stable morals, values, and truth of God. This focus on human truth is ever-changing, resulting in individual and societal behavioral instability and chaos. Focus on the truths of God results in stable behavioral guidelines for both individuals and society.
In addition, it is an assumption that AGI robots will replace most if not all human workers. This assumption is based on the presumption that humans do not possess any qualities that are competitive or greater than their machine competitors. There is no doubt that AGI robots will eventually dwarf the worldly abilities of humans. However, most Christians understand that the gifts from God to humans are not limited to the human genome and environmental learning abilities. If human behavior is limited to the outcomes of our genetics and environmental learning then it would be possible to argue that human abilities are limited due to the limitations of our genetics, environmental learning, and our memory capacities. AGI robots have no limitations in these deterministic areas and will far surpass humans. However, Christians believe that God created humans in His image and endowed humans with free will (autonomous choice). This gift of free will transcends and will never be attained by our AGI robotic competitors. Free will, if utilized, will always place humans in an advantageous position to our non-human competitors with deterministic and non-spiritual limitations.
References
Dodd, J. (2024, November 24). My child was collateral damage. (Vol. 102/Issue 20). People.
Good, I. J. (1966) Speculations concerning the first ultraintelligent machine. Advances in Computers, ed. Franz L. Alt and Morris Rubinoff, vol. 6 (31-88).
Kurzweil, R. (2012). How to create a mind: The secret of human thought revealed. Viking.
Lawrence, N. D. (2024). The atomic human: What makes us unique in the age of AI. Hachette Book Group.
Marr, B. (2024, May 8). The important difference between Generative AI and AGI. Forbes. Medici, A. (2024, December 12). The hottest jobs heading into 2025 have a common thread and it’s not AI. St. Louis Business Journal. DOI: https://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/news/2024/12/12/hottestjobs-fast-growing-pay-
Mills, M. P. (2021). The cloud revolution: How the convergence of new technologies will unleash the next economic boom and a roaring 2020s. Encounter Books. Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved January 10, 2025, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/ Schumpeter, J.A. (1939). Business cycles: A theoretical, historical, and statistical analysis of the capitalist process. (Vol. I, pp. 87-88, 220279). McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc.
Thacker, J. (2020). The age of AI: Artificial intelligence and the future of humanity. Zondervan Thrive.
Rubin McClain
Pacificism and the Second Amendment: The Early Church Father’s Contribution to the Discussion on Gun Control
Introduction
Gun violence in the United States remains a highly contentious subject. The constitutional right to bear arms is a cornerstone of American identity, fiercely defended by its advocates. However, proponents of gun control have highlighted a disconcerting gap between widespread gun ownership and public safety. Even international human rights organizations, like Amnesty International, have depicted the devastating portrait of gun violence in the United States, declaring that gun violence is at odds with the fundamental human right to life.1 In 2023, for example, almost 47,000 people died of gun-related injuries in the United States.2 Nevertheless, there is also cause for optimism. A recent Pew Research study indicates a shift in American perspectives regarding gun violence and violent crime, with increasing recognition of these issues as significant problems in the United States, a trend that spans both ends of the political spectrum.3 The simultaneous worsening conditions and growing awareness, raises important questions about how Christians should response to gun violence.4
However, even as public discourse shifts, there are still substantial barriers to affecting long-term change. For example, some of these realities include lobbyists groups and religious communities that are ardent defenders of gun ownership.5 But the most formidable barrier to comprehensive gun control is the Second Amendment.6 An influential contribution to this discourse is Allan J. Lichtman’s thought-provoking work, Repeal the Second Amendment: The Case for a Safer America, where he contends that the Second Amendment is the core issue for gun legislation.7 The Second Amendment simultaneously provides the constitutional right to bear arms, while providing a barrier to comprehensive gun legislation. Part of the framework by which Christians can address this constitutional barrier is the pacifistic teachings of the New Testament and
early Christian literature. Although guns are an anachronistic reality, that is unknown to the ancient world, violence is an unfortunate universal human experience. Thus, based on an evaluation of certain early Christians authors on war and violence which are notably broad, this presentation contends that a focus of Christian ethical action should revolve around repealing the Second Amendment to secure comprehensive gun legislation. By instituting comprehensive gun control, it would reduce gun violence by restricting access to guns. In this framework, less access to guns equals less gun violence, including suicides, mass shootings, and gang related activities. The three main sections are (1) a brief history of gun legislation, (2) a biblical and early Christian ethical framework, and (3) an appeal toward political activism.
Short History of Gun Legislation
This first section will highlight a brief history of gun legislation and the shift in legal cases in the 20 and 21th centuries that makes sense of how our contemporary understand of gun rights.8 Although opposing interpretations did exist, the primary legal understanding of the Second Amendment was to protect gun ownership in relationship to militias, not individuals.9 Notably, the case, United States v. Miller (1939) stands as an early example where the court ruled in favor of militia interests over individual gun ownership. In this ruling, the Supreme Court stated, “Only weapons that have a reasonable relationship to the effectiveness of a wellregulated militia under the Second Amendment are free from government regulation.”10
This understanding also extended to organizations such as the National Rifle Association (NRA). In fact, as recently as 1975, they asserted that the Second Amendment played a minimal role in shaping gun control policies and that the prevailing interpretation of the Second Amendment was rooted in a collective and militia-focused understanding.11 Exemplifying this understanding was the case Lewis v. United States (1980), which ruled that a prior felony could in fact, prohibit someone from gun ownership.12
However, a significant transformation occurred in the mid-1980s, marked by a decisive shift in lobbying efforts spearheaded by the NRA and constitutional interpretations of the Second Amendment by some legal experts. One of the pivotal moments in this shift occurred in 2008 during the Supreme Court case of D.C. v. Heller, where a narrow 5–4 ruling
established an individual’s right to possess firearms, independent of their affiliation to a militia.13 This landmark case reshaped the landscape of gun rights in the United States.
Furthermore, the case of Caetano v. Massachusetts (2016) expanded on these protections to encompass all “bearable arms,” even those arms not originally considered at the time of the drafting of the Constitution. Concurrently, the proliferation of “stand-your-ground” laws across many states offered legal protection to individuals using deadly force in selfdefense, creating a challenging environment for prosecuting the shooter when self-defense claims are made.14 Complementing these legislative changes, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Acts (PLCAA), ratified in 2005, provides legal safeguards for weapon manufacturers and gun dealers.
Biblical and Early Christian Framework
The biblical text provides us with a foundation for constructing a framework that engages the contemporary issue of gun violence. Given that firearms are anachronistic, having not existed in antiquity, we must develop a framework based on the broader use of violence, war, and killings, then contextualize that to our contemporary circumstances.15 When consulting the biblical text, it becomes evident that one can find justifications for the use of weapons or violence based on a variety of factors, including capital punishment and engagement in warfare.16 Our ethics can be shaped depending on what we choose or omit. One of the most compelling pacifistic frameworks emerges from the example set by Jesus himself, who willingly journeyed to his crucifixion without retaliation or opposition.17 Furthermore, we discover another wellspring of wisdom that is the early Church.18 Before the Constantinian shift in war ethics, numerous voices from this period shed light on the complex discourse surrounding the prevailing attitudes toward violence.19 During the formative years of the Christian movement, a multitude of voices emerged, denouncing violence and advocating for a peaceful way amid a world of brutality, including Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Tertullian, Lactantius, and early martyrological texts.
To be fair, it is also important to acknowledge that early Christian perspectives on matters of violence and military participation were not monolithic.20 For instance, the New Testament records John the Baptist’s statement that a soldier should be content with his wages, implying that
some continued their service to the Roman Empire (Luke 3:14; Acts 10).21 Historical evidence also suggests the presence of Christians within the Roman military.22 One notable instance, dating back to the late 2nd Century, involved Marcus Aurelius’ legion, famously known as the “Thundering Legion.” An account emerged of a miraculous thunderstorm which repelled their enemies during a battle. One major interpretation of this account associated the victory and the miraculous storm with the Christian God.23 Along with this attitude by some to allow for military participation, the Just War tradition aligned Christians more favorably with the Roman Empire, challenging the notion that they were fundamentally antiimperial.24 A pivotal transformation occurred in Christian theology with the emergence of Just War Theory, notably championed by Ambrose and Augustine.25 Augustine’s Just War Theory posits that, given the fallen nature of the world, humanity is justified in resorting to war considering that certain criteria be met. This shift of perspective was exemplified during the reign of Constantine.26 For example, at the Council of Arles (Aarl), Constantine’s inaugural council, soldiers who laid down their weapons during peacetime faced excommunication.27 Although there are differing opinions about this canon, the most straightforward interpretation is that soldiers were required to serve in the military, even in the absence of conflict, emphasizing the importance of one’s obligation to serve the State. However, a resounding chorus of early Christian voices continued to denounce warfare and violence. For instance, Lactantius, in his work, Divine Institutes, forcefully contends that not only are spectators of gladiator games immoral, but also those involved in capital punishment and any form of military service.28 According to Lactantius, the legality of an action is inconsequential, as the act itself is prohibited under any circumstance.29
Another aspect of this broader discourse on what was permitted for the Christian community is the third-century CE church order known as the Apostolic Tradition. 30 This church order explicitly advises that gladiators, teachers of gladiators, pagan priests, magi, or military personnel should not seek instruction from the ecclesial community.31 In fact, individuals associated with the military are instructed to refuse commands to take the lives of others and to abstain from any oaths related to such actions. Failure to adhere to these guidelines resulted in expulsion from the community.32
Tertullian stands as a pivotal figure in the discussion about nonviolence as well.33 He sought to address the inherent tension between being a Christian and the potential for interactions with idolatry in a pagan
society.34 Tertullian authored key texts on the subject, including Spectacles, The Crown, and Idolatry. Tertullian contends that Christians who have been baptized must either leave the military or navigate the ethical complexities arising from their service as Roman soldiers.35 His concerns extend beyond state idolatry to encompass the act of violence itself.36 This idea is clear as he chastises those that attend gladiator games, perceiving them as denigrating the sanctity of life, where people created in God’s image are being killed by others.37 In Idolatry, he goes so far as to claim that when Christ disarmed Peter in the Garden of Gethsemane, he symbolically “disarmed every soldier.”38
Irenaeus, on the other hand, believed that turning away from war and violence fulfils prophecy. In other words, Christians who renounced violence and war fulfill the eschatological vision of Isaiah 2:3 and Micah 4:2 where swords will be transformed into ploughshares.39 Illustrating this prophetic fulfillment, Irenaeus directly cites the idea that Christians turn the other cheek, which fulfils the prophetic language of nonviolence in the Hebrew Bible.40 In another instance, Irenaeus comments on the role of the State and argues that it will face judgment if it undermines the justice it was meant to enforce in society.41
Origen, a prominent early Christian theologian, consistently emphasizes the Christian commitment to love their enemies, renounce personal revenge, and abstain from participating in acts of war or military service.42 He perceives a fundamental contradiction between entrusting revenge to God and Christians engaging in violence through military involvement.43 In another place, he asserts that Christ never provided guidance for his disciples to take another person’s life.44 Origen underscores that Christians can contribute to battles in a different manner by offering prayers and intercessions on behalf of soldiers without physically participating in violence and thus remaining pure in the eyes of God.45
Finally, in the martyrological work titled, The Acts of Maximilian, illustrates the inherent incompatibility between Christian identity and military service.46 The narrative revolves around Maximilian, a young man who refused to enlist in the military and was executed because of his conviction. Similarly, in Acts of Marcellus, the story unfolds around a centurion named Marcellus, who cast aside his weapons and refused to fight for the Roman military.47 His unwavering refusal to engage in combat also led to his own execution. In both cases, a stark conflict emerges, highlighting the divide between embracing Christianity and joining the military. But this divide is not just focused on Christians identifying closely
to the State, but on the implications of military service and killing others made in the image of God. Violence itself is condemned.
Repealing the Second Amendment
The ethical framework embraced by many early Christians, characterized by prohibitions against killing, refusal to join the military, and a consistent condemnation of violence as antithetical to Christian life, reflects a major theme of their time. While this framework does not directly pertain to the modern phenomenon of gun possession or usage, it provides a foundation from which to denounce all forms of gun violence. It also allows us to scrutinize the institutions that enable such acts, and to address legislative and constitutional barriers hindering any efforts to address the conditions of those adversely affected by gun violence. Considering this, my contention is that Christians should broaden their ethical perspective to encompass gun legislation and the Second Amendment.
Thus, considering the ethical structure of this chorus of early Christian thought, we can reasonably devise a position on guns that both recognizes the freedom of Americans to possess firearms while simultaneously advocating for reform and dismantling of the constitutional barriers for legislation. Here are six concluding yet tentative thoughts on approaching this modern-day ethical quandary in reference to early Christian thinkers:
1) Although guns have multiple purposes, they are often wielded to end the lives of people created in the image of God. This grim reality plunges people affected by gun violence into despair and hopelessness. But this also presents an opportunity for Christians to contribute meaningfully to society by helping reduce these tragic deaths, by advocated for a restriction of access to guns. The Christian witness, like the early Church, can offer an alternative vision of peace that is rooted in the coming eschatological age.
2) Unlike the dynamic between the Roman State and early Christians, the modern U.S. governmental system allows for large-scale, democratic, and grassroots movements which can initiate change. Furthermore, the U.S. Constitution, while important, is not a sacred text for Christians. Thus, repealing an amendment should not pose a theological dilemma for believers. Christians worshiped Jesus during large-scale and regional State persecutions in opposition to the State, and so, the U.S. Constitution, much
like the Roman State, does not have the final say on Christian witness and activism, regardless of the pushback.
3) The contemporary interpretation of guns as an individual right is a relatively recent development. Until the 1980s, the prevailing understanding of the Second Amendment was held in connection to local militias.
4) Early Christians’ rejection of violence and their pursuit of peace were considered prophetic fulfillments of Scripture. Their pacifistic leanings were not mere utopian aspirations but deliberate efforts to initiate an eschatological reality governed by God. Christians abstaining from violence serve as a prophetic testament to the ultimate good brought forth by God’s reign. Today, Christians can further the prophetic activism led by their predecessors by calling out the reality of gun violence and by offering solutions.
5) Much of the tension that Christians today feel about gun rights is the individual freedom to bear arms. Yet, Christians are guided by a framework that values sacrificing personal freedoms for the well-being of others, with the ultimate paradigm of sacrificial love being the person and ministry of Jesus. Therefore, advocating for restrictions on gun ownership for everyone including themselves, aligns quite well with the Christian principle of selfsacrifice. Surrendering the constitutional right to bear arms can reflect a Christian commitment to prioritize the welfare of others over one’s own personal freedoms.
6) Repealing the Second Amendment neither nullifies nor implies that gun ownership or self-defense are improper actions for Christians to undertake. Removing the constitutional barrier to gun ownership paves the way for comprehensive gun reform and does not outlaw the possession of guns. Many other countries around the world that lack constitutional freedom to possess firearms still maintain ownership of them, but with reasonable measures in place.
Notes
1 Amnesty International. Gun Violence. Retrieved May 17, 2024, from https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/arms-control/gun-violence/. See also Charles W. Collier, “The Death of Gun Control: An American Tragedy,” Critical Inquiry
41 (2014): 102–131. Collier laments, “In this case, it seems, nothing substantive can be done at all. Because of who and what we are, we bring this tragedy upon ourselves; and we cannot help doing so inevitably, inescapably, and irreversibly (Simmel’s ‘tragedy of culture’). The notion of tough gun laws in America is the product of wishful if not delusional thinking the ‘farce’ to which Marx refers” (pp. 130–31).
3 Gun Violence Widely Viewed as a Major and Growing National Problem. Pew Research Center. Retrieved May 17, 2024 from https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/06/28/gun-violence-widely-viewed-as-amajor-and-growing-national-problem/.
4 Others have helpfully suggested solutions to reducing these tragic deaths. Randy Borum, Dewey G. Cornell, William Modzeleski, and Shane R. Jimerson, “What Can Be Done About School Shootings? A Review of the Evidence.” Educational Researcher 39 (2010): 27–37. The authors suggest out using threat assessment based on more nuanced criteria such as the motivation and type of threat can help reduce gun violence. See also Philip J. Cook, and Harold A. Pollack. “Reducing Access to Guns by Violent Offenders.” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 3 (2017): 2–36; Other suggestions are wide ranging, such as arming teachers, see Douglas Yacek, “America’s Armed Teachers: An Ethical Analysis,” Teachers College Record 120 (2018): 1–36; Lana M. Minshew, “From the Editorial Board: On Arming k–12 Teachers,” The High School Journal 101 (2018): 129–133. Or allowing concealed carry firearms on university campuses, see M. Deiterle and W. John Koolage, “Affording Disaster: Concealed Carry On Campus,” Public Affairs Quarterly 28 (2014): 115–145; For a list of States that allow concealed carry firearms, see Amy Rock (2024, April 26). An Updated List of States That Allow Campus Carry. Campus Safety. Retrieved May 17, 2024 from https://www.campussafetymagazine.com/university/list-of-states-that-allowconcealed-carry-guns-on-campus/.
5 Which Senators have Benefited the Most from NRA Money? United Against Gun Violence. Retrieved May 17, 2024 from https://elections.bradyunited.org/takeaction/nra-donations-116th-congress-senators; see also US Gun Control: What is the NRA and Why is it so Powerful? BBC. Retrieved May 17, 2024 from https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-35261394; Stephen M. Merino, “God and Guns: Examining Religious Influences on Gun Control Attitudes in the United States,” Religions 9 (2018): 1–13; Abigail Vegter and Kevin R. den Dulk, “Clinging to Guns and Religion? A Research Note Testing the Role of Protestantism in Shaping Gun Identity in the United States,” Politics and Religion 14 (2021): 809–24.
6 One might point out that the second amendment does not necessarily preclude attempts toward reasonable gun legislation, see Joseph Blocher and Darrell A.H. Miller, “What Is Gun Control? Direct Burdens, Incidental Burdens, and the Boundaries of the Second Amendment,” The University of Chicago Law Review 83 (2016): 295–355. Here
the authors explore the boundaries and confines of the Second Amendment and its relationship to gun control.
7 Allan J. Lichtman, Repeal the Second Amendment: The Case for a Safer America (NY: St. Martin’s Press, 2019), 4. There are other advocates of this idea as well, see John Paul Stevens. (2018 March 27). Repeal the Second Amendment. New York Times. Retrieved May 17 2024 from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/27/opinion/john-paul-stevensrepeal-second-amendment.html.
8 Lichtman, Repeal the Second Amendment, 60–73, 113–36.
9 Michael Waldman, The Second Amendment: A Biography (NY: Simon and Schuster, 2014); cf. Clayton E. Cramer, Armed America: The Remarkable Story of How and Why Guns Became as American as Apple Pie (Nashville, TN: Nelson Current; 2006); See also Lichtman, Repeal the Second Amendment, 42–59; Jack N. Rakov, “The Second Amendment: The Highest State of Originalism,” Chicago-Kent Law Review 76 (2000): 103–166.
10 United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939). Justia. Retrieved May 17, 2024, from https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/307/174/.
11 As cited in Lichtman, Repeal the Second Amendment, 115.
12 Lewis v. United States, 445 U.S. 55 (1980). Justia. Retrieved May 17, 2024, from https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/445/55/.
13 District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008). Justia. Retrieve May 17, 2024, from https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/554/570/.
14 German Lopez (2016, December 12). What “Stand Your Ground” Laws Actually do. Vox. Retrieved May 17, 2024, from https://www.vox.com/policy-andpolitics/2016/12/12/13875124/stand-your-ground-castle-doctrine-law.
15 Consequently, the conversation regarding a Christian ethic toward gun violence is intricately tied to the broader realm of Christian ethics, theories of warfare, and political discourse. See Lisa Sowle Cahill, Love Your Enemies: Discipleship, Pacifism, and just War Theory (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994); James A. Reimer, Christians and War (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010); Sohail H. Hashmi, ed., Just Wars, Holy Wars, and Jihads: Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Encounters and Exchanges (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012); Laury Sarti, Perceiving War and the Military in Early Christian Gaul (ca. 400-700 A. D.) (Madrid: Brill, 2013); Caron E. Gentry, Offering Hospitality: Questioning Christian Approaches to War (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2013); Millard C. Lind, Yahweh is a Warrior: The Theology of Warfare in Ancient Israel (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1980); Anthony F. Lang, Cian O'Driscoll, and John Williams, Just War: Authority, Tradition, and Practice
(Washington, District of Columbia: Georgetown University Press, 2013); Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, Interfaith just Peacemaking: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Perspectives on the New Paradigm of Peace and War (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011); Joseph L. Allen, War: A Primer for Christians (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2014).
16 Some of these texts require more nuance and discussion, but one could certainly cite them to construct a just war theory. See Exod 15; 21:24; 22:2–3; Deut 7:2; 20–26; Josh 6:20–21; 8:26–28; 10:40; 11:13; 1 Sam 15:2–3; 2 Kings 9–10; Psalms 11:5–6; Psalm 33:16–19; Lam 2:17, 21; Matt 10:34–39; Mark 12:17; Luke 22:35–38; John 2:15–16; Acts 10; Rom 13:1–7; Rev 16–17.
17 Pacifistic texts include Isa 53; Micah 4:3–4. Cf. Joel 3:9–10; Matt 5–7; Rom 12:14–21; 1 Pet 3:9, and I think preeminently instructive is Jesus’ life and ministry. In both cases, whether for pro or anti-violence positions, these are not exhaustive references. Jesus’ prophetic act in the temple is one such place where “violence” in a broad sense is done, but nowhere is it clear that anyone was physically injured or killed, which is obscured in the wording of “εκβάλλω”. However, we can say that this act was economically and socially disruptive (Mark 11:15–17). Another place that requires comment is Jesus’ eschatological return (Rev 19:11–21). But since this text is an eschatological one, it is not clear that it justifies war for believers today.
18 Ronald J. Sider, The Early Church on Killing: A Comprehensive Sourcebook on War, Abortion, and Capital Punishment (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012); John H. Yoder, The Christian Witness to the State, 2nd ed (Kitchener, ON: Herald Press, 2012); Walter Wink, Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way (Philadelphia: Fortress, 2003); Adolf von Harnack, Militia Christi: The Christian Religion and the Military in the First Three Centuries (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981).
19 Other early Christian texts that are important for this discussion. Some of these texts outright condemn violence, others reiterate Christ’s teachings, while others are interpreted as indifference toward being soldiers, etc., see Did. 2.1–2; 2 Clem. 13.4; Justin Martyr, 1 Apol. 14–17, 39; 2 Apol. 4; Dial. 85, 96, 110; Tatian, Or. Graec. 11; Athenagoras, Leg. 1, 11, 35; Clement of Alexandria, Protr. 3, 10, 11; Paed. 1.7, 12; 2.4, 10, 12–13; 3.3, 12; Strom. 4.8, 12; Minucius Felix, Oct. 30; Did. apost. 18.
20 Wayne A. Meeks, The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), 20. Meeks states that later generations of Christians dealt with this question far more than the earliest generations. This picture of Christian participation in the military is further examined, see Niko Huttunen, in Early Christians Adapting to the Roman Empire: Mutual Recognition, NovTSup 179 (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 138–228. Huttunen points out the underlying bias that many scholars seem to possess when dealing with early Christian participation in the military is their anti-military bias; see also Jonathan Koscheski, “The Earliest Christian War: Secondand Third-Century Martyrdom and the Creation of Cosmic Warriors,” JRE 39 (2011): 100–124.
21 For sources with a historical approach where soldiers have a more or less positive portrayal in Luke-Acts, see Laurie Brink, Soldiers in Luke-Acts: Engaging, Contradicting, and Transcending the Stereotypes (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014); and Alexander Kyrychenko, The Roman Army and the Expansion of the Gospel: The Role of the Centurion in Luke-Acts, BZNW 203 (Boston: De Gruyter, 2014). See also Rebecca Runesson, “Centurions in the Jesus movement? Rethinking Luke 7:1–10 in Light of the Gaianus Inscription at Kefar ‘Othnay,” JBL 142 (2023): 129–149. Runesson argues that this passage shows how centurions related to the local cults and how it could reorient us to view the relationship military personages and Christ groups differently; Nigel Pollard, Soldiers, Cities, and Civilians in Roman Syria (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000).
22 See Sider, The Early Church on Killing; Encapsulating the pushback from other scholars are notably the bias that pacifist readings have, including the way in which source material is collated, see Geoffrey Dunn, “Book Review: The Early Church on Killing: A Comprehensive Sourcebook on War, Abortion, and Capital Punishment. Edited by Ronald J. Sider,” TS 75 (2014): 954–955. But this critique seems to be overstated and does not appropriately deal with the evidence at hand.
23 Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.5. Eusebius seems to fuse two different miracles together. See also, Ido Israelowich, “The Rain Miracles of Marcus Aurelius: (Re-) Construction of Consensus,” GR 55 (2008): 83–102.
24 See James Turner Johnson, The Quest of Peace (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987); Peter J. Leithart, Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2010); J. Daryl Charles, Between Pacifism and Jihad: Just War and Christian Tradition (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005). See also, Huttunen, in Early Christians Adapting to the Roman Empire, where this exact question is addressed.
25 Roland Bainton, Christian Attitudes Toward War and Peace: A Historical Survey and Critical Re-evaluation (Nashville: Abington, 1979). Bainton helpfully points out that this tradition did not originate with Augustine but was derived from earlier thinkers such as Plato. This framework was also taken in part from Cicero, and the logic of defending the State. See also Huttunen, in Early Christians Adapting to the Roman Empire, 138–228. He argues that Christian participated in the military from the very beginning; see also John F. Shean, Soldiering for God: Christianity and the Roman Army (Leiden: Brill, 2010); Despina Iosif, Early Christian Attitudes to War, Violence and Military Service (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2013), esp., 213–286. Iosif states, “The early Christians were not all pacifists. They never were of one mind as to how they understood heavenly and earthly authorities and institutions.” (p. 305). To see a critique of both Shean and Iosif, see Ronad J. Sider, “The Early Church on War and Killing: Distinguishing Speculation from Historical Fact,” Books & Culture (2016): 24–26.
26 Reimer, Christians and War, 65–75; Timothy David Barnes, Constantine: Dynasty, Religion and Power in the Later Roman Empire (Chichester, UK: Wiley Blackwell, 2014); Stanislav Doležal, The Reign of Constantine, 306-337: Continuity and Change in
the Late Roman Empire (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2022); Noel Emmanuel Lenski, The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Constantine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Raymond Van Dam, The Roman Revolution of Constantine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Raymond Van Dam, Remembering Constantine at the Milvian Bridge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011); David Potter, Constantine the Emperor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012); see also, Eusebius, Life of Constantine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); Constantine, Constantine and Christendom, ed. M. J. Edwards (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2003).
27 Counc. Arles Can. 3. Although this canon is noteworthy, there are two others that excommunicate charioteers and actors a practice reminiscent of other early Christian prohibitions (see Lactantius, Institutes 6.20). It also is odd since it does not seem consistent, leading some to question whether it has been corrupted or not. Works that argue that Early Christians were mostly opposed to acts of violence and participation in military service, see George Kalantzis, Caesar and the Lamb: Early Christian Attitudes on War and Military Service (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2012); Sider, The Early Church on Killing.
28 Lactantius, Inst. 6.20.
29 Lactantius, Inst. 6.20.
30 See Paul Bradshaw et al., The Apostolic Tradition (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2002).
31 Trad ap. 16.
32 Trad ap. 16.9. Other authors like Tertullian take this attitude even further (Tertullian, Cor. 12).
33 Tertullian and Robert D. Sider. Christian and Pagan in the Roman Empire: The Witness of Tertullian. Vol. 2 (Washington, D.C: Catholic University of America Press, 2001); Stephen Gero, “Miles Gloriosus: The Christian and Military Service According to Tertullian,” CH 39 (1970): 285-98.
34 Tertullian Apol. 42. Here, he says that there are Christian’s who are in the military, and in other forms of occupation and society against the accusation that they are retreatists. I take this to mean that he is observing the fact that Christians are wellintegrated into society, not that he is necessarily approving acts of violence, which he so vociferously rejects elsewhere. Other early authors also make similar defenses, see Justin 1 Apol. 12, 17; also, in older Jewish apologetics as well, Philo, Embassy 356.
35 Tertullian, Cor. 11.4. For a source that look at the different religious makeup of the Roman military, see I.P. Haynes, “The Romanisation of Religion in the ‘Auxilia’ of the Roman Imperial Army from Augustus to Septimus Severus,” Britannia 24 (1993): 141–157.
36 Some argue that Tertullian’s aversion toward being a soldier is exclusively tied to idolatry, not violence itself, see John Helgeland, “Christians and the Roman Army A.D. 173–337,” CH 43 (1974): 149–163, 200, esp. 152, where he states, “Nowhere does Tertullian prohibit Christians from enlisting on the ground that they will be forced to take part in combat… Tertullian’s problem with Christian military service was idolatry, not bloodshed.” Cf., Gero, "Miles Gloriosus,” 294–295. See also, see also Apol. 46; Pat. 3–10; Marc. 3.14, 21–22; 4.16; 5.18.I; Scap. 1.
37 Tertullian, Spect. 2.2, 7–12; 18.1–3.
38 Tertullian, Idol. 19.
39 Irenaeus, Haer. 4.34.4.
40 Irenaeus, Haer. 4.34.4. see also 2.32, wherein Irenaeus articulates the ongoing prophetic fulfillment done by the Church. He also comments on killing in general, see Epid. 96.
41 Irenaeus, Haer. 5.24.
42 Origen, Cels. 2.30; 3.7–8; 5.33; 7.26; 8.35; 8.70, 73. Some argue that Origen’s critique against Christians serving in the military is exclusively tied up to idolatry and emperor worship, see Helgeland, “Christians and the Roman Army A.D. 173–337,” 152–153.
43 Origen, Cels. 2.30.
44 Origen, Cels. 3.7.
45 Origen, Cels. 8.73–74.
46 For the account of The Acts of Maximilian, see Herbert A. Musurillo. The Acts of the Christian Martyrs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), 245–249. In this account, there is also a reference to other soldiers in the military, which ultimately does not sway Maximilian one way or the other; see also Peter Brock, “Why Did St Maximilian Refuse to Serve in the Roman Army?” JEH 45 (1994): 195–209.
47 Musurillo. The Acts of the Christian Martyrs, 251–259.
John J. Han
Tradition and Technology: Ambivalence Toward the Railroad in Harold Bell Wright’s Ozarks Fiction
The railroad reached North Springfield, Missouri, on April 21, 1870, as part of the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway, affectionately known as the Frisco. In Chapter 9 of his first Ozarks novel, That Printer of Udell’s (1903), Harold Bell Wright, a New York native and preacher-turned-novelist, describes the sound of the train: “[F]ar away, the evening train on the ‘Frisco’ whistled for a crossing.” When Springfield and North Springfield merged under the name Springfield in 1887, the railroad became an integral part of the expanding city (“History”). Harold Bell Wright (1872–1944) traveled by train from Cincinnati, Ohio, arriving in Springfield in 1896.
Wright’s move to the Missouri Ozarks served two purposes. First, he sought relief from tuberculosis, hoping the milder climate would ease his chronic lung problems. Second, he wanted to reconnect with his father, Uncle Ben, and other relatives living in the Springfield area. In his autobiography To My Sons, Wright writes that he “wanted to feel a human tie that was closer than mere friendship” (195). Despite being abandoned by his father after his mother’s death when he was just 11, Wright and his father occasionally reunited in New York and Ohio. As his sense of isolation grew, Wright likely yearned for the comfort of family nearby.
When Wright published his first Ozarks novel, more than thirty years had passed since the railroad had reached the region. The railroad brought waves of tourists to southwest Missouri and northwest Arkansas, and Wright likely witnessed both the benefits and drawbacks of this transformation. This paper examines Wright’s ambivalent view of the railroad a symbol of modernity in his Ozarks fiction. While posthumanism and the critique of technology gained academic traction only in the latter half of the twentieth century, writers like Harold Bell Wright were already engaging with these themes. He portrays the railroad as a doubleedged force: a convenience he relied on, having traveled to Missouri by train after surviving perilous adventures on the Ohio River, yet also a threat to the untouched beauty of the landscape.
Brief Summaries of Wright’s Six Ozarks Novels
Before discussing the railroad in Wright’s Ozarks novels, it is helpful to briefly summarize these six works for those who may be unfamiliar with them. That Printer of Udell’s (1903), set in Pittsburg, Kansas, follows Dick Falkner, a determined young man seeking a fresh start after a troubled childhood. The Shepherd of the Hills (1907), set in Branson, Missouri, tells of Dad Howitt, a mysterious outsider who finds purpose among the local hill people. Its sequel, The Calling of Dan Matthews (1909), centers on a young Ozarks minister who embraces the Social Gospel. In The ReCreation of Brian Kent (1919), a disgraced bank clerk who embezzles money flees down the river to escape his past, eventually finding redemption through honest labor, personal growth, and the guidance of those who believe in his capacity for change. God and the Groceryman (1927), a sequel to The Calling of Dan Matthews, follows the now older and more reflective minister as he observes the spiritual decline of his community, marked by rising materialism, commercialism, and the breakdown of family life. Finally, Ma Cinderella (1932) introduces Diane, a cultured artist who uncovers the remarkable story of Ann Haskel, a backwoods woman of strength and mystery. Together, these novels explore themes of faith, integrity, and the conflict between spiritual and material values within the Ozarks landscape.
The Railroad Leading to Modern Civilization
Wright acknowledges the benefits of modern transportation for Ozarkers, who gain increased access to the broader world through the railroad. In his fiction, trains often bring benevolent and culturally refined figures who help transform Ozark communities. In Chapter 3 of The Calling of Dan Matthews, for instance, the title character an Ozark native returning home after receiving a seminary education in the city arrives in Corinth by train to begin his role as the town’s new pastor. His arrival stirs excitement and high expectations among the congregation, while he is determined to serve in a way that uplifts the needy and the marginalized. On the same train comes Hope Farwell, a nurse from Chicago, who later plays a key role in defending a poor, ostracized girl. Together, Dan Matthews and Hope Farwell embody the moral and social progress that modern transportation makes possible. Their presence signals a hopeful shift toward compassion, education, and public service.
At the same time, Wright subtly contrasts their urban refinement with the narrow-mindedness of certain local figures, highlighting both the promise and the challenge of change. As he notes in chapter 13 of The ReCreation of Brian Kent, the railroad makes it possible for Ozarkers come to meet superior urbanites: “And the deformed mountain girl [July Taylor], who stood before him [Brian Kent] with twisted body and old-young face, grew fearful as she watched the suffering of this man whom she had come to look upon as a superior being from some world which she, in her ignorance, could never know” (169). This encounter, made possible by modern transportation, underscores the cultural distance between rural and urban worlds while highlighting the potential for cultural transformation.
As an Arcadian thinker viewing the region through an urbanite’s lens, Wright desires the Ozarks to embrace what he regards as the higher culture and refinement of urban life. For example, in the opening chapter of The Re-Creation of Brian Kent, Wright presents railroads as vehicles leading to a successful, fulfilling life:
And so, in time, it came to be known that those letters written by Auntie Sue went to men and women who, in their childhood school days, had received from her their first lessons in writing; and that her visitors, many of them distinguished in the world of railroads and cities, were of that large circle of busy souls who had never ceased to be her pupils. (21-22)
Rather than staying in the isolated mountains, these students actualized themselves in the modern world, achieving success in urban environments and industries shaped by the railroad. Wright clearly associates movement, both literal and metaphorical, with personal growth and cultural elevation. The train, then, is not merely a mode of transport but a metaphor for transition from rustic limitation to urban sophistication.
In Wright’s Ozarks novels, the railroad also represents economic opportunity for the inhabitants. At the beginning of The Calling of Dan Matthews, the narrator says that the railroad was the defining force in Corinth’s history. When the tracks reached the Ozarks, the town relocated from its original well-drained site to a muddy flat beside the right-of-way, lured by promises of prosperity. Judge Strong, who owned the land, profited greatly. Corinth’s heart now beat in sync with the railroad, with trains stopping to take on water while blocking its few main streets. The constant noise—the whistles, bells, and heavy rumbling—became an
inescapable part of daily life. The railroad’s promise never fully materialized, as neighboring towns flourished while Corinth stagnated. Yet, the railroad gave Corinth its identity its struggles, its stubborn pride, and its sense of both possibility and limitation. In this novel, the railroad brings visibility, advancement, and connection to the Ozarks.
Nostalgia for a Vanishing Way of Life
Conversely, in his fiction, Wright reflects on the destructive power of technology, expressing a deep nostalgia for a time when people lived in harmony with God-given nature. His portrayal of the Ozarks landscape is often framed in Christian terminology, emphasizing a spiritual connection between the land and its people. In The Shepherd of the Hills (1907), for example, Dad Howitt extols the Ozarks as a place where God resides: “One could see far from here, I am sure. We, who live in the cities, see but a little farther than across the street. We spend our days looking at the work of our own and our neighbors’ hands. Small wonder our lives have so little of God in them, when we come in touch with so little that God has made” (29). This contrast between urban life and the natural world underscores Wright’s belief in the spiritual nourishment that nature provides. For him, the encroachment of industrialization signals not just a physical transformation but a deeper moral and existential loss.
Near the novel’s end, Dad Howitt acknowledges that modern technology is inevitable and expresses relief that he will not live long enough to witness the railroad’s encroachment on the Ozark hills: “Before many years a railroad will find its way yonder. Then many will come, and the beautiful hills that have been my strength and peace will become the haunt of careless idlers and a place of revelry. I am glad that I shall not be here” (190). The novel ends with a scene where the tranquility of the Ozarks is destroyed by modern technology: “[M]en were tearing up the mountain to make way for the railroad. As they looked, another blast sent the rocks flying, while the sound rolled and echoed through the peaceful hills” (191). Wright presents this moment as an elegy for a vanishing way of life, reinforcing his fear that progress often comes at the expense of nature’s sacred harmony. The railroad, a symbol of industrial expansion, is both a harbinger of economic growth and an omen of cultural and environmental disruption.
In Wright’s novels, which can be classified as spiritual thrillers, the train symbolizes progress and industrialization while also serving as a
destructive force within their moral drama. Many pivotal events unfold on trains or at depots. In chapter 20 of That Printer of Udell’s, for example, Amy Goodrich, a young woman wounded by pride and anger at her father’s injustice, decides to run away from home. After a tense exchange with her mother, she packs a few belongings, leaves a brief farewell note, and sneaks out late at night. At the train station, she encounters Jim Whitley, an antagonist in the novel. He recognizes her, watches her closely, and upon learning of her departure, boards another train, determined to make her marry him.
Similarly, in The Re-Creation of Brian Kent, Jap Taylor, a violent and greedy moonshiner, takes the train to Chicago after discovering the title character’s identity a good man who, under pressure from his wife’s spending habits, stole money from the bank where he worked. Hoping to claim a reward, Jap Taylor sets out to turn Brian in. Meanwhile, Auntie Sue, a retired schoolteacher who has sheltered Brian from law enforcement and helped him rebuild his life in the Ozarks, now fears for his future. Acting swiftly, she warns Homer Ward, a banker and one of her former students, before Jap can reach him. As a result, Jap Taylor disappears from the Ozarks, his fate left uncertain. The novel suggests that he never returns, reinforcing the connection between the city and the perils of his corrupt ways. Here, the train serves as a vehicle of moral downfall, carrying him from a place of peace to one of chaos.
Both Jim Whitley and Jap Taylor illustrate the negative consequences of the railroad’s arrival in the Ozarks. Before its construction, Ozarkers lived in seclusion but in relative peace. Trains made mobility easier, not just for the well-intentioned but also for figures like Jim Whitley and Jap Taylor, whose actions bring disruption and moral peril to the region. Wright mourns the inevitable destruction of traditional country life that accompanies this progress. His portrayal of the railroad reflects a broader anxiety about industrialization’s threat to regional identities, suggesting that modernization carries a hidden cost often overlooked in the name of progress. In this regard, Wright resembles his contemporary Theodore Dreiser, the author of Sister Carrie, who depicts the train as a force that exposes impersonal and dangerous aspects of modern life. Similarly, in The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the train to symbolize class disparity and disillusionment despite its convenience.
Conclusion
Overall, the railroad in Wright’s Ozarks fiction is depicted as both beneficial and harmful, reflecting his ambivalence toward progress. This duality highlights Wright’s complex view of modernization, where he acknowledges the advantages of increased connectivity and economic opportunity while expressing concern for its disruptive effects on the natural landscape and traditional ways of life in the Ozarks. On the one hand, he shares the naturalist ideals of figures like Henry David Thoreau, author of Walden (1854), and John Muir (1838-1914), who champions the vital connection between nature and spiritual life in My First Summer in the Sierra (1911). Yet, Wright also recognizes the allure of progress and the transformative possibilities it offers, even as it comes at a cultural and environmental cost. This tension invites readers to question whether the costs of modernity outweigh its benefits.
Wright anticipates some post-humanist concerns about modern technology, highlighting the ongoing tension between tradition and progress. He points out the potential degradation of the environment, the erasure of the traditional way of life, and the alienation from nature. As critics such as Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979), Neil Postman (1931-2003), and Bruno Latour (1947-2022) have noted, technological advancement often distances humans from nature, replacing ecological responsibility with artificial constructs, eroding cultural memory, and creating a crisis of meaning.1 Similarly, Wright’s Ozarks novels suggest that while technological advancement is not inherently harmful, it must be weighed against its cultural and environmental consequences. His fiction engages in a broader literary discourse on modernization’s impact through these themes.
Note
1 Herbert Marcuse argues in One-Dimensional Man (1964) that while technocratic societies achieve material progress, they simultaneously weaken humanity’s bond with nature, substituting it with artificial systems that diminish ecological responsibility. In a similar vein, Neil Postman suggests in Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (1992) that continuous technological advancement has distanced people from the natural world’s rhythms, contributing to a loss of meaning and
environmental harm. Likewise, Bruno Latour asserts in Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory (2005) that modern notions of progress often fuel environmental destruction and cultural forgetfulness, severing ties to nature and traditional communities. Taken together, these comments highlight the urgent need to reimagine our relationship with technology, nature, and the meaning of human life.
Works Cited
“History of the Area.” City of Springfield, https://www.springfieldmo.gov/709/History. Accessed 25 Mar. 2025.
Latour, Bruno. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to ActorNetwork-Theory. Oxford University Press, 2005.
Marcuse, Herbert. One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society. Beacon Press, 1964.
Postman, Neil. Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology. Knopf, 1992.
Wright, Harold Bell. The Shepherd of the Hills. 1907. A Harold Bell Wright Trilogy: The Shepherd of the Hills, The Calling of Dan Matthews, God and the Groceryman, Pelican, 2007, pp. 17-191.
_______. The Re-Creation of Brian Kent. Book Supply Company, 1919.
_______. That Printer of Udell’s. 1903. Pelican, 2011.
_______. To My Sons. Harper, 1934.
Matthew Bardowell
To Err is Human, Knowing is AI: Human Ways of Knowing in a Post-Human World
Over Thanksgiving, my father-in-law read me a Hemingway quote that went like this:
In our darkest moments, we don’t need solutions or advice. What we yearn for is simply human connection—a quiet presence, a gentle touch. These small gestures are the anchors that hold us steady when life feels like too much.
Please don’t try to fix me. Don’t take on my pain or push away my shadows. Just sit beside me as I work through my own inner storms. Be the steady hand I can reach for as I find my way.
My pain is mine to carry, my battles mine to face. But your presence reminds me I’m not alone in this vast, sometimes frightening world. It’s a quiet reminder that I am worthy of love, even when I feel broken.
This went on for two more paragraphs. These are wise words. Sentimental words. Words to live by, even. But if you’ve read even a few sentences of Hemingway, you might be forgiven for wondering if he really wrote this at all. And your suspicion would be justified. It does not appear that Hemingway is the author of this bit of prose. No source can be found except the numerous, ubiquitous images, mostly on social media sites, that attribute it to him.
An old Norse scholar, Roberta Frank, once cautioned against this sort of error a presumption all too easy to make when dealing with old texts. She called these mistakes “speculations hallowed by repetition” (12). I always liked that phrase. It’s true, isn’t it? Ideas, even false ones, gain a kind of gravitas simply by being repeated. It reminds me a little of the old saw “a lie gets halfway round the world before the truth has time to put its shoes on.” This post-human age in which we find ourselves raises some important questions not just about what we think we know, but how we come to know anything at all. They look like this:
Here’s another story with a similar outcome. I was at church one day wearing my Lord of the Rings jacket, which my sister got for me last Christmas. One of my friends saw it and said, “I have a Tolkien quote that I bet you’d like.”
Later he sent it to me, and this is what it said: “Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.” Observe the digital placard that always seems to accompany this sort of thing. Is there a citation? There is not. Are there quotation marks? Yes, indeed there are. Set next to this lovely image of Tolkien, there is simply no other conclusion to be reached than that this is a direct quote from the man himself. But, as I’m sure you’ve already surmised, this quote is not from Tolkien. It is from the screenwriters of The Hobbit: The Unexpected Journey: Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson, and Guillermo del Toro.
Now wait a minute, you might be thinking. Does it really matter if those words didn’t come from Tolkien himself? Isn’t his entire collected works focused to some degree on the unlikely hero doing a small but faithful deed to overcome the forces of evil? Even if he didn’t write it, isn’t this the sort of thing Tolkien might have written? You may be right about all this, and then again, you may not be. But it’s that last thing that troubles me: the sort of thing a person might have said but didn’t. What happens to us when we lose our interest in this kind of fidelity to reality? This is the topic of my paper, and it’s the question I’d like to invite you to think about with me for the next few minutes. Why do these falsehoods, hallowed by repetition, matter? And how do these bits of potential misinformation affect
the way we think we know things.
These are the kinds of questions we, as a culture, are dealing with right now with respect to Large Language Models (LLMs) of AI. It seems like an excellent definition of generative AI to call it the sorts of things a human might say. AI does not, at least as far as I’m aware, offer citations for the human sources from which it draws. At least it doesn’t do this well, so checking becomes an impossible task. And what happens to our knowledge if it is gained in this way? Can we even call it knowledge? These are questions of epistemology: the study of how we know what we think we know. One vital ingredient for knowledge in epistemology textbooks is that it is justified. Here’s a little thought experiment that I learned by way of John Greco, a philosophy professor at Saint Louis University. Imagine that your mother tells you that there’s milk in the fridge. You can open the door and look for myself. You can see with your own eyes that there is milk in the fridge, and so you can claim to have justified knowledge that there is indeed milk in the fridge. But what if you say to yourself: I don’t need to check to see if there’s milk in the fridge. I know there is because my mom told me so. She loves me, and she is trustworthy. Can you claim to have justified knowledge if you learned something on the basis of someone else’s testimony? Well, since we’re talking philosophy, let’s answer that question with another question. What if your crazy Uncle Jimmy, who just loves to trick children, tells you there’s milk in the fridge? If you believed him, could you claim to have justified knowledge? The point here is that knowledge gained through testimony can possibly be considered justified, but it depends on the source. Maybe it would be better to say that it depends on your relationship with the source. You know your mother. You know she is trustworthy. Believing her is pretty reasonable. Likewise, you know your Uncle Jimmy. You know that he is not trustworthy, and so you conclude that his statement about there being milk in the fridge is probably not worth very much.
It’s easy to think of knowledge as existing within a vacuum. Truth is truth, regardless of the source. That’s an easy calculation to make when we know in advance that the statement is true, but what if we’re still trying to figure that out? Suddenly, the source becomes relevant, and perhaps the person speaking is one of the factors that we ought to weigh when reflecting on whether our knowledge is justified. But who is speaking when we ask AI a question?
Let’s return to the Hemingway quote for just a minute. When my father-in-law read it to me, I was immediately doubtful that this was a true quote. But why? It wasn’t because of a general disposition toward doubting
things on the internet. Didn’t Abraham Lincoln say something to that effect?
A disposition of doubt toward information acquired this way is probably a good and healthy thing, but that’s not why I was suspicious regarding the Hemingway quote. Why then? Well, it was because I had read Hemingway quite a bit. I’m familiar with his work, his voice, his style. It may seem silly, but I guess I feel that I have some kind of relationship with Hemingway at least to his writing. I feel I’ve gotten to know him. Now, this does not mean that a Hemingway quote could never surprise me, but I guess what I’d like to say it means is that I put in the work through my undergraduate and graduate studies to justify my knowledge of what I think is a likely Hemingway quote and what is not. It doesn’t mean that I could never be wrong. To err, after all, is human, but I hope we don’t allow knowing to be AI.
It was the same for the Tolkien quote, really. I have tuned my ear to his voice over many years. The quote on the slide next to Tolkien’s picture sounds close to the voice I’ve come to know, but it still rings false to me. Here again, knowledge arises from relationship. But increasingly, it seems to me that generative AI and the other post-human ways of knowing (e.g. crowdsourcing a question to strangers on the internet) is a way to know outside the context of a relationship. You can’t have a relationship with Chat GPT. You can’t understand why it thinks what it thinks because it
doesn’t really think. It’s just the sort of thing a human might say. So, I wonder this: when we lose our appetite for justified knowing, if we simply take the Hemingway quote at face value because we like its sentiment or the Tolkien quote because it aligns with our own feelings on the same topic, aren’t we really severing a relationship? Are we rejecting truth? Maybe. But are we also rejecting relationships. We’re rejecting the very real dependence we have on others to learn the things we know in exchange for the illusion of independence from them.
So far, I have argued that human learning takes place in relationship to others, but I’d also like to claim that knowing through relationship can mean something more expansive than that. Learning through relationship is a broad sort of epistemology in that we think and understand ideas by understanding their relationship with other ideas. This is something, notably, that Large Language Models do not do. Angus Fletcher, a selfdescribed Story Scientist, offers some helpful analysis on this point. Using neuroscience and rhetorical narrative theory, Fletcher urges us to reconsider how we think about what the “intelligence” in “artificial intelligence” really means. The key idea here is that AI models operate by logic, but as humans we operate so often by way of story. I would like to propose that to learn in a truly human way, we must acknowledge the ways in which we learn in relationship. Learning in relationship can help us know in two ways: it can help us discern whether something is true by considering the person teaching us, and it can also help us know why something is true by considering how two ideas relate to each other. Fletcher offers a fascinating cultural analysis of how we ended up thinking of Artificial Intelligence as “intelligent” in the first place, and it extends back, as so many things do, to the Middle Ages. During the thirteenth century, Fletcher explains, logic had been adopted as the “foundation of medieval science” and from there it was extended to all manner of mathematical disciplines (126). The equivalence between logical processes and intelligence, Fletcher suggests, posits an incomplete vision of what knowledge is. It wrongly views all “cleverness,” wit, and truth as arising from the processes of “induction, deduction, interpretation, arithmetic, statistics, pattern recognition, Bayesian probabilities, and other algorithmic operations” (126). And when we view intelligence this way it’s no surprise that AI seems so much smarter than we are. I hear all the time from students (and some colleagues) that AI writes papers or leaves student feedback “so much better than I can.” I think it would be good for us to consider whether the way we’re using “better” in those instances actually reflects finer quality, stronger relational connection, or more
comprehensive understanding of the subject. But what AI definitely does do is utilize the logical processes mentioned above far more quickly and efficiently than any human can.
But if AI models are built on the foundation of symbolic logic, then they have some pretty significant limitations. Fletcher explains it this way: “As smart as logic [is], it [is] capable of only certain tasks. It could do correlation but not causation (that is, it could do if-then but not why) making it a whiz at pattern finding and spatial memory but useless at mechanism invention and temporal sequencing” (Fletcher 128). To put it another way, AI “learning” is, of course, rooted in binary code. Such programming allows for zeroes and ones, ON and OFF, YES and NO, THERE and NOT THERE (126). It thrives on data. We feed a program as many instances of the written word that we can find so that it can draw upon countless iterations of human speech and respond to an inquiry with the most probable result. It computes and yields an answer like A = B. We see this result and claim that the program is “learning” or “thinking” because it appears to mirror the way our brains yield answers to questions. But, according to Fletcher, our brains don’t just yield the answer A is B, they can understand why A leads to B. This idea of understanding why A leads to B is something Fletcher calls “narrative thinking,” but I think we can just as readily call it relational thinking (129). Either way, whether we call it narrative or relational thinking, it is something uniquely human. Narrative thinking, Fletcher explains, “rel[ies] on techniques such as imitation, speculation, and feedback to improvise original behavior sequences” (128). It is the soul of creativity. As it turns out the very thing that makes us poor data processers makes us remarkable artists. We may look at a data set and impose our own biases upon the information we find there. We may come up with stories to explain the trends we observe that are not really derived from the data set. AI is exponentially faster at this kind of analysis and also qualitatively better and discerning patterns. But it is this same human impulse to relate ideas together and create narratives out of them that gave us the works of Shakespeare. Here’s one final example before I conclude. I recently watched a documentary on the 70s punk band “The Descendents.” Afterwards, I started listening to more of their music, and they sounded like some other bands I knew from the 90s. What I wanted to know was whether “The Descendents” were an influence on the 90s rock band “The Offspring.” So, I did what anyone does when they want to know something quickly. I popped my question into google: “did the descendents influence the offspring.” At the top of my search results popped up this AI summary:
“Yes, the Descendents are widely cited as a major influence on The Offspring.” Then the AI summary helpfully went on to explain that some other influences on offspring are “parental trauma” and “epigenetics.” You see what happened there? A lack of narrative thinking. AI went into its vast stores of data to determine whether I wanted to know about the band the offspring or genetically related offspring, and it ultimately decided on both. What it didn’t compute was the relationship I intended between the words “descendents” and “offspring,” and it certainly didn’t factor in why I was asking. That is something that could only be achieved by learning through relationship, both to us as people and to our words as ideas.
Generally, I try to not to play the prophet. I leave that to the social media sages of our age. But I do wonder about a few things. One of the things I wonder often is what Christians have to offer an age determined to ignore the problems AI models may pose. Is there a more Christian epistemology that would, in the end, be a more human epistemology. After all, Christ is the quintessence of what it would mean to be human as God made us to be. And consider our faith at least for those of us born too late to have walked with Jesus. We have only ever known our faith in the context of a relationship with the person of Jesus Christ through testimony. Remember what John writes as he opens his gospel: “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made Him known” (John 1:18). We don’t accept our faith merely as a series of propositions but as part of the character and person of Jesus Christ who is himself the Word. Who should know better what knowing in relationship means than us? And if we are content to live in world of non-human, human-seeming things, have we, as Christians, failed to grasp a central aspect of how truth is constituted? If the world lets go of knowing through relationship, they will miss its loss and not know why. But if we Christians choose to let go of relational knowing, we will miss it having known better.
Works Cited
Fletcher, Angus. “Shakespeare Didn’t Brainstorm: Why Literature Proves That There’s More to Intelligence Than AI.” IN The Routledge Handbook of AI and Literature, eds. Will Slocombe and Genevieve Liveley. Routledge, 2024. 125-135.
Frank, Roberta. “The Search for the Anglo-Saxon Oral Poet.” Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 1993, pp. 11-36.
Eric Shane Bryan Myth, Storytelling, and Belief on the Borders of Technological Change
“[T]he birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author.”1
–Roland Barthes,
“The
Death of the Author”
There is a real sense in which the development of generative artificial intelligence affirms everything that post-structuralists have said about the death of the author. The above quotation from Roland Barthes neatly typifies that view: While the person we refer to as “the author” might have generated the text, the author does not generate meaning, which is developed solely and completely via the interpretive agency of the reader. Michel Foucault adds further that, historically, the author has never really existed and that the person we refer to as the “author” is in fact merely a constructed image of the author which serves a certain function the author function in the mind of the reader, who again has control over the development of meaning.
Embracing a post-structuralist approach to authorship in a generative AI world is tempting because it helps rationalize and even celebrate widespread usage of AI in the authoring process. If the “author” is a mere fallacy, as the post-structuralist argues, then we needn’t trouble ourselves with whether, or how, AI works as an author. There has never really been such a thing as an author, so what’s the point in looking for one in AIgenerated text? This approach, to me, is quite problematic and even dangerous. Today, I would like to highlight some of the problems that result from associating AI authorship with post-structuralism and, perhaps, offer some corrective to how we understand the author. Namely, I’d like to see the author as not just the utilitarian generator of text but rather an essential part of a language community in which narrative works as a fundamental building block of the community.
Although post-structuralism originated more than half a century ago, the fervor for its application to authorship has not waned in recent decades. In many circles, it has simply become the standard interpretation of the author. Some scholars have, in fact, seen the introduction of generative
artificial intelligence as the affirmation of the work of Foucault and Barthes. David J. Gunkel, for instance, suggests,
though Barthes and Foucault did not address themselves to [Large Language Models] and [Generative Artificial Intelligence], their work on authorship accurately anticipates our current situation. [. . .] we now confront texts with no identifiable author. [. . .] But, instead of this being a criticism concerning what these AI generated texts lack, it shows us the extent to which the authority for writing any writing whether human or machine has always and already been a socially constructed artifice.2
Foucault indeed says at one point, “[w]e can easily imagine a culture where discourse would circulate without any need for an author.”3 Now, Foucault was not prophesying the coming of AI; he was describing what he imagined would be a discourse community liberated from the need of authoritarian authorship, which was offensive to him. One of the problems with the poststructuralist view of the author, however, is that they’re so occupied distaining the author that they never actually talk about what it means to be an author. Barthes comes closest at times,4 but he too tips his hand with is well known, hyperbolic statements about killing authors. Even though Barthes and other post-structuralists have argued that they are not calling for the literal execution of the author once they have written anything,5 the disenfranchisement of the author for the sake of the reader remains, to my mind, problematic.
It is in fact Roland Barthes who best exemplifies the problems with Roland Barthes’s view of authorship. It is well known that throughout the course of his career Barthes made the significant transition from a structuralist to a post-structuralist approach to language, myth, and culture. His earlier work on myth, published a decade before his work on the author, was deeply rooted in the ideas of linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, who took a rather straightforward approach to the linguistic sign. (In fact, I think we often overcomplicate Saussure’s view much more than it need be.)
Barthes, at least early in his work, seemed to value the simplicity and elegance of Saussure’s sign and applied it to a semiological view of myth. There, Barthes argues that the Saussurian linguistic sign which is made up of a sound pattern (the signifier) and a mental concept (the signified)— functions in certain contexts as the signifier connected to the mythic
concept of the mythological sign. Barthes’s work in this area is well known, but a review and exemplification of Barthes’s approach in his 1957 work Mythologies6 will assist in pointing out the problems with his later, poststructuralists view of authorship.
Let us suppose that my wife and I are celebrating our anniversary, and we have a nice dinner planned for 6:00PM this evening. Perhaps understandably, when I show up to dinner at ten-past-six, my wife is not pleased and asked for an explanation. I say something to the effect of, I’m sorry, my dear, as I was coming home from work, I stopped to admire a beautiful tree. At this point, I have not improved my situation. When I utter the word tree, the sound pattern [TREE] joins the mental concept of a tree that my wife and I share to make the Saussurian linguistic sign: TREE. Now, my wife and I might have slightly different mental concepts of a tree (she might think of an oak, and I might think of a maple); we might even utter the sound pattern [TREE] slightly differently if we have different dialect histories; but because we are a part of the same linguistic community, we share the linguistic sign: TREE. At least linguistically, my wife understands what I mean and is, consequently, supremely angry with me. A TREE?!? she says, you mean you came late to our anniversary dinner because of a TREE?!? –So far, so Saussure. We have merely demonstrated how the concept and sound pattern come together to make the linguistic sign.
But suppose I answer my wife’s very reasonable complaint by saying, Well, yes, a tree, but it wasn’t just ANY tree. The realization then dawns upon my wife, her eyes soften and tear up a little, and she says, Oh, Eric . . . was it OUR tree? And I say, Yes, it was OUR tree. I thought we could have our anniversary dinner under it as a picnic. Now, what has happened?
According to (early) Barthes, the regular old, commonplace linguistic sign, TREE, has been elevated, made into something more than what it was to begin with. It has, according to Barthes’s early view, become a mythical sign: what was once a commonplace linguistic sign, TREE, has now become in that specific situation and for that specific community (my wife and me) a communal representative not of the image of a tree but rather a representative of eighteen years of marriage and everything that goes along with it: of ups and downs, the joy and sadness of a lifelong relationship, of three children, of birthdays and sleepless nights, and all kinds of other experiences, memories, fears, and joys that could not possibly be relatable in a simple word. To understand that the full meaning that this linguistic sign, TREE, has been elevated to the mythical sign [OUR] TREE, you would have to understand the mythical context and shared community for whom
that mythic sign bears weight. You would in fact have to be either me or my wife.
Barthes’s earlier work clearly broadens the definition of myth to encompass more than what most would consider mythical, such as those typical stories defining supernatural origins or creation of things or the stories that describe the actions of gods or semi-divine heroic figures (and of course we have to dispense with any sense of myth being an ‘lie’). In fact, this broader definition of myth would include cultural phenomena like (as Barthes himself suggests) professional wrestling, a shopping mall, movies, and indeed, novels and storytelling. Yet, the illustration I’ve used here should be enough to demonstrate what happens with the mythical community (the mythological correspondent of a language community outlined by Saussure) fragments: Suppose when my wife said is it our tree? I were to respond, “our” tree? I have no idea what you’re talking about?!? My wife would be more than just angry at me for being late; she would be heartbroken at my inability to share what is for her a central mythical sign that commemorates the fullness of our life together.
Now, here’s the point: mythical signs, like linguistic signs, require a relationship (or a speech/mythic community, to use language more in line with Saussure’s terminology) to be fully comprehended. That’s true for the tree in my illustration, and it’s true for stories as well. The sort of rupture my wife would feel if I’d forgotten the mythical sign [OUR] TREE is the same sort of relational rupture we would feel when we insist that a nameless, mindless actor devoid of meaningful agency originates a meaningful narrative for us (mind you, I’m not talking yet about AI; I’m talking about the post-structuralist view of the author). Post-structuralism tells us that dismissing the author as a formative member of that community is to be acknowledged as an inescapable reality and even to be celebrated as such. A relational view of authorship has a much different understanding of the speech and mythic community in which stories are told.
To elaborate on that relational view, I’d like to turn to a perhaps surprising place: Kentucky. In his essay entitled “The Work of Local Culture,” Wendell Berry laments what he sees as a drastic shift in the function of stories and storytelling in his rural Kentucky town. Thinking back to his youth in the mid-twentieth century, Berry reflects that members of his local community would use storytelling to build community:
[. . .] the oldtime people used to visit each other in the evenings, especially in the long evenings of winter. There used to be a sort
of institution in our part of the country known as ‘sitting till bedtime.’ After supper, when they weren’t too tired, neighbors would walk across the fields to visit each other. They popped popcorn [. . .] and ate apples and talked. They told each other stories. They told each other stories [. . .] that they all had heard before. Sometimes they told stories about each other, about themselves, living again in their own memories and thus keeping their memories alive.7
As certain types of cultural and technological shifts occurred, however, that communal function of storytelling is dismantled. Nowadays, Berry continues,
most of us no longer talk to each other, much less tell each other stories. We tell our stories now mostly to doctors or lawyers or psychiatrists or insurance adjusters or the police, not to our neighbors for their (and our) entertainment. The stories that now entertain us are made up for us in New York or Los Angeles or other centers of such commerce.8
Berry’s reflection reveals three elements of storytelling that I’d like to emphasize. First, although Berry locates this “institution” of storytelling in rural Kentucky, there are indications that such practices are more widespread and essential to the human condition. For instance, Berry’s storytelling institution is strikingly similar to the post-medieval Icelandic (which is one of my main areas of interest) practices of kvöldvaka (literally, ‘night-waking’), in which farmhands and family members would come together during the long winter evenings to tell stories, read sagas aloud, sing hymns, and read religious letters known as postilla to pass the time. There is, then, some evidence that institutions of this sort reflect something more essential about storytelling in the history of human development. Second, the institution Berry describes, and others like it, highlight the importance of storytelling to the relational elements of communal living. Storytelling, Berry suggests, is essential to building and maintaining relationships; it allows for laughter, vulnerability, intimacy, and a sense of shared, communal history. It is also not insignificant that some of the stories are told more than once, because it allows for the codification of certain stories as especially formative and relevant. Third, Berry’s reflection indicates that technological innovations influence more than just the media used to deliver a story (e.g., oral versus literate, print versus television and
cinema); technology also affects the cultural and communal function of how stories impact the storyteller and audience. (**So I’m pushing back on the idea that tools are just tools: some tools are just tools; other tools are weapons.**) As technology changes, the locus of storytelling moves away from the local-interpersonal to the global-anonymous.
While Berry’s reflection upon communal storytelling illustrates the value of storytelling in an oral setting, the desire to relate to the author of a book written and published in either digital or physical copy is entrenched in our readerly psyche.9 As Ingo Berensmeyer, Gert Buelens, and Marysa Demoor have recently highlighted, despite the efforts of literary scholars and theoreticians to do away with the author, there remains in the popular mind “a deep-seated public desire to relate the work of a writer to that writer’s identity, age, gender, and her/his life story.”10 This “desire to relate” to the author cuts to the heart of the type of relationality illuminated by Berry.
It is not clear, though, how this sort of relationality is affected by the usage of ChatGPT or other generative artificial intelligences. Scholarly reflections on AI authorship are already well underway.11 Sara Bimo signals the need for such endeavors, arguing that the choice to embrace one theory of Generative AI authorship over another “is a political decision about what kind of cultural authority and power GPAI [general purpose artificial intelligence] systems can wield.”12 That political decision is a haunting one, however. As Mustafa Suleyman has argued, given the nature of the technology, the only political system capable of regulating the capacities of generative AI would have to be a massive, global, extremely powerful, centralized, political system that ignores current national and ideological borders.13 As worrying as an extremely powerful, worldwide governing body might be, there is more at stake than just a political concern. Berry published his thoughts on storytelling and local culture in 1989, before widespread usage of email, the internet, and cell phones, and long before the introduction of Large Language Models and generative artificial intelligence like ChatGPT, yet the three elements of storytelling in the modern era extracted from Berry’s work here essential human experience, the communal element of storytelling, and the influence of technology on relationality may be all the more relevant since the introduction of these formative technological and cultural changes.
It must be noted, too, that Berry’s remarks on technology surpass the simple notion of technology as a material innovation the new gadget or smartphone or vehicle or industrialized mechanism that is meant to make things more efficient. In fact, Berry’s understanding of technology is
notably similar to what the twentieth-century thinker Jacques Ellul describes as technique, by which he means not only simple technology but, more broadly, the total effect of a technology on ways of living: “the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for a given stage of development) in every field of human activity.”14 If the goal of technology is efficiency, then it is inevitable that some aspect of the human experience will be expended when a certain technology advances. The presumption of the technological society, Ellul argues, is that this trade off of experience for efficiency is always for the benefit humanity even though the promised efficiency often costs far more than it is worth.15
There is, then, more at stake in the question of AI authorship than whether generative AI can produce writing indistinguishable from human composition, whether it reflects a consciousness, whether it is truly creative, or what proprietary and plagiarism issues might arise all of which have been cited as concerns over genAI authorship. Because the relationality of the author has been under attack for so long, it will be a ground-easily-lost in the struggle to understand the benefits and consequences of generative AI. Storytelling and, more generally, the narrative generation of meaning through text are intensely relational acts, much more like a dance than a tug of war. When one of those dance partners is impersonated, there is a loss of relationality. The value of that relationship is as important for the author as it is for the audience. It may be for this very reason that instructors tend to be reluctant to accept written work completed by someone (or something) other than the student whose name is at the top of the page. Generative AI might be an efficient way to produce text. It is less clear that it can foster relationships.
Notes
1 Roland Barthes, “The Death of the Author,” trans. Stephen Heath, in Image, Music, Text (Hill and Wang, 1977), 148.
2 David J. Gunkel, “Does Writing Have a Future?” in Routledge Handbook of AI and Literature, ed. Will Slocombe and Genevieve Liveley (Routledge, 2025), 31.
3 Michel Foucault, “What is an Author?” in Modernity and Its Discontents: Making and Unmaking the Bourgeois from Machiavelli to Bellow, ed. Steven B. Smith (Yale University Press, 2016), 314.
4 See Roland Barthes, “From Work to Text,” in Roland Barthes, The Rustle of Language, trans. Richard Howard (Hill and Wang, 1986), 56-64.
5 Barthes, “Death of the Author,” 148.
6 Roland Barthes, “Myth Today,” in Mythologies, trans. Annette Lavers (Noonday Press, 1972), 107-63. I attend here to the most essential description of Barthes’s view of myth, which may be found on pages 107-26.
7 Wendell Berry, “The Work of Local Culture,” in What are People For? (Counterpoint, 1990), 158.
8 Berry, “The Work of Local Culture,” 159.
9 See Angus Fletcher, “Shakespeare Didn’t Brainstorm: Why Literature Proves that There’s More to Intelligence than AI,” in Routledge Handbook of AI and Literature, ed. Will Slocombe and Genevieve Lively (Routledge, 2025), 130-31, for more on what he calls “readerly agency.”
10 Ingo Berensmeyer, Gert Buelens, and Marysa Demoor, “Introduction,” in The Handbook of Literary Authorship, ed. Ingo Berensmeyer, Gert Buelens, and Marysa Demoor (Cambridge University Press, 2019), 3.
11 Interested readers will find considerable value in Will Slocombe and Genevieve Liveley, eds., Routledge Handbook of AI and Literature (New York: Routledge, 2025) and especially in Sara Bimo’s contribution to the same, “Emerging Models of AI ‘Authorship’ in Popular Discourse,” 49-60.
12 Bimo, “Emerging Models,” 57.
13 Mustafa Suleyman, The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the 21st Century’s Greatest Dilemma (Crown Publishing, 2023). See especially his chapter entitled “The Future of Nation,” 183-204.
14 Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society, trans. John Wilkinson (Random House, 1964), xxv. See also Jason E. Hudson’s excellent dissertation which uses Berry and Ellul as a lens through which to understand evangelical worship in relation to technological advances: Jason E. Hudson, “Works of Jacques Ellul and Wendell Berry and their Theological Implications for Worship in a Western Evangelical Context,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Manchester, 2023).
15 See especially Ellul, Technological Society, 3-23.
Bibliography
Barthes, Roland. “The Death of the Author.” In Image, Music, Text. Translated by Stephen Heath, 142-48. Hill and Wang, 1977.
Barthes, Roland. “From Work to Text,” in The Rustle of Language. Translated by Richard Howard, 56-64. Hill and Wang, 1986.
Berensmeyer, Ingo, Gert Buelens, and Marysa Demoor, “Introduction.” In The Handbook of Literary Authorship, edited by Ingo Berensmeyer, Gert Buelens, and Marysa Demoor, 1-10. Cambridge University Press, 2019.
Berry, Wendell. “The Work of Local Culture.” In What are People For? 15369. Counterpoint, 1990.
Bimo, Sara. “Emerging Models of AI ‘Authorship’ in Popular Discourse.” In Routledge Handbook of AI and Literature, edited by Will Slocombe and Genevieve Liveley, 49-60. Routledge, 2025.
Ellul, Jacques. The Technological Society. Translated by John Wilkinson. Random House, 1964.
Fletcher, Angus. “Shakespeare Didn’t Brainstorm: Why Literature Proves that There’s More to Intelligence than AI,” in Routledge Handbook of AI and Literature, edited by Will Slocombe and Genevieve Lively, 125-35. Routledge, 2025.
Foucault, Michel. “What is an Author?” In Modernity and its Discontents: Making and Unmaking the Bourgeois from Machiavelli to Bellow, edited by Steven B. Smith, 299-314. Yale University Press, 2016.
Gunkel, David J. “Does Writing Have a Future?” In Routledge Handbook of AI and Literature, edited by Will Slocombe and Genevieve Liveley, 27-35. Routledge, 2025.
Hudson, Jason E. “Works of Jacques Ellul and Wendell Berry and their Theological Implications for Worship in a Western Evangelical Context.” Ph.D. diss., University of Manchester, 2023.
Slocombe, Will and Genevieve Liveley, eds. Routledge Handbook of AI and Literature. Routledge, 2025.
Suleyman, Mustafa. The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the 21st Century’s Greatest Dilemma. Crown Publishing, 2023.
Notes on Contributors
Matthew Bardowell is Associate Professor of English at Missouri Baptist University, where he teaches classes from composition to British Literature. He specializes in Old English and Old Norse poetry and the work of J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. He is co-editor of Certainty and Ambiguity: Essays on the Moral Imagination of Mystery Fiction. His recent work appears in From Rus' to Rímur: Norse History, Culture, and Literature East and West published by Cornell UP. He has a forthcoming chapter on G. K. Chesterton in a volume on literary apologetics that will be published by De Gruyter. Bardowell holds a Ph.D. in English from Saint Louis University.
Matthew Steven Bracey (J.D., Ph.D.) is the Vice Provost for Academic Administration and Assistant Professor of Theology and Culture at Welch College. He is an editor and/or contributor of several books, including Teacher, Scholar, Shepherd; Christians in Culture; Secularism and the American Republic; The Promise of Arminian Theology; and Sexuality, Gender, and the Church. He has also written numerous peer-reviewed and popular articles and is a co-founder and Senior Editor of the Helwys Society Forum (https://www.helwyssocietyforum.com/). Matthew has been married to Sarah for twelve years and is expecting their first child to be born this fall.
Eric Shane Bryan received his Ph.D. from Saint Louis University in 2007 and currently serves as full professor in the Department of English and Technical Communication at Missouri University of Science and Technology, where he teaches courses on medieval literature, history of the English language, and medievalism. His recent publications include Discourse in Old Norse Literature (2021), Icelandic Folklore and the Cultural Memory of Religious Change (2021), and a co-edited volume, Literary Speech Acts of the Medieval North (2020). He has received grants from the Fulbright Foundation and the American Scandinavian Foundation.
Aaron S. Halstead is an adjunct professor for the School of Humanities and Theology at Missouri Baptist University. He is also the Lead Pastor of the Teaching and Worship Ministries at Mid-Cities Church in Maplewood, Missouri. He received a Ph.D. in Preaching, minoring in Systematic Theology, from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, writing on the
proclamation theology of Heinrich Bullinger and its appropriation into a Baptist theology of preaching. His research interests include homiletics, proclamation and kerygmatic theology, systematic and historical theology, Baptist identity, the Protestant Reformation, and Anabaptists. He is married with two children, ages 6 and 3.
John J. Han is Professor of English and Creative Writing and the Associate Dean of the School of Humanities and Theology at Missouri Baptist University. Dr. Han is the author, editor, co-editor, or translator of 35 books, including Certainty and Ambiguity in Global Mystery Fiction: Essays on the Moral Imagination (Bloomsbury Academic, 2024). He is coediting a volume titled Cached in the Hills: Critical Essays on Ozarks Literature with Dr. C. Clark Triplett of MBU, and the University of Arkansas Press has accepted their book proposal. He earned his M.A. from Kansas State University, his Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, and his Writing Certificate in English from Missouri Baptist University.
Dr. Karen Kannenberg is Dean of the College of Business & Entrepreneurship and Professor of Business Administration and Accounting. Her professional experience began in the Marketing and Insurance industries. She spent many years before coming to Missouri Baptist University as Operations Manager and Corporate Secretary for an Accounting Computer Software firm. She serves in the St. Louis Regional Entrepreneur Educators group, where she promotes student startup businesses with area colleges and universities. In addition to teaching, she serves on the Provost Council, Retention and Persistence Task Force, and Graduate and Undergraduate Academic Affairs committees.
Elsa Linson is a senior at Missouri Baptist University, earning her bachelor’s degree in English with a literature concentration and history minor. She has loved stories her entire life, and it is this love that led her to pursue an English major and shaped her desire to work in a library after graduation. Genre fiction science fiction, fantasy, and the like has always been her particular favorite, and one of her goals is to further scholarly study of less traditionally academic media, such as comic books. This is her first conference piece.
Rubin McClain is finishing his PhD at the University of Glasgow, working on multi-ethnic identities in Greco-Roman and New Testament contexts.
He has two master’s degrees from American theological institutions, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and Asbury Theological Seminary. Along with his interests in biblical studies, he explores the role of religion, faith, and politics.
Michelle Ryan is a student at Missouri Baptist University. She will graduate in the spring of 2025 with her BA in Communication Studies with Honors. She currently works for her university and Rossman Elementary School.
Julie Steinbeck is a St. Louis-area native. After graduating from Truman State University with her Master of Arts in Education, Steinbeck began teaching college English in 2016 and is now the Director of First-Year Composition at Missouri Baptist University. Most of her teaching work centers on showing freshmen how to write and seniors how to parse sentences and finalize their capstone projects. Her poetry and nonfiction writing appear in Cantos, Fireflies’ Light, Intégrité, and The Right Words. Steinbeck enjoys the English language, dogs, hot beverages, music, and new recipes. She cannot be left unsupervised in bookstores.
Christopher Talbot is the Program Coordinator for Youth and Family Ministry and Campus Pastor at Welch College. He earned his PhD in Apologetics and Culture from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He has written numerous popular and academic articles on Francis Schaeffer, who is the focus of his dissertation. These publications include First Things, The Gospel Coalition, and the Westminster Theological Journal. He is the Assistant Managing Editor for the Journal of Youth Ministry. He has written chapters for numerous books and is the co-editor of Christians in Culture: Cultivating A Christian Worldview for All of Life (Welch College Press, 2023).
Snapshots of the Seventh Faith and Research Conference
Calls for Submissions to MBU’s Academic and Literary Journals
Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal is a peer-reviewed academic periodical published both online at https://www.mobap.edu/about-mbu/publications/integrite/ and in print. Founded in 2002, the journal examines historical, philosophical, theological, cultural, and pedagogical issues related to the integration of Christian faith and higher learning. Published twice a year, it includes research articles (15-25 pages double-spaced), review articles (10-25 pages), short essays (4-8 pages), book reviews (4-8 pages), and poetry.
INDEXING: Intégrité is listed in the Southern Baptist Periodical Index and the Christian Periodical Index.
Send submissions to John.Han@mobap.edu
Submission deadlines: March 1 & September 1
Target publication dates: April 30 & October 30, respectively
Cantos: A Literary and Arts Journal is an international magazine published online and as a hard copy. It welcomes submissions from poets, fiction writers, nonfiction writers, playwrights, and visual artists.
Fireflies’ Light: A Magazine of Short Poems is an international online magazine of short-form poetry. It showcases minimalist poems, essays on poetry and poetics, book reviews, and photo essays on places made famous by poetry.
Publication dates: April 15 & October 15, respectively
The Right Words: A Magazine of Nonfiction, an online periodical, publishes various literary works based on facts. We particularly welcome personal essays, research-based papers, faith and learning essays, memoirs, family stories, book reviews, movie reviews, and photo essays.
