User agency: spiritual practices and discipline

We might be living through the most consequential technological moment in human history. In this episode, Greg Cootsona—theologian, pastor, and executive director of AI and Faith—joins Mark Labberton reflect on a lifetime's convergence of work in faith, science, and ethics now fully engaged at the frontier of artificial intelligence.

"AI is not simply a technical project. It is an expression of human hopes and fears, our longings for power, our craving for convenience, and our hunger for transcendence and meaning. In that sense, every AI model carries an implicit anthropology and an embedded moral vision."

Together they discuss why religious wisdom belongs in the room where AI is shaped, the ethical stakes of human dignity and representation in AI systems, and the strategic power of interfaith collaboration with leading tech companies. Together they also explore how individual users can exercise genuine agency over AI, the risks of AI-mediated relationships, and what it would mean to make AI truly for us—in the deepest theological sense of that phrase.

Episode Highlights

"You among mortals are chosen to solve every problem effectively and efficiently."—on Silicon Valley's unspoken gospel

"The gospel is not fragile and it grows best in situations that are not ideal and conditions that are not ideal."

"AI is not simply a technical project. It is an expression of human hopes and fears, our longings for power, our craving for convenience, and our hunger for transcendence and meaning. In that sense, every AI model carries an implicit anthropology and an embedded moral vision. Whether or not its designers name it."

"A third of teenagers say they prefer to have a relationship with a chatbot."

"I think hope is taking steps today for a vision of tomorrow that you want to see occur. And that is what makes positive change in us as human beings and positive change in the world around us."

About Greg Cootsona

Greg Cootsona (PhD, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley) is the executive director of AI and Faith, a global interfaith organization bringing religious wisdom to the ethical challenges of artificial intelligence. He is a lecturer in comparative religion and humanities at California State University, Chico, and an ordained Presbyterian Church (USA) minister. Cootsona co-founded Science for the Church, directed multiple Templeton Foundation–funded projects connecting science and religious communities, and is a recognized specialist in C.S. Lewis, theology, and science. He has authored nine books, including Science and Religions in America: A New Look (Routledge, 2023) and Mere Science and Christian Faith (InterVarsity Press, 2018). He has appeared on The Today Show, CNN, NPR, BBC, and in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.

Helpful Links and Resources

AI and Faith https://aiandfaith.org

Greg Cootsona's website https://www.gregcootsona.com

Forthcoming book—An AI Made for Us https://www.gregcootsona.com/books/

AI and Faith Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ai-and-faith/id1726277555

Science for the Church https://scienceforthechurch.org

Mere Science and Christian Faith https://www.ivpress.com/mere-science-and-christian-faith

Science and Religions in America: A New Look https://www.routledge.com/Science-and-Religions-in-America-A-New-Look/Cootsona/p/book/9781032102122

AI and Faith on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/aiandfaith

AI and Faith on X/Twitter https://twitter.com/AIandFaith

Show Notes

• Greg Cootsona's background: grew up in Menlo Park, California—Silicon Valley before it had that name
• His engineer father modeled a problem-solving worldview; transcendence not required
• "You among mortals are chosen to solve every problem effectively and efficiently."—the unspoken gospel of Silicon Valley
• Grew up in a non-religious, even "anti-religious" household
• Became a Christian his first year at UC Berkeley—a conversion he describes with a laugh as the obvious outlier
• C.S. Lewis's writings on meaning and love: too reasonable, too wise to dismiss
• Earl Palmer at First Presbyterian Berkeley: preaching that gave confidence amid secular challenge
• "The gospel is not fragile and it grows best in situations that are not ideal."
• Princeton Seminary for biblical studies; study years in Tübingen and Heidelberg
• PhD dissertation at GTU: Karl Barth (theology from above) in dialogue with Alfred North Whitehead (science from below)
• Advisors Robert John Russell (PhD in quantum physics) and Ted Peters at the Graduate Theological Union
• Pastoral ministry at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian, New York City, then Bidwell Presbyterian, Chico
• Began working with Templeton Foundation through early exposure to science-faith dialogue during the Human Genome Initiative years
• Two $2 million Templeton projects: Scientists in Congregations and Science and Theology for Emerging Adult Ministries (STEAM)
• Bidwell Presbyterian received what may have been the first Templeton Foundation grant ever given directly to a local church
• AI and Faith founded by Thomas Osborne and David Brenner in Seattle—building near Amazon and Microsoft, they saw the need early
• Cootsona became the organization's first executive director on October 1, 2025
• The network: 220 experts in 20 countries, partnering with 34 organizations
• "AI is not simply a technical project. It is an expression of human hopes and fears, our longings for power, our craving for convenience, and our hunger for transcendence and meaning."
• Interfaith strategy: shared ethical ground across traditions is broader than divisions—and tech companies respond better to a multi-religious voice
• Currently invited to provide Anthropic feedback on the Claude Constitution—because of AI and Faith's interfaith structure
• Human dignity at stake: between 2 and 2.5 billion people not on the internet are absent from AI training data
• Only 0.06 percent of AI models are trained on Arabic-language sources—600 million speakers
• AI data centres consume potable water and enormous energy to cool GPU processors
• Senior tech leaders at a major company admitted to Labberton: "None of us has any training in ethics"—a real and witnessed crisis
• "A third of teenagers say they prefer to have a relationship with a chatbot."
• Three publics: AI industry experts, religious congregations, and the broader public—AI and Faith works across all three
• Forthcoming book: An AI Made for Us—riffing on Jesus's Sabbath words: the Sabbath was made for humanity, not humanity for the Sabbath
• Users have more agency than they think: we can set limits, log off, choose not to be defined by our AI engagement
• Harvard Human Flourishing Project: in-person worship is the highest correlate with religious flourishing—embodied community cannot be replaced
• Community—not the individual—is the right unit of moral accountability for navigating AI
• "I think hope is taking steps today for a vision of tomorrow that you want to see occur."
• AI's genuine promise: accelerating medicine for rare diseases; recalibrating cosmological understanding; reducing human suffering at scale
• Five to one: more people fear AI than welcome it—AI and Faith works to change that ratio with grounded, religious wisdom

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Production Credits

Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment magazine and Fuller Seminary.