Christian Wisdom for the Age of AI - AJ Poelarends - Friday Night Lectures - August 14, 2026

Christian Wisdom for the Age of AI     There is not a day that passes without another announcement or news item about AI. We encounter it at our workplaces (where we are often encouraged to adopt it), when we go online and are presented with AI summaries of our searches, and in our schools and universities, where AI-produced work is quickly becoming a real problem. It is all around us, whether we like it or not. Proponents of AI sketch utopian visions of the future in which AI will solve all our problems, while opponents of AI sketch dark, dystopian visions of the future. Amidst all this noise, how can we think Christianly about AI? Is AI just a tool, albeit a very powerful tool, or is it more, or something different? What wisdom does the Christian tradition, with more than 2000 years of thinking about God, ourselves, and the world, have to offer in this confusing time?   Arend J. Poelarends is the director of the Center for Faith and Learning at Anselm House, a Christian study center serving the University of Minnesota (Twin Cities). He received a Ph.D. in Astrophysics from Utrecht University in the Netherlands and an M.Div. from Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis (MO). Prior to moving to Minnesota, he taught Physics and Astronomy for 11 years at Wheaton College (IL) where he also conducted computational astrophysics research. For more than two decades, he has helped Christians and non-Christians think deeply about questions at the intersection of science and the Christian faith.   20260814ChristianWisdomForAI-AJPoelarends