Stories this week:

• Marijuana and youth health: New medical studies show legalization has coincided with a sharp rise in adolescent ER visits, including severe physical and psychiatric effects, raising ethical and biblical concerns about bodily stewardship.
• Australia’s social media ban: Australia enacted the world’s first nationwide ban on social media accounts for children under 16, shifting responsibility to tech companies and sparking debate over protection versus government overreach.
• Charlie Kirk and spiritual response: A Barna study finds Kirk’s death prompted more spiritual than political action, particularly among Gen Z and practicing Christians, suggesting deeper spiritual currents at work.
• AI and academic integrity: A major AI conference discovered that over 20% of peer reviews were fully AI-generated, exposing serious ethical failures and double standards in higher education.
• Listener Question: Why some families have more children
• Listener Question: Church becoming affirming
• Listener Question: Praying without visible answers

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Think Biblically: Conversations on Faith and Culture is a podcast from Talbot School of Theology at Biola University, which offers degrees both online and on campus in Southern California.

Find all episodes of Think Biblically at: https://www.biola.edu/think-biblically.

To submit comments, ask questions, or make suggestions on issues you'd like us to cover or guests you'd like us to have on the podcast, email us at thinkbiblically@biola.edu.

Who was Dr. C. Everett Koop and why is his life so significant? How did he become so passionate about abortion? How did he navigate bioethical controversies during his tenure as Surgeon General under President Ronald Reagan? We’ll discuss these questions and more with our guest and Dr. Koop’s biographer, Dr. Nigel Cameron.

Biographer Nigel Cameron is President Emeritus of the Center for Policy on Emerging Technologies (C-PET) in Washington, DC, which he founded in 2007 and led for ten years, former Technology Editor at UnHerd.com and Fulbright Visiting Research Chair in Science and Society at the University of Ottawa, Canada. A native of the UK, he is also a citizen of the United States and Belgium. He has written widely on the policy impacts of emerging technologies, including: Innovation President (Amazon Kindle), The New Medicine, & Nanoscale: Issues for the Nano Century, and Will Robots Take Your Job? A Plea for Consensus (Polity Press / John Wiley).

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Think Biblically: Conversations on Faith and Culture is a podcast from Talbot School of Theology at Biola University, which offers degrees both online and on campus in Southern California.

Find all episodes of Think Biblically at: https://www.biola.edu/think-biblically.

To submit comments, ask questions, or make suggestions on issues you'd like us to cover or guests you'd like us to have on the podcast, email us at thinkbiblically@biola.edu.

This week:

“Jesus Bots” & AI Spirituality: Sean and Scott discuss a New York Times piece on religious chatbots, raising concerns about me-centered faith, shallow “AI Jesus” advice, and how tech may distort spiritual formation.

UC San Diego’s Education Crisis: A Wall Street Journal editorial reveals that 1 in 12 UCSD freshmen can’t perform middle-school math, prompting a conversation about grade inflation, DEI pressures, COVID learning loss, and the need for academic accountability.

AI & the Decline of Critical Thinking: An Atlantic article sparks discussion on how people increasingly outsource decision-making to AI, rewiring their brains, avoiding discomfort, and creating new forms of dependency.

The New Singlehood Dilemma: The hosts unpack cultural mixed messages—society simultaneously pushes people to find a partner and to celebrate being single—leading to confusion, shame, and loneliness.

Listener Question – Tattoos & Piercings: Sean and Scott explain that Old Testament prohibitions were tied to pagan rituals, meaning tattoos today are largely a wisdom issue rather than a moral one.

Listener Question – Guns in Church Security: They discuss self-defense biblically and practically, concluding that armed security can be appropriate when trained and focused on protecting the congregation.

Listener Question – Devotionals for Teens: Recommendations include reading Scripture together or using teen-friendly devotionals, with Sean mentioning his book A Rebel’s Manifesto as a helpful cultural guide.

==========

Think Biblically: Conversations on Faith and Culture is a podcast from Talbot School of Theology at Biola University, which offers degrees both online and on campus in Southern California.

Find all episodes of Think Biblically at: https://www.biola.edu/think-biblically.
Watch video episodes at: https://bit.ly/think-biblically-video.

To submit comments, ask questions, or make suggestions on issues you'd like us to cover or guests you'd like us to have on the podcast, email us at thinkbiblically@biola.edu.