The Bulletin Christianity Today

AI priests, a polarized church, and women and alcohol.
This week on The Bulletin, hosts Mike Cosper and editor in chief Russell Moore talk with David Zahl of Mockingbird about artificial intelligence -- ChatGPT -4.o and AI priests -- and the need for embodied presence and wisdom. Next, they tackle the latest challenge in church polarization, this time in the Presbyterian Church in America. Last, special guest Ericka Andersen joins the show to shed some light on the hidden struggles of women who are alcohol-dependent.
Today’s Guests:
David Zahl is the director of Mockingbird Ministries and editor-in-chief of the Mockingbird website. Born in New York City and brought up elsewhere, David graduated from Georgetown University in 2001, and then worked for several years as a youth minister in New England. In 2007 he founded Mockingbird in NYC. Today David and his wife Cate reside in Charlottesville, VA with their three boys, where David also serves on the staff of Christ Episcopal Church. He is the author of A Mess of Help: From the Crucified Soul of Rock N’ Roll and co-author of Law and Gospel: A Theology for Sinners (and Saints). His most recent book, Seculosity: How Career, Parenting, Technlogy, Food, Politics, and Romance Became Our New Religion and What To Do About It, appeared in 2019 from Fortress Press. 
Ericka Andersen is a freelance writer, podcast host and owner of Pitch and Publish Writing Company. She is the author of "Reason to Return: Why Women Need the Church & the Church Needs Women" and "Leaving Cloud 9: The True Story of a Life Resurrected From the Ashes of Poverty, Trauma and Mental Illness." She has been published multiple times in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the Washington Post and more. Ericka is a weekly columnist at WORLD Magazine and a freelance reporter for Christianity Today. Prior to freelancing, Ericka worked for National Review Magazine, the Heritage Foundation and in communications for the U.S. Congress on Capitol Hill. 

Resources Referenced:
SobrietyCurious.com

“The Bulletin” is a production of Christianity Today
Executive Producer: Erik Petrik
Producer: Clarissa Moll and Matt Stevens
Associate Producer: McKenzie Hill and Raed Gilliam
Editing and Mix: TJ Hester
Music: Dan Phelps
Show Design: Bryan Todd
Graphic Design: Amy Jones
Social Media: Kate Lucky
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Peru permits euthanasia, Florida frets about national security, and Kristi Noem is in the doghouse.
This week on The Bulletin, Mike Cosper and producer Clarissa Moll discuss Florida’s new laws restricting Chinese citizens from real estate transactions and employment at state universities. Conversation turns next to Peru’s first exemption for medically assisted suicide and the growth of the global right to die movement. Finally, we talk about dogs -- our own and Governor Kristi Noem’s, to be exact. Can the vice presidential hopeful remain a viable candidate after the release of her new book No Going Back? Special guests Skot Welch and Karen Swallow Prior join the discussion.
Today’s Guests:
Skot Welch is the principal/founder of Global Bridgebuilders, a firm focusing on organizational development, cultural transformation and inclusion. Prior to the launch of Global Bridgebuilders, Skot served as Vice President of Business Development and Benchmarking Services for DiversityInc magazine in New Jersey, where he worked with many of the Fortune 500’s biggest global brands across a broad range of industries. Skot’s most recent book is Unfractured: A Christ-Centered Action Plan for Cultural Change.
Karen Swallow Prior, Ph.D., is the author of The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis and On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books, among other titles. Her writing has appeared at Christianity Today, the New York Times, The Atlantic, the Washington Post, First Things, and various other places. In addition, Dr. Prior is a columnist for Religion News Service, a contributing editor for Comment, a founding member of The Pelican Project, and a senior fellow at the Trinity Forum. 
Resources Referenced:
When Buying a Home Is Treated as a National Security Threat - The New York Times
The Art of Dying: Living Fully into the Life to Come
Who Will Comfort Me? The Total Care of Cicely Saunders | Acton Institute

“The Bulletin” is a production of Christianity Today
Executive Producer: Erik Petrik
Producer: Clarissa Moll and Matt Stevens
Associate Producer: McKenzie Hill and Raed Gilliam
Editing and Mix: TJ Hester
Music: Dan Phelps
Show Design: Bryan Todd
Graphic Design: Amy Jones
Social Media: Kate Lucky
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

College students protest and the United Methodist Church splits
We’re recording live this week from CT’s quarterly staff meeting with special guests CT president and CEO Tim Dalrymple and news editor Daniel Silliman. Host Mike Cosper and producer Clarissa Moll discuss the escalating student protests on U.S. college campuses -- why students are gathering and how free speech rights shape university discourse. Then, the United Methodist Church met this week to remove all LGBTQ limitations from its books. Should conservative churches within the denomination stay, or should they go?
Today’s Guests:
Timothy Dalrymple is a former national champion gymnast who turned to academia following an accident in college where he broke his neck. He studied at Stanford University, Princeton Theological Seminary, and Harvard’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, where he made suffering a key theme of his research and teaching in modern Western religious thought. Dalrymple was a key player in the launch of patheos.com, an online marketing place of religious ideas, and he pioneered many of the techniques that led Patheos to become the world’s largest platform for multi-religious conversations. In 2013, he founded Polymath, a creative agency that services businesses and nonprofits serving the world. Dalrymple currently serves as Christianity Today’s President and CEO, the flagship evangelical media ministry founded in 1956 by Billy Graham.  
Daniel Silliman is a journalist and a historian. He is the news editor for Christianity Today, the author of a history of bestselling evangelical fiction, and teaches humanities at Milligan University. Daniel spent several years as a crime reporter outside Atlanta before pursuing higher education in Germany, earning a MA from Tübingen University and a doctoral degree from Heidelberg University. He has reported and edited news coverage for CT since 2019.

“The Bulletin” is a production of Christianity Today
Executive Producer: Erik Petrik
Producer: Clarissa Moll and Matt Stevens
Associate Producer: McKenzie Hill and Raed Gilliam
Editing and Mix: TJ Hester
Music: Dan Phelps
Show Design: Bryan Todd
Graphic Design: Amy Jones
Social Media: Kate Lucky
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week on The Bulletin, host Mike Cosper sits down for a special one on one conversation with author and political columnist Tim Carney about his new book Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be. Grounded in fascinating sociological research and filled with engaging stories, this discussion highlights the many ways that culture shapes our expectations and behaviors -- even when we don’t realize it. Whether or not you’re a parent, you’ll find this episode enlightening and beneficial. As Tim says, we all gain from a culture that values children.
Today’s Guests:
Tim Carney is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, the senior columnist for the Washington Examiner, and the author of four books, most recently Alienated America and the forthcoming Family Unfriendly. He has written in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Atlantic, National Review, and many other newspapers and magazines. Tim has appeared on CNN, FOX News, MSNBC, CNBC, and PBS Newshour. Tim and his wife Katie raise six children in the Washington, D.C., area.
“The Bulletin” is a production of Christianity Today
Executive Producer: Erik Petrik
Producer: Clarissa Moll and Matt Stevens
Associate Producer: McKenzie Hill and Raed Gilliam
Editing and Mix: TJ Hester
Music: Dan Phelps
Show Design: Bryan Todd
Graphic Design: Amy Jones
Social Media: Kate Lucky
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week on The Bulletin, our hosts explore why third party candidates appeal to voters, how the pro-life movement became so hypocritical, and what amazes us about Beyonce’s new chart-topping album. Hosts Mike Cosper and editor in chief Russell Moore talk with CT’s political correspondent Harvest Prude, New York Times columnist David French, CT’s chief impact officer Nicole Martin, and Nashville songwriter and producer Charlie Peacock as they dive deep beneath the headlines to the stories that are shaping our world.
Resources Referenced:
Some Evangelicals Want a Third-Party Option, Even Without a Chance at Winning | News & Reporting | Christianity Today
The Gospel of Life: Evangelium Vitae: John Paul II

Today’s Guests:
Harvest Prude is a CT’s national political correspondent and a congressional reporter based in Washington, D.C. She is a former reporter for The Dispatch and WORLD, having served there as political reporter for their Washington bureau. 
David French is a columnist for the New York Times. He’s a former senior editor of The Dispatch. He’s the author most recently of Divided We Fall: America's Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation.
Charlie Peacock, born Charles William Ashworth in Yuba City, California is a Nashville-based, 4x Grammy® Award-winning, multi-format jazz and pop recording artist, composer and record producer. Peacock’s production credits range from Chris Cornell and Ladysmith Black Mambazo to AAA and Americana successes such as The Lone Bellow, Holly Williams, The Civil Wars, Ben Rector and Brett Dennen. 
Nicole Martin serves Christianity Today as chief impact officer after serving on its board of directors. Nicole oversees three major strategic initiatives that are shaping the future of CT including The Global Initiative, the Big Tent Initiative, and the Next Gen Initiative. 

“The Bulletin” is a production of Christianity Today
Executive Producer: Erik Petrik
Producer: Clarissa Moll and Matt Stevens
Associate Producer: McKenzie Hill and Raed Gilliam
Editing and Mix: TJ Hester
Music: Dan Phelps
Show Design: Bryan Todd
Graphic Design: Amy Jones
Social Media: Kate Lucky
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Iran’s intentions, the implications for other global conflicts, and the necessity of a strategic and supportive American response. In this special episode of The Bulletin, hosts Mike Cosper and editor in chief Russell Moore talk with former Congressman Adam Kinzinger about Iran’s missile attack on Israel over the past weekend.

Today’s Guest:
Adam Kinzinger served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2011 to 2023. A member of the Republican Party, Kinzinger originally represented Illinois's 11th congressional district and later Illinois's 16th congressional district. After President Donald Trump was defeated in the 2020 presidential election, Kinzinger became known for his vocal opposition to Trump's claims of voter fraud and attempts to overturn the results. Kinzinger served in the U.S. Air Force, flying missions in Iraq, Afghanistan, South America, and Guam. He has served in the Air Force Special Operations Command, Air Combat Command, Air Mobility Command, and Wisconsin Air National Guard. He is presently a lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard and founder of CountryFirst.

“The Bulletin” is a production of Christianity Today
Executive Producer: Erik Petrik
Producer: Clarissa Moll and Matt Stevens
Associate Producer: McKenzie Hill and Raed Gilliam
Editing and Mix: TJ Hester
Music: Dan Phelps
Show Design: Bryan Todd
Graphic Design: Amy Jones
Social Media: Kate Lucky
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices