Episode 247 - Leading a Techwise Life With Amy and Andy Crouch
One of the biggest challenges families face in the modern age is how to navigate emerging tech with their kids.
Entrepreneurs struggle to turn off. We're always connected. Always keeping things moving. What example does that set for our family?
Andy Crouch has written about this in his book The Tech-wise Family, and on today’s podcast we talk about what it was like to establish healthy family rhythms around technology.
We’re also joined by Andy’s adult daughter, Amy, to hear her perspective about growing up in a home with this kind of discipline. Like her father, she has also written about this subject in her book: My Techwise Life.
Check out the full conversation, and don’t forget to rate and follow the show on your favorite podcast app.
All opinions expressed on this podcast, including the team and guests, are solely their opinions. Host and guests may maintain positions in the companies and securities discussed. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as specific advice for any individual or organization.
Episode Transcript
Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it.
Rusty Rueff: Hey, everyone welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast from wherever you are today around the globe. If you've followed us for any amount of time, you've probably heard the name Andy Crouch at some point. Andy's a gifted writer, a teacher and a leader in the movement as the partner of theology and culture at Praxis Labs. In 2017, he published a very helpful little book called The Tech Wise Family. The book talked about the habits he and his wife created in their home to put technology in its proper place. Well, today we're going to talk to Andy about some of those practices, but we also give some insider information. Andy's daughter, Amy Crouch, is also joining us today to give her perspective about growing up in a family that made these practices a priority. She's also written about this experience in her own book, My Tech Wise Life. Our hope is that this conversation will challenge all of us to have the right kind of relationship with technology in our lives, in our families, and in our homes. Let's listen in.
Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast is bright and early here California time Monday and I am super excited about this first podcast that we're going to be recording today. I've been thinking about Andy and Amy Crouch, our guests, for a while. I think about Andy a lot. For many of our listeners. You'll know that in addition to Faith Driven Entrepreneur, we have a sister ministry called Faith Driven Investor, which was born out of Faith Driven Entrepreneur because we wanted to help entrepreneurs find capital with time. They came to really, I think, understand and appreciate the fact we had blogs and podcasts and conference of course groups, but so many of them were also hoping to find like minded capital. So I gave birth to Faith Driven Investor and like Faith Driven Entrepreneur, there is a Faith Driven Investor Foundation series that starts off week one Tim Keller the identity of an investor. Week two Andy Crouch talking about God and Mammon is our most talked about part of this series. We've got nine parts of Foundation series and I think they're all very, very good through the grace of God. But there's something about the way that Andy challenges us, about how we think about investments. We're not going to talk about that much today, but because I was leading a Faith Driven Investor group study yesterday at the church and it was top of mind, and then I came back and then knowing that I was going to do today and we're going to talk more about the tech wise family with both Andy and Amy. I left my phone alone and it was hard for a little bit. And then I realized and I told my wife this later, I said, That's one of the best Sundays I've ever had and just rest. And one of the things that Andy talks about, both in God and Mammon, but also in Tech Wise Family, is that the value of relationships and the things that might otherwise hinder us. Maybe on one hand it's money, on the other hand, maybe it's the distractions that come from a device. We're going to talk about the ladder mostly today, but Andy and Amy, it's awesome to have you with us. Rusty and William is great to be back and get back together and enter into another 250 episodes that we'll do together. I think this is around episode number 251, and I'm just grateful to be alive and to be with you all, Andy and Amy. Welcome.
Amy Crouch: Thank you.
Andy Crouch: It is already fun.
Henry Kaestner: Likely the first time I'm sure. Actually, this is the first time we've ever had a father daughter. And this is a big deal because, Amy, I followed your career a little bit. I've known your dad now for maybe 12 years or so. And to see you follow your father's footsteps into authorship on something you really cared deeply about and that you've been very, very thoughtful on is really cool. And I think that one of the things we did for Faith driven entrepreneurs out there, one of the things I recommend is that as you look to hire somebody, to bring them on board, your enterprise to meet with their spouses as well is really key because it teaches you so much more about the person that you can be spending 40 or 50 hours a week with. And so for us to be able to spend time not only with Andy, whose work has been so instrumental and helpful to the birth of this movement, of faith driven entrepreneur, but to spend time with a daughter who grew up with him. It's just it's a special treat. So I'm going to start with you, Amy. Amy, I'm hoping that you might just share it with us just a little bit about what God has been doing in your heart as you've grown up in that Crouch family, I imagine, because I've heard your dad sing several times, I think how amazing your house must have been. Most people don't think of Andy the singer, but he gives these spirituals, which are just awesome. Did he, like, sing a ton?
Amy Crouch: Oh, yeah, absolutely. And that honestly, I don't know if you know this dad. That is one of the things that very reliably makes me homesick. I work a job where I get to hear a lot of amazing musicians. And any time we have someone who sits at the piano and plays, whether it's gospel or classical, I just think of Saturday mornings coming downstairs and, you know, having my dad be practicing on the piano. So that is one of the sweetest gifts that my family has given me, I think is is the gift of music.
Henry Kaestner: Yeah, it must have been absolutely awesome. So I want to get to of course, I want to get into my tech wise life that you co-wrote with Andy. But tell us a little bit about how God has worked in your life as you come out of high school, you come out of the Crouch house and how God has directed your steps that lead up to today.
Amy Crouch: For sure, so I have I've just graduated from college a year ago or a little less than a year ago. So I think I've gotten to the point where I can really look back on those four years with slightly more perspective than right when I was graduating. And I think, you know, coming out of high school, I know that parents have a lot of concerns. And as a kid, you have a lot of concerns as well about what on earth will the next few years. Hold for me. And I think that I am able to look at my college years as having been this opportunity to first learn how to suffer well, but also how to rejoice really well. And I think the autonomy that you start to achieve when you are headed out for college and you realize for the first time that, oh, I make my own rules, I'm not necessarily going to have my parents present to enforce it can be a real turning point, either where you decide I'm going to live my own disciplined life or a desire to just leave discipline behind. And I think maybe one of the things that I am most grateful to my family for was that I kind of knew ahead of time that going off to college, leaving my parents behind in the physical, if not in spirit, meant that it was time for me to live a disciplined life and for me to attend to the rhythms of my life, the habits that shaped me in the very same ways that my parents had tried to do while I was a child. And so throughout college, I didn't do this perfectly, but I was really kind of starting to inherit the central habits and behaviors and rhythms that were really important to my family. I was spending each Sunday taking a Sabbath from all of my work. I was spending the first half hour of my day in the last half hour of my day as screen free as possible. I was making sure that the meals I shared with other people weren't being disrupted by screens. And so even though I didn't do any of that perfectly, I think that I began to learn how powerful it is to continue those kinds of behaviors, those kinds of habits.
Henry Kaestner: You know, I think about the power that screens have in my life, and I'm curious by nature, and I also love getting just little inputs. And so I want to bridge this to the work that you've seen with my tech wise life. And I want to just reflect on the fact that when I put my screen down, I'm not getting all is what I wanted. Maybe, you know, 25 times yesterday, I'm thinking, Hey, is the warrior Kings, is that a best of five or is it a best of seven? I wanted to know that right away. And I wanted to know I wanted to know a recipe for something else. And I wanted instantaneous gratification. And I found myself denying myself. I can't believe that I'm saying that this is anything akin to suffering because it's not. But there's something maybe in there is denying yourself a little bit bridges into this work that you feel that God's called you to, that you've done with Andy. And then we want to hear the same thing from Andy. And just just a reflection of not always getting everything you want immediately. And also weave into that. I know I should really keep my questions one to a time. I'm just really impacted by the fact that you're the first person we've ever interviewed on this program that grew up as a technology native. What does that mean? What does that mean? Suffering. Technology. Your generation rift for a couple minutes on that will you.
Amy Crouch: We're going to be all right. Well, oh, my goodness. There's so much to say. The first thing is that, yes, our devices give us what they want. That's why they're so enthralling and exciting.
Henry Kaestner: Was that a Freudian slip they give us what we want?
Amy Crouch: Well, I thought I said they give us what we want, but they also give us what they want.
Andy Crouch: Yeah.
Henry Kaestner: That's right
Amy Crouch: So it was a good Freudian slip if it did happen. But this is the reason that they're so compelling. I'm not on Instagram anymore, but a year or two ago, my friend who is sent me an Instagram ad that came up for her hilariously within the app, you know, you're already using Instagram and they serve you an ad for their own product. And it said Instagram, make yourself in your own image. And I was like, Oh, my goodness, that is what we want, right? That is exactly what we want. It is not necessarily what is good for us. I actually think it is certainly not what is good for us. But that is speaking to such a fundamental desire, like that's the desire in some sense of Eve and Adam in the Garden is I want to make myself in my own image. The ultimate truth about me, you know, shouldn't be that I made an another person's image in the image of God. It should be that I get to make myself in my own image. And I think that all of our devices are just extraordinarily good at giving us what we want or what we think we want. This is certainly true when it comes to the kinds of distracting powers of our devices. When we think about the nonstop entertainment that's available to us. In the moment when you are bored, frustrated, or lonely, some instantaneous distraction is exactly what you want. You can think of it as kind of a bandaid on the surface of your pain and you have that kind of instantaneous gratification. So I think that it's certainly true that we love our devices because they offer us what we think that we need, what we think that we want right away. But that is not how you actually become the kind of person that God created you to be. And one of the things that we speak about so much as a family is how the most important things in life. Come from a little bit of risk. The most important connections, the kinds of conversations and relationships that make life worth living. They come from the risks of being vulnerable and not just presenting a perfect surface to the world. Developing any kinds of good skills and gifts and talents has to come from trying something that you're not actually good at yet. You have to take a little bit of risk. And if our devices are only ever giving us the easy option, the sort of flattened pleasure of you get what you want, we're going to miss out on what makes life truly the life that is life.
William Norvell: Wow. Wow. That was great. We had our first little mini clip from LinkedIn right there. That's going to be amazing. Andy, I want to bring you in a little bit. You have helped Amy shaped this life that she sees, of course, helped in some way. And so I'm a parent as of last week. I have a five year old, a three year old and a one year old. And while already invading their lives. Right. They see screens everywhere somehow. And my one year old still knows how to answer a phone like this, which I'm not really sure here. And I'm like, How did you learn that? Nobody does that anymore. It's a fascinating must've been a cartoon, but I feel like there's so many people that say things right. And I'm curious because I know you've lived your life. You have grown children that can verify that you did some of these things in your home. .
William Norvell: How does this happen? How do we think wisely about this? But just advice on, you know, how did you shape this world? Why were you so intentional about it? What about technology scared you at that moment in time? And maybe what are some thoughts we should have as parents raising kids in this new generation?
Andy Crouch: Great questions. Well, I think most of the technology choices, if you want to call that that parents and kids make, are default. That is, they aren't actually made based on really thinking carefully, what do we want our home to be like? What do we want our children's experience growing out to be like? Instead, we have this kind of pressure wave. I feel like the best image I have for it is a tsunami that's kind of, you know, flooding in on our whole culture that carries us in a certain direction. And crucially, that makes many things easier. I think the reason kids are firsthand at a screen is it's actually rarely to solve even the kids problem. It's to solve the parents problem. How do I get in and out of the grocery store to and from the grocery store in the minivan without committing murder against my three year old? Whatever know is screaming and anxious and, you know, angry and bored. And you hand them a screen and it does solve their problem. But really more deeply, it solves the grown ups problem. And when you make any one of these choices, life in the moment feels easier. But these choices also cut us off from what actually forms us as persons. How do you become a person who is able to get to the grocery store and back without breaking down something that some adults, some of us on our bad days would still have trouble with that. And we know when we grow up this is like an opportunity to exercise patience. It's an opportunity to exercise a kind of discipline. So the very broad answer to your question, William, is that I was very fortunate to be married to a very discerning wife and mother of our kids, Catherine, who really was thinking about what do we want life in our home to feel like for our kids and how do we want life to form all of us? And Catherine was especially alert to the ways, actually, that I was. This is actually before we had kids that I was dependent on the kind of distraction and easy kind of option of devices and confronted me about it. So one of the problems with my book, The Wise Family, is I end up sounding pretty put together in that book, although there's another chapter I try to disclose some of the less put together parts because we accumulate all this insight over about 15 years of child raising. But most of it was not my wisdom necessarily. It was my wife pushing me to say, Andy, what do you actually want from our marriage, from this family? And together, we made some choices that in the end we all feel were really, really life giving. But I actually love the way you began, Amy. I have to say, as a parent, there is nothing you would in some ways less wish for your kid than that they would have to suffer. And I remember the day I had to pick Amy up from college in the middle of COVID when we all realized really what was going to happen was one of the worst days of my life. I drove It was about a four hour drive to her school, and I made that just so angry with God. I was like this this beautiful opportunity my daughter has had where she's just been flourishing and pursuing you and making friends. It's coming to a crashing halt. And I had a pretty good sense of how long the disruption was going to be at that point, which I think they didn't. They thought it was going to be two weeks before spring break, and I knew it was going to be a semester, if not years and. It was so distressing to not be able to rescue my child from that right. But the paradox is this is where growth happens and in much smaller ways every day we kind of have a choice. Do I choose the easy way or the harder way? And our kids are watching as we make that choice. And to some extent, when they're young, we have to help them choose the harder way. So I don't know. Does that help frame like what the big picture is at least?
William Norvell: It does for me. I mean, I love that last phrase. Help them choose the harder way. Yeah.
Andy Crouch: But that means you have to be willing to watch your child struggle. You have to put up with resistance, their own frustration, their own sadness. You have to watch them go through awkward things at school when they haven't watched the show. Everyone else has. One of the hardest moments in parenting for us was watching our son bring home friend's boys to play and like 8 to 10 years old in that window. And basically none of them came back because we didn't have any screens for kids to play with. And basically it seemed like boys at that stage only really what they do together is play video games. So watching kid after kid show up and want to play video games, they were like, Well, that's one thing we don't have, but you can try other things and then never come back. And our poor son at that age, not the most socially smooth maybe, you know, just struggled with that and we had to just absorb it and trust that on the other end something good was going to happen. But very hard. It's very hard to let suffering happen for the sake of formation.
William Norvell: I had a five year old birthday party, so I'm crying as I'm thinking about your child and thinking about my child. They all got I cry a lot. So that's not a lot. It's not huge. But I'm crying, thinking, Oh, I know it's hard. That's hard. It's so whatever decision it into your point. I love this and you're making a decision at that point is what we're talking about, you know, with children. I mean, you're making the call, right? They don't have a lot of input on that. They're not going to change it. And so I'd love to flip it back to Amy. How did you experience this? I don't know if rules is the right word, more like God shaped boundaries, right? Like, hey, here's the boundaries I've set for you to flourish. You may not love them, but here's what I've said, right? That's what our loving father does for us. But people call them rules. But in reality, I think they're loving boundaries of where he thinks we will flourish best. Right. And I feel like that's what your parents said, because I think we we think, of course, God knows. But maybe your parents thought, right, we think, this is where you'll flourish, even though you may not like it. Mm hmm. How was that for you?
Amy Crouch: Well. Oh, goodness. I mean, the broader question, you know, this has suddenly become a bit of a heavy podcast. And I will say we're talking about suffering, but this is all grounded in my brothers and I, like, never, ever wavering knowledge of our parents, unconditional love for us. And we're talking about sorrow and grief and pain. And that is real. But like, oh my goodness, this is all grounded. And I have never, ever in my whole life doubted that my mom and my dad will always love me unconditionally. And that is the grounding force from which you can go out into the world and suffer. And of course, as I grow older, I know that as much as my parents love me, it is really the love of God, which is the unconditional grounding force that allows me to go out and take risks in life. And so I don't want us to get kind of lost in the heavy side of things. So that encouragement to go out and to take risks from our parents. My brother and I knew that we were being told to take those risks because we could never risk the most important thing, which was the love of God that is, you know, was directed through our parents for their love for us. So you can only take those kinds of risks and be vulnerable in the world if you know that the most important thing is already done, you're already beloved. So that's the big picture. Moving in towards the sort of smaller picture, though, of like practically, how did we react to our parents having these kinds of rules for us? You know, there were all kinds of frictions that happened. But what I like to remind people is that these rules were not just for the kids, they were for the whole family. And that really fundamentally changed my perspective and I think also my brothers, because we could be annoyed with our parents for, you know, I just wanted to play this fun game or I just want to be able to do X, Y, Z. But I know I never had a sense of they're just telling me to do this and how do I put this? I always knew that these were commitments that were binding my parents as well, it wasn't just me and my brother who couldn't have screens in our bedrooms. It was also my parents. Nobody could take out their phone at the dinner table. And sometimes, you know, mom and dad had more reason to have to be on a screen at the dinner table. But they made that commitment. Certainly, my mom and dad have both modeled the kinds of wise behaviors around social media use that really inform and inspire me. And so it wasn't all sunshine and roses. And obviously my brother and I were kids and we often got annoyed. But there was never a sense that these were top down rules from the parents to the kids. We were all on the same team. We were all a family who had to do this together. And I think maybe the final thing I would say is if both the adults and the kids have to follow these rules, that shows you as a kid that it's not just that you are foolish or immature or that your parents don't trust you. What your parents are showing you is in a healthy way, but they do not trust themselves. And I want to say that in a completely kind of wise Christian context. But what my parents were showing me when they themselves were bound by these rules around technology was that they, too, were people who needed the grace of Christ and the wisdom of rules and habits and disciplines that this wasn't about me being an immature kid who needed to be told what to do, but that this was going to be a lifelong commitment to live the life that I was supposed to and not the life that's kind of my lesser desires wanted me to take. So it's just really important that these were commitments as a family, not just rules for the kids.
William Norvell: So tell us a little bit about how do these things change and adapt. So, you know, and like I said, I've read the book. I know you're not telling people this is the only way to live a flourishing life like you'll never meet God without this. But for people that are encouraged to take a next step. Right. How did this change and adapt? Did you learn? Did new technology come out that made you think about things a little differently and then you had to address that? Right. You know, I'm sure there's some kids You know, I talked to some high school students every now and then. Like I'm shocked at how much they do on iPads and laptops and like, wow, like you don't have books anymore. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe just address some people because, you know, there some people, the audience going, sounds awesome. I'm listen, this is cool. My next 5 hours.
Andy Crouch: That ship is out.
William Norvell: Kindles in place. That's how I live. Or my child needs this technology. we need this technology, that's what they're required to do to move up in the world, right? How does all that shape together?
Andy Crouch: Well, I will say we dodged one big bullet, which is that our school system didn't really introduce, like tablets and that kind of thing while our kids were still in school. And and the way that schools are now requiring these devices, even though I just have to emphasize, there is literally no evidence that they improve learning. And I wish it were more complex than that. But the OECD, you know, the coalition of all the developed countries of the world has studied this. And the OECD countries have very different policies about technology in schools. There is no effect between the countries that have a lot of tech and the countries that have no effect. It doesn't affect learning outcomes. Nonetheless, in many kind of especially public school systems and often also private schools that want to kind of say they're giving kids an edge of some kind. These devices are ubiquitous. And I just would say parents ought to be pushing back because there's no evidence they work and they introduce a lot of problems. Actually, we did dodge that, so we didn't have the kind of compulsory device showing up from school, like here, here's an iPad for kids to carry around all the time. But it's certainly the case that it became more and more, you know, part of life. And I will say I don't object to using any device, any kind of technology when it is formative, when it's actually shaping us, when it's being used as an instrument rather than a device, a device being something that just kind of operates on its own and gives you what you want, an instrument like a musical instrument or a medical instrument or a scientific instrument being something that you actually use and that as you use it, you grow and perform. So that's why I love for kids to learn coding, for example, starting maybe age 11, 12. I think most kids should learn the basics of coding because that's actually using a device like, like a human being, actually like someone who's making something in the world rather than just using it to entertain you. So we did have to, you know, make course corrections, I would say. But we always had this kind of fundamental guiding question, which is, is this helping us develop wisdom and courage as a family? And if it is awesome. I mean, so we watched movies as the kids got older. I mean, there's amazing films out there for every age, every stage of life. You know, our kids did. Our son especially learned coding when he was in his early teen years because he loved that it came naturally to him. I think the other thing that came along, just as our kids were exiting high school, which we can have a long conversation about, but I'll get over to Rusty. But the algorithms started really were and Amy is the most anti algorithm person on the planet. She can go on and on about algorithms. They're going to ask her if you want. But I think that shift in how our devices related to us, that they more and more had this feedback loop that allowed them to figure out what scratches our itch. And it's of course, driven the rise of tik tok as the most effective algorithmic kind of social media yet. And it's the most sticky, the most absorbing. We sort of we avoided that until our kids had enough prefrontal cortex in place to actually make pretty healthy choices. Whether dad makes healthy choices, it's another question, but all these things are still coming at us and you have to have that North Star question Is this helping us develop as human beings who have wisdom and courage together?
Rusty Rueff: Yeah, that's where I want to go because they are going to keep coming at us. It's fascinating because if you frame some of the guests we've had on the podcast, so let's put Kevin Kelly on one end. All right. So Kevin Kelly, recently on the podcast, Kevin writes a book called What Technology Wants and believes that technology is its own kingdom now that it's just going to keep coming at us no matter what, right? So that's one end of the spectrum. The other end of the spectrum is we had on Heath Wilson, who has a really cool device called the Aro that says this technology is going to keep coming at you and it's coming at you through your phone. And guess what? I'm going to give you a piece of hardware that you can put it in your phone in there and rewards you and tell you how long you've been away from it so that you can be reminded. Right? So so there's both ends of the spectrum, which is fascinating. And then here we are in the middle talking about sort of the values and principles and, you know, how should we utilize this technology? And I'm kinda run past in my little section without commenting, Amy, on what you said about discipline at the beginning, about being in college and having discipline away from technology and devices. When I was in college, there was only two screens. One was the television screen. That one was the one in the computer lab, right? You know, you had to go there.
Andy Crouch: Yeah. Yeah
Rusty Rueff: And I still had to find discipline. So I want to give you credit that you were finding discipline, not just trying to figure out how to deal with technology, You were actually formatting your own disciplines, which is, I think, all part of it as well. So I'm going to bring all of that back to, you know, we've got this technology that's coming fast at us, right? You know, I mean, we've got a chat GPT that maybe is revolutionary is the beginning of the Internet and we have to find redemption in these or try to figure out what is redemptive and what isn't redemptive and decide make our own decisions, not even knowing what the consequences. Right. Of technology. We don't know what those are going to be. Andy, as you think about it deeply and Amy, as you all wrote this together, I mean, as you think about. Redemptive technologies, not redemptive technologies. Where do you draw the line?
Andy Crouch: I mean, I think I have a relatively simple framework for it, though. Working this out with any given technology, you know, probably takes a certain amount of time and kind of even for our whole society to come to grips with it. I think the more that all technology is deployed to help us live lives of heart, soul, mind and strength, love help us to love with hearts and minds, strength, they're great. And some of them really augment our minds and help us love the world more with our minds. And that's great. Some of them should help us love more with our strength. A great sneaker, which is technology of a kind, helps you run and enjoy running in a way that you might not, at least unless you're one of these barefoot runner people who apparently think it doesn't help. But it would help me. My bicycle is a piece of technology compared to something anyone else has had in human history. We've got amazing high tech bicycles now, and when I'm out on the bike, it's an amazing experience as a human being and I grow in my love for God in the world as I ride my bike because I'm actually involved with my strength as well as my mind and my heart and maybe even my soul as I ride. On the other hand, there's a lot of technology that explicitly is designed to displace human beings, to replace human beings. And often that says, Oh, you should be able to just relax and let the machine or the computer or whatever do the work, let the artificial intelligence do the work. And when it replaces, I don't mean replacing certain aspects of human labor and activity that really aren't necessarily that fulfilling. I'm all for computers taking over some of those things, but when it replaces human presence in the world is heart, soul, mind, strength, complexes designed for love, then it's a problem. And we should recognize it's actually not going to help in the long run. So this is the basic distinction that I wrote about in my last book between devices, which just ultimately are designed to replace and displace us and leave us with very little to do more and more disengaged, more and more kind of adrift in the world versus instruments which actually fully engage us. Like right now we're using a ton of technology to have this conversation, but because it's working well, it's putting each of your faces in front of me. I can sense to some extent what you're thinking and feeling. We can have this conversation together. I'm very engaged right as a person, and hopefully the people listening to it also find themselves drawn in and actually engaged as a person. If it does, that go for it. But if you start feeling disengaged, if you start feeling like I'll just let the machine do the work, I'll just let the machine do the entertaining, you know, I'll just let the machine kind of run things. I think you're seeking a kind of magic that will not actually last and will not be good for human beings.
Rusty Rueff: And let me dig a little on that. And Amy, jump in here, too. What about surrendering? So, you know, I mean, as part of our faith journey, right, If we are totally committed to, you know, living as Christlike as we can and in following in his steps, we must be willing to surrender to all other things. Right. We have to surrender them all to him, whether it's a part of our identity or any of our lifestyles or any of that. When this becomes so much of me that I what Henry said, I put it down for Sunday and I felt so good. Could I surrender it? Could I actually surrender an app that is so important to me?
Andy Crouch: Huh? Yeah. I think this is why I think Sabbath is a very useful principle, because Sabbath is not saying, you know, the six days are bad, the six days are actually good. We're meant to work. And human work has always involved tools. Those tools evolved in the modern era under what we call technology. But it does say six days. You work the seventh day, you surrender it. All right? You lay it all down and it creates the circuit breaker that, for one thing, allows you to discover patterns of dependance. So, Henry, if you hadn't had that day off, you wouldn't be as conscious as you became of how kind of dependent you were to scratch that itch in ways that actually make you realize, Oh, it's not necessarily that good for me to be scratching this itch all the time. On the other hand, I've found when I have one day in seven where I'm true, lay it down. It changes my relationship to the technology the other six days. I also think is why I'm going to draw the line myself at implants. That is to say I'm going to draw the line at things that you can't take off one day in six and return to kind of the ground state of being a creature and creation made with my body that God gave me with all its limits. I'm not going to go for the implant that I can't turn off because I want to be able to practice Sabbath with every tool and every everything that would allow me to get something done in the world I think ought to be subject to one day in seven. You don't your rest, your surrender. You go back to the state of play and worship and rest. That is the sort of basic state of creatures of God.
Rusty Rueff: It's good. Amy, I'm going to ask you one question and then turn it back over Henry and just got a question for you. But so you wrote the book when you were 19. Now you're past those years. Some things have changed, right? The new technology has shown up since then. Anything that's popped up since then that maybe you would go back and rethink and say, Well, mm hmm. I wonder. Even my generation has been shaped a little differently, or the next generation it's coming is now shaped a little differently. That I didn't see it just a few years ago.
Amy Crouch: MM Well, there are sort of two obvious answers, which are the rise of algorithms and then also the very early stages of A.I. and especially of language prediction models. You know, Dad mentioned that I could just talk for hours about my concerns around the algorithms and, and the way that for my generation, almost all of the content that we consume is being served up to us, not through our conscious decision, but through a very sophisticated algorithm that kind of speaks to our unconscious desires, which aren't usually what we really want for ourselves. Mm hmm. And this was just beginning when I was writing the book. But it is completely taking over right now. Every social media platform is trying to become its own version of Tik Tok. And I think what I find most kind of extraordinarily unsettling is, you know, maybe seven or eight years ago, I would say most of the people that you connected with on social media were at least people you actually knew in real life. But with social media turning into a source of entertainment governed by an algorithm, you're mostly being connected to people who you will never meet. You're mostly being connected to influencers and like, Oh my goodness, when I think about the sort of perfect girl or the perfect 22 year old woman, that whether it's Instagram or YouTube or Tik Tok serves up to me. She's someone that I could never, ever meet in real life. But because there are so many influencers out there carefully curating their lives so that they can look like her, I believe that she exists and feel mad at myself that I am not her. And so I think I could only have barely predicted how much people my generation would be taking as role models, people who they will never, ever meet and who are creating completely fabricated lives for the purposes of of likes and views. And I find that disturbing because. No matter, you know, how much the people around you who, you know, personally seem to be impressive and more put together and more perfect than you, they will never be as completely inhuman and unreal as the kinds of composites that you see on social media. So I think that's I don't think that is the way of life.
Henry Kaestner: So I wonder, as I'm listening to this about it, bring to close, Williams going to ask us or standard after a question we always ask at the end about what you're hearing from God and God's word. I'm trying to process on this about whether this suffering, if you will, this kind of opportunity to engage with the nonhuman is actually helping or hurting us in our sanctification. So here's what I mean. I don't know that we know what it is to be human. I don't know if that people in the 1950s or 1960s before any type of this type of technology, seventies, I don't know if they knew what it is to be human as much as maybe we do, because also now we're actually confronted with it, Right? What is it that makes us uniquely human is probably not something that was really on the top of mind or discussions that folks had. When you look at the composites of all the different people that you want to be like through social media, does that actually put us in a spot where we actually say, wait a second, are those great role models or do we want to be more like Boaz or David? Or do we want to be more Christ like? Can we as a church, see this as an opportunity when confronted with actually this kind of interesting alternative to actually make us more human, like in Christ like? Is there a plus side to our sanctification that maybe we're not thinking about?
Andy Crouch: No, I think that's good. What I do like what you said, Henry, is, you know, you're identifying the way all this is quite disruptive and it's disrupting our assumptions. You know, when you said the 1950s, I actually thought I think the deployment of the atomic bomb did cause people to reexamine what it is to be human. Like, suddenly we have the capacity to bring destruction in a way human beings had never imagined that they could. It wasn't, and they couldn't before we discovered that technology, if you will. So I actually think when that disruption happens, it is this opening for a kind of self-examination to say, well, what really matters? I mean, the next frontier of this is going to be all these things we thought only people do. Only people have conversations. Computers can't do that. Well, now they can. Only people can, you know, do this certain kind of complex reasoning. Well, soon the large language model will be able to do that. I think it is an opportunity to say what actually really matters about human beings, if anything, because there's a whole world of tech that says, actually, we're just one more at the phenomenon of the universe and we're not that special. But for those of us who think, no, there is something special and not just special about special people like great people, admirable people, but special about the least admirable person, special about the least able person. The person with the most limitations is still special in a way that computer without limitations is just obsolete. But people don't become obsolete like those kind of things. We have a window of invitation to rethink, like, why do we dignify human beings in the way that we do, and what would make us the kind of person who can love and honor and give dignity to other human beings? In that sense, it's an opportunity. I also think that window opens and closes at different times in history when people start to take for granted. You know, I mean, there was this thing called eugenics in the first half of the 20th century that was very sure a good person is one who's been cleansed of racial impurity and freed from disability, and the window closed in the country of Germany onto a whole society that started to implement that. And it got very high cost to resist it. So I think the windows open and closed for us to ask these questions and answer them in humane ways.
Amy Crouch: Yeah, Well, and I think that the reason that maybe my answer is a little more pessimistic is I guess I'm worried that technology is causing us to ask these questions and people are finding the wrong answers. Yeah, because if you look at a new large language model and it prompts you to ask the question, what does it actually mean to be a person? And you come to the conclusion to be a person is just to be a very highly sophisticated prediction machine. And then you go out and you start treating people as highly sophisticated prediction machines. We've got a really terrible problem. And I guess I'm just worried that people will asking these questions for the first time, they may end up with the answers that are deeply wrong but seem well within the world of powerful technologies to be very compelling.
Andy Crouch: Yeah.
William Norvell: I don't know. I'm teasing something, but it seems like Andy and Amy's next book is sort of written here. I've got a great summary for the publisher. What does it mean to be human in a world of AI? I'd pick it up. I'm just. I'm just saying. I think it's fascinating. And I think it's I mean, the onslaught of the AI machine has just been I mean, gosh, what is that like three weeks ago they launched or something that feel like it's been here forever and every company has an element like language. I mean, it's nuts in my opinion. How fast. Okay. So unfortunately, we have to come to a close. But I would love to dive deep. Gosh, the idea of what does it mean to uniquely be human and how humans can't be obsolete. And even the least of these have specific inordinate life giving things to give to the world is so beautiful and so true, but is maybe at the precipice of potentially being lost. Right, is something we all have to confront. So where we love to close is we love to hear where God might have each of you in your life, and specifically through his word, through Scripture. Maybe, if you wouldn't mind, share with us one, it'd be one verse. It could be a story. It could be anything from his word that may be coming alive to you this morning. We always love to share that with our audience and see how that continues to transcend time and space and all that as humans.
Andy Crouch: Well, we're recording this right after Easter and the season of Easter. And this day I was rereading the amazing story of Thomas, who isn't there when Jesus shows up the first time, and the kind of ferocity of what he says. Unless I put my finger in his side and touch his wounds, I will not believe he's so mad, you know, insistent. And then the next week, Jesus, like here puts your finger and Jesus knows that he said it. That's I think Jesus quotes Thomas, even though Jesus was not apparently present in the room. And I think, Oh gosh, I needed Easter this year. I have to say there's a lot of tough stuff going on in our lives, and I just am I'm convinced by these stories that no one would make up these stories that the gospels tell, including they're somewhat close to inconsistency with each other. It's hard to fit all of them together in just one easy package, but they're each story is so compelling. And that story of Thomas, like, just so boldly doubting and resisting and then boldly saying, My Lord, my God, when he actually meets Jesus. And Thomas, of course, went to India. At least all the evidence is all the tradition says, and died there, a martyr for his faith. It's just amazing. Like the resurrection man. It's it's real.
William Norvell: It'll. It'll get you.
Andy Crouch: And I'll get it.
Amy Crouch: I'm right with you dad on the resurrection. And in particular, I was reading over all the different accounts of the women coming to the tomb on Easter, and I was reading a sermon by Donne on these different accounts, and he really emphasizes how you can tell that the women are not all together in the right frame of mind. They go to a tomb that's had this enormous stone rolled in front of it. They can't move. It's kind of depending on the accounts. It seems like Christ's body may have already received some anointing from Nicodemus and Joseph, and they're going there with their spices, even if he's already rolled up. He's been in the tomb for a few days. You know, there are all sorts of ways that you can see that these women are so overcome by grief that they're doing things not altogether rationally. And first of all, I just find it so extraordinarily real. Like, again, it is just such a real detail. They have just lost the hope of their lives and they can't quite think straight. And yet, even though they go, you know, not being able to roll away the stone, even though they go perhaps not altogether prepared to do what they say they're going to do, nonetheless, they are commended for their great faith and have been for thousands of years. God takes their kind of grief stricken desire to do even just one small thing and rewards it thousandfold. And of course, somebody does roll away the stone for them. And I think, you know, being in my own way in this early stage of my life and not really knowing what my life is going to look like, sometimes I feel like those women just deciding to do something for the sake of the God I love and being like, I don't know if this is the right thing. This might not work out. What if nobody rolls away the stone for me? And I find it just deeply comforting to be reminded that even when our service to God is clouded and when we don't. Fully know what we're doing and when we're not quite doing what we're capable of doing. He redeems that so richly, and he gives the hope that we never could have dreamed of.
Henry Kaestner: Amy and Andy, I'm so grateful for you both. We could talk about this all day. I could talk about it with each of you all day. This and many, many other topics. In Lord alone we will have an opportunity to do that. Amy, I'm very excited to follow your career and see how God continues to speak through you and Andy, just on behalf of the entire team here at Faith Driven, just thank you for the encouragement. You've been to us as a team, but then to all those that God has asked us to minister to, whether it's God and Mammon, whether it's creating culture, it just, you know, just leaving things for others to glean. I mean, there's so many different messages you share with our audience over the years. Thank you.
Andy Crouch: Thank you guys so much.
Amy Crouch: Thank you so much.