The Theopolis Podcast

In this episode, we feature Jonathan Barlow’s lecture from the 2026 Theopolitan Ministry Conference. Barlow examines several common anxieties surrounding artificial intelligence: the fear that technology will reduce human beings to measurable outputs, the temptation to treat AI as an oracle, and the concern that intelligent machines will become rivals to human labor and creativity.

Against the assumption that humans and machines belong on the same scale, Barlow grounds the unique dignity of humanity in the image of God and, ultimately, in Christ—the true image of the invisible God and the fulfillment of the human vocation. He argues that Christians can therefore approach AI without anxiety: neither worshiping the work of our hands nor fearing it as a rival, but receiving it as a potentially powerful tool in humanity’s priestly task of building the city of God.

Barlow will develop these themes further in his upcoming intensive course, Artificial Intelligence and Christian Theology, September 10–12 in Birmingham.

Register for Barlow's Course, here:
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In this lecture from the 2026 Theopolitan Ministry Conference, Dr. John Ahern argues that ornament is not an unnecessary addition to useful things, but the natural overflow of human love, gratitude, and delight. He explores ornamentation as the meeting place of work and rest: the patient, repetitive labor of the six days gathered up and enjoyed in the contemplation of the seventh. Drawing from Scripture, Augustine, Hugh of Saint Victor, John Ruskin, and the history of architecture and craftsmanship, Ahern shows how ornament unites beauty and usefulness, gives dignity to labor, and reflects the fruitfulness of God’s creation. Against modern minimalism, planned obsolescence, and instrumentalized work, “Ornament Between Work and Rest” calls for the recovery of a world in which our tools, homes, buildings, and common life once again bear the marks of gratitude, abundance, and joyful submission.

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Peter Leithart, James Bejon, and Alastair Roberts continue their discussion of Judges by turning to chapter 1 and the unfinished conquest of the land. They explore how the opening chapters frame the whole book, including Israel’s tribal failures, the recurring cycle of idolatry and deliverance, the chronology of Joshua’s death, and the distinction between conquering the land and truly taking possession of it. Along the way they discuss Judah’s alliance with Simeon, the defeat and mutilation of Adoni-Bezek, Jerusalem’s contested conquest, Caleb and Achsah’s request for springs of water, and the creational and bridal imagery embedded in Israel’s inheritance.

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Judges is a book of riddles, grotesque comedy, tribal fracture, liturgical chaos, and unexpected deliverance.

Peter Leithart, Jeff Meyers, Alastair Roberts, and James Bejon open a new Theopolis series on the book of Judges, considering why this strange and violent book rewards close attention. The conversation explores the legacy of James Jordan’s work on Judges, the book’s intricate literary design, its unusual heroes and weapons, its recurring images of mutilation and deliverance, and the long Christian tradition of reading figures like Samson as types of Christ. Along the way, the discussion moves through Jonathan Edwards on Samson, E.T.A. Davidson’s work on the book’s visual “tableaux,” the role of women like Deborah and Jael, the political and tribal tensions of Israel, and the repeated refrain that “there was no king in Israel.” The episode closes by considering how Judges exposes Israel’s liturgical disorder and points beyond human kingship to the reign of Yahweh.

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In this re-released lecture, Dr. John Ahern explores why music moves us so deeply, arguing that music works not only through text and melody but through deeper structures—harmony, rhythm, form, and repetition—that shape our emotions often before we consciously notice them. He traces the rise of “art music” as a kind of substitute liturgy and contrasts ancient, churchly, and modern ways of understanding music’s power over the soul. Along the way, Ahern shows why debates about worship music run emotionally hot: music is not neutral background, but a force that orders—or disorders—our affections, desires, and imagination.

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John Ahern is the director of the Te Deum Music Fellows Program at Theopolis.
Learn more and apply, here:
https://theopolisinstitute.com/te-deum-music-fellows-program/
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