Kwok ’n’ Roll

Why does Korea embrace AI while the West sounds the alarm? Practical theologian Dr. Boyung Lee reveals how East Asia's communal worldview transforms AI from a threat into an extension of family — and what that means for the future of pastoral care.

In this episode:

▪️ Why Koreans say "our mother" and "our husband" — and why it matters for AI

▪️ How Korea's "I Met You" program reunited grieving parents with VR avatars of their children (40 million viewers watched)

▪️ Grief bots, shamanism, and AI as a medium between worlds

▪️ Pope Francis's AI warnings — and what Boyung wishes he'd done differently

▪️ Practical advice for pastors using AI in ministry

Dr. Boyung Lee teaches practical theology at the Iliff School of Theology. Her research sits at the intersection of AI, East Asian philosophy, and pastoral care.

In the span of two weeks, two major Christian denominations — the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the Church of England — took historic stands on Palestine. One used the word "genocide." The other finally decided to listen to Palestinian Christian voices.

Postcolonial theologian Kwok Pui Lan unpacks both decisions, shares her personal experience crossing the border into Jerusalem, and explains why she's editing a new book, The Anglican Church and Palestine.

📖 Go deeper on Substack: https://kwokpuilan.substack.com/p/the-church-of-englands-resolution

AI isn't magic. Behind every chatbot and search result is a hidden chain of human exploitation — and Pope Leo XIV just called it out in the first papal encyclical on artificial intelligence.

In this episode, Dr. Susan Reynolds — Catholic Studies professor at Candler School of Theology, Emory University — breaks down Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo XIV's groundbreaking document on AI and human dignity. We explore why an Augustinian pope named himself after Leo XIII, how the Church's social teaching tradition speaks directly to the AI era, and what a long-overdue papal apology for slavery means for thinking about exploitation today.

Susan explains why the encyclical insists on protecting the human inner life as the boundary between people and machines — and why, if church doctrine can develop in response to the signs of the times, so can women's leadership.

In this July 4th special, U.S. Army veteran, former attorney, and Villanova theologian Byron Wratee shares his journey from a small South Carolina town to the battlefields of Afghanistan — and what he learned about faith, citizenship, and the America worth believing in.

He traces his family's military service back to the Civil War. He recounts the peacebuilding work that doesn't make headlines: building schools, caring for communities, ensuring Afghan girls could go to school. And he asks the question no one wants to answer on Independence Day: what does the Fourth of July mean to the Black soldier who served it?

This conversation covers:

• Growing up in South Carolina — the first state to secede

• Serving as a medic in Afghanistan and the Muslim interpreter who changed his life 

Why he left a seven-year law practice to study theology

• The Red Summer of 1919 — when Black WWI veterans returned home to race riots and lynchings

• Howard Thurman's Jesus and the Disinherited and the roots of nonviolent resistance

• Catholic social teaching, human dignity, and American exceptionalism

• A closing spiritual — "Plenty Good Room"

Dr. Byron Wratee teaches Christian ethics at Villanova University. His research centers on Howard Thurman, the Black prophetic tradition, and the theological dimensions of anti-Black violence.

🔗 Join the conversation on my Substack: https://kwokpuilan.substack.com

Most people who talk about AI and theology have read about AI. Alexander Chow actually studied it — he holds a degree in computer science and spent a decade as a software engineer before becoming a theologian.

Last week, he launched the Oxford Handbook of Digital Theology — the most comprehensive academic reference on this field ever assembled. I wanted to know: what does someone who has stood on both sides of that divide actually see?

In this conversation, we explore:

• What happens when AI changes the code you wrote — and what that means for human creativity

• Why Chinese Christians navigate AI and surveillance differently than Western theologians

• How Daoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism offer a radically different anthropology for AI ethics

• Why the Pope's encyclical on AI is valuable but too human-centric — missing what Alexander calls "magnifica divinitas"

• What theology will look like in 50 years if we keep treating technology as a tool rather than a theological question

Alexander Chow is a theologian based at the University of Edinburgh, co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Digital Theology (Oxford University Press, 2025), and a scholar of Chinese Christianity.

📌 Episode 2 of the AI & Religion series — exploring what faith traditions across the globe bring to the conversation about artificial intelligence.