Ministry in a Secular Age featuring Dr. Andrew Root

Andy and Derek discuss what it means when human-created AI goes out of control.  From Noah’s flood to Silicon Valley’s dreams of immortality, are we facing something new?  Or are we retelling the oldest story in the book?

Andy walks Derek through James Loder's The Logic of the Spirit — the roadside accident that shaped his whole project, and the two questions Loder thinks press on us from our first breath to our last: what is a lifetime, and why do I live it?

This, surprisingly, also has a lot to do with modern children's ministry and the existential humans of every age face.

Andy and Derek discuss passage from Jim Loder on ministers who callus over after getting hurt in ministry. Derek and Andy dig into whether pastoral care is really a "helping profession" at all, turning to Bonhoeffer's idea of the pastor as permanent place-sharer — more parent than therapist — and why the office, not the personality, is what holds a pastor through disappointment.

Andy sends Derek a screenshot of a Jim Loder passage he's frantically highlighted and it sparks a conversation about "convictional neurosis," the tendency in mainline churches to bury real encounters with God.

Andy and Derek discuss the complexities of ministering in communities, transparency, and whether the minister's personal life is the business of the congregation