Here's what's happening on the church and culture front today...

Featured

Jul 24, 2025

White House unveils U.S. strategic plan on AI. Here's what it includes.

Jul 24, 2025

The Trump administration on Wednesday unveiled an AI Action Plan aimed at maintaining U.S. dominance in the rapidly emerging artificial intelligence field. The initiative is part of an ongoing effort the White House began earlier this year with an executive order removing AI guardrails imposed by the Biden administration. (Cunningham & Watson, CBS News)

Jul 24, 2025

Report – Faith & Happiness: How Religious Belief Shapes Britain’s Emotional Wellbeing

Jul 24, 2025

Through a nationally representative survey of 2068 UK adults and a series of in-depth interviews, this report explores the experiences of religious and non-religious people in relation to a range of wellbeing measures, including life satisfaction, worry and anxiety, low mood and depression, loneliness, and attitudes to mental health. (Institute for the Impact of Faith in Life)

Jul 24, 2025

We asked clergy if they use AI to help write sermons. Here's what they said

Jul 24, 2025

Much of the debate involves grappling with the question of whether AI is being used as a replacement for a sacred human project or whether it's a tool in the service of that project. (Prichep, NPR)

Jul 24, 2025

Why People Are Buying $8,000 Lifelike Baby Dolls

Jul 24, 2025

These collectible baby dolls, which can run up to $10,000 apiece, have been around since the early 2000s, but in recent years they’ve exploded into a global phenomenon. Collectors, who consider themselves parents, shell out for luxury baby gear and dote on their reborns as if they were human children. (Satran, The Wall Street Journal)

Jul 24, 2025

News Archive:

Featured

White House unveils U.S. strategic plan on AI. Here's what it includes.

Much of the debate involves grappling with the question of whether AI is being used as a replacement for a sacred human project or whether it's a tool in the service of that project. (Prichep, NPR)

Today, 74% of U.S. adults say they would support banning middle and high school students from using cellphones during class, up from 68% last fall. Far fewer (19%) oppose classroom bans and 7% are unsure, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in June. (Gottfried, Park & Anderson, Pew Research)

Mixing prayer and gospel with poetry, art and bodybuilding, the rising stars in the influencer world are not just those flaunting fashion and travel but also Roman Catholic priests spreading the word of God. (Giuffrida, The Guardian)

For the past couple of years, concerns about cheating at school have dominated the conversation around kids and AI. But artificial intelligence is playing a much larger role in many of their lives. AI, teens say, has become a go-to source for personal advice, emotional support, everyday decision-making and problem-solving. (Gecker, AP News)

Between 2003 and 2024, the amount of time that Americans spent attending or hosting a social event declined by 50 percent. Almost every age group cut their party time in half in the last two decades. For young people, the decline was even worse. Last year, Americans aged 15-to-24 spent 70 percent less time attending or hosting parties than they did in 2003. (Derek Thompson)

On a regular weekday in the United States, most people are working. Unless you’re younger, then more likely you’re in school. Or if you’re older, then maybe you’re relaxing. It depends. (Yau, Flowing Data)

Success and Scottie Scheffler have become practically synonymous lately. Yet, it’s the world’s top-ranked golfer’s comments on what constitutes true meaning – and more to the point, what doesn’t –that keeps grabbing attention. (Barkley, Baptist Press)

While it’s hard to measure how widespread faith leaders’ use of the technology is, in an online survey of senior Protestant clergy by Barna Group last year, 12% described being comfortable using AI to write sermons, and 43% said they saw its merits in sermon preparation and research. (Prichep, Religion News Service)

Luke Ash, the bivocational pastor of Stevendale Baptist Church in Baton Rouge, was fired July 10 as a library technician by the East Baton Rouge Parish Library because he declined to use pronouns with another library employee that did not reflect her biological sex. (Hall, Baptist Press)

Pastors average 67 compared to other Christians’ 85 on a flourishing scale of 1-100 in relationships, researchers said, and only 28 percent of pastors actively seek help in the area. Instead, they misidentify their need by asking for help in leadership development, spiritual growth and finances, areas in which they’re relatively strong. (Chandler, Baptist Press)

YouTube became the most-watched video provider on televisions in the U.S. earlier this year, and its lead has only grown, according to Nielsen data. People now watch YouTube on TV sets more than on their phones or any other device—an average of more than one billion hours each day. (Fritz, The Wall Street Journal)

Traditionally, teenagers turn to each other when it comes to seeking advice, flirting and sharing deep conversations. But nearly three quarters of U.S. teenagers have used an AI tool at least once for activities like these, according to a new study. (Ulaby, NPR)

Does Marriage Have a Future?

Across the industrialized world, marriage rates are plummeting. Even sex has become scarcer, with trends in sexlessness rising in recent years, and Millennials reporting fewer sexual partners than their parents and grandparents did at the same age. (Spar, The New Atlantis)

On his show in May, Scarborough argued that increased church involvement for young men — even in the most conservative-leaning churches — may serve as a reality check for younger men prone to believing the right-wing conspiracies that often populate their red-pill, algorithmic-driven feeds. Our data, however, show no evidence that Gen Z men are becoming more religious. Nor do we find that Gen Z men who attend church frequently hold more moderate political or social views. (Deckman, The Hill)

A girlfriend chatbot launched by Elon Musk’s tech group is available to 12-year-olds despite being programmed to engage in sexual conversation. The bot named Ani, launched by Mr Musk’s artificial intelligence group xAI, is a cartoon girlfriend programmed to act as a 22-year-old and “go full literotica” in conversations with users. (Titcomb,The Telegraph)

Eight healthy “three-parent” babies have been born via a “pioneering” IVF technique, British scientists have said. The world-first research reported that four girls and four boys — including one set of identical twins — were born to seven women at a high risk of transmitting mutations causing mitochondrial disease. One further woman is pregnant. (Koronka, The TImes UK)

Rise of the Thinking Machines

The history of artificial intelligence (AI) can be traced back through ancient literature and philosophy, where deep thinkers imagined intelligent machines and artificial beings. (Llewellyn & Skytland, Christianity Today)