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by Institute of Religion Politics and Culture, Amanda Henderson, Iliff School of Theology
For too long we have avoided talking about religion and politics. But the truth is, religion and politics are about daily life. When we avoid the hard topics connected to religion and politics, we become stuck in the status quo. On Complexified we dive into the places where religion and politics collide with real-life, so we can get unstuck- so we can make real change. We dive into our most entrenched problems to better understand the hidden histories and experiences of real people on the front lines. We look at the ways religion has shaped our systems - and the ways we see ourselves and others– from there, we work together to imagine new paths forward.
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- 4 days ago27 min
Data Centers, Dark Money: The Interfaith Group That Won't Disclose Anything
A mysterious mass- text invoked faith and economic justice to promote data centers. Aleja Hertzler-McCain followed the trail. A few weeks ago, residents of Prince George’s County, Maryland, received a text message telling them about the benefits of data centers: jobs, investment, economic opportunity. The message wasn’t signed. It didn’t say who had paid to send it. But it linked to a website belonging to something called the Interfaith Action Movement. Sounds like a coalition of religious leaders. But the leaders, followers, and houses of worship were not disclosed by the IAM contact. And the timing was interesting. Less than a week earlier, Prince George’s County had imposed a two-year moratorium on hyperscale data centers. Residents were already fighting over the environmental costs, the economic promises and who would ultimately benefit. So who was behind this “interfaith” campaign? RNS reporter Aleja Hertzler-McCain followed the anonymous text to a Seventh-day Adventist faith leader and political consultant with connections in Maryland, New Jersey—and a campaign-finance scandal in Bermuda. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- 1 weeks ago34 min
$438 Million Later, What Does This Faith-Tech Company Actually Do?
RNS reporter Bob Smietana on Gloo, the faith-tech company chasing a one-stop IT/AI solution for churches. Nearly half a billion dollars, gone, over thirteen years. That's how much a company called Gloo has lost trying to build an all-in-one digital & administrative powerhouse for what it's calling the "Faith & Flourishing Ecosystem" of American churches. A tech company that can handle email & texting, data analytics, web hosting, podcast hosting, IT infrastructure, sermon-to-social video clips, all the way to AI-generated devotionals and study guides. That's just a taste. Our guest is RNS reporter Bob Smietana, and we're asking: What happens if it works? What happens when one for-profit company, one whose SEC filings admit it might not survive the year, becomes the back office for a huge slice of American Christianity? Who holds that data? Who shapes that message? What happens if all of that data falls into the wrong hands? Check out more here: Faith-based AI company Gloo faces moment of truth after $438M in losses — Bob Smietana, July 9, 2026 Former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger hopes Gloo can make AI a force for good — and for God — Bob Smietana, March 24, 2025 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- 2 weeks ago31 min
The Catholics Who Broke With Rome. Again.
When Tradition Becomes Trouble On the side of a mountain in Switzerland, in the shadow of the Alps, a fanciful event attracting a small but ardent group of Catholic traditionalists gathered to celebrate the consecration of 4 new bishops… Who were then promptly excommunicated from the Catholic Church along with the bishop who appointed them. The group is called the Society of St. Pius the Tenth, or SSPX. It has spent decades claiming to defend the true Catholic tradition against a church it sees as too modern, too open, too willing to change. But this time, by moving ahead without Rome’s approval, SSPX triggered excommunications and pushed its whole society into schism. And it's not the first time this group has run up against the disapproval of the Holy See. Today, Vatican reporter Claire Giangravè joins us to talk about SSPX, Pope Leo, the Latin Mass, and what happens when longing for an older church becomes a rupture with the church itself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- Jun 15, 202631 min
Spiritual Technology for the 21st Century
Philip Reed-Butler, Black AI, and the future of healing For the last few weeks, we’ve been talking about artificial intelligence. We’ve talked Vatican positioning, Silicon Valley philosophers, Catholic ethics, corporate power, doomsday language, all circling the question of who gets to shape the future these machines are confining us in. But most of those conversations begin from the same assumption: AI is a tool built somewhere else, by someone else, to give us answers. Productivity. Efficiency. Surveillance. Profit. Today’s conversation starts somewhere else. Philip Reed-Butler is a scholar, theologian and technologist at Iliff School of Theology, where he directs the AI Institute and teaches Theology and Black Posthuman Artificial Intelligence Systems. He is also the founder of the Seekr Project, a distinctly Black conversational AI project designed around introspection, healing and mental-health capacities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- Jun 9, 202636 min
The Business of Being Good
Anthropic, the Vatican, and the Moral Branding of AI Imagine you're an engineer at one of the most powerful AI companies in the world. You've built a system that can write poetry, pass the bar exam, and hold a conversation that feels startlingly human. And then someone asks you: but does it know how to say it's sorry? That question — about fault, correction, forgiveness — is not a technical question. It's a theological one. And the fact that engineers at Anthropic were asking it, and that they were asking it of Catholic ethicists and Vatican officials, is the story we're unpacking today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- Jun 2, 202629 min
Building God, Fearing Doom: The Theology of Superintelligence
A theology of sorts has been building in Silicon Valley, where questions about digital, biological and spiritual life are beginning to converge. For most of us, AI means chatbots, recipe tips, work tools and strange little images. But in other circles, the conversation is darker and far more existential. Some believe AI could give humanity powers that once belonged to science fiction: curing disease, extending life, even overcoming death. Others look at the same advances and see catastrophe — even the possible end of civilization. So which is it? Are we watching the future of medicine take shape, or the beginning of something closer to the end times? Through it all, religious language is never far away. Religion News Service reporter Hayden Royster joins Complexified to explain the belief systems shaping the AI race — from accelerationists and doomers to transhumanism, superintelligence and the strange theological language running through it all. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- May 27, 202627 min
Pope Leo XIV and the Case for Imperfection
In 1891, Pope Leo 13th looked at the Industrial Revolution — factories, machines, workers being displaced and exploited — and decided the Church had a role to play. The result was an encyclical: Rerum Novarum, translated as “On New Things,” it became one of the foundational documents of modern Catholic social teaching. 135 years later, another Pope Leo sees another technological revolution enveloping humanity: his first encyclical is about artificial intelligence. The Ethics of AI is not a question for solely for engineers, investors, governments, or Silicon Valley. It is a question for all of us about the human person. So today we begin there: with the document, the history behind it, and the tension the Vatican is highlighting as we are barreling into the age of artificial intelligence. technology is building machines that aspire to transcendence, while religion maintains that the divine is already present in fragile, embodied human life Religion News Service Vatican correspondent Claire Giangravé has spent most of her waking hours with this encyclical and has been reporting on what it says, why it matters, and what kind of future Pope Leo is warning us not to sleepwalk into. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- May 20, 202623 min
America, According to Hillsdale
Who gets to tell America's story? Hillsdale College is small by most reckoning, but punching above its weight in influence, with its ethos and teaching saturating all levels of education far beyond its campus in Michigan. It is showing up in charter schools. In civics curriculum. In state-level fights over history education. In Trump-aligned patriotic education projects. And recently, in Rededicate 250, a faith-filled gathering on the National Mall where conservative Christian leaders, political figures, and Trump allies are preparing to rededicate America as “one nation under God.” This week on Complexified, Amanda Henderson talks with RNS reporter Kathryn Post about how one small, academically serious, deeply conservative liberal arts college became a key intellectual partner in MAGA’s Christian America story. Listen to the new episode of Complexified wherever you get podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
About Complexified
For too long we have avoided talking about religion and politics. But the truth is, religion and politics are about daily life. When we avoid the hard topics connected to religion and politics, we become stuck in the status quo. On Complexified we dive into the places where religion and politics collide with real-life, so we can get unstuck- so we can make real change. We dive into our most entrenched problems to better understand the hidden histories and experiences of real people on the front lines. We look at the ways religion has shaped our systems - and the ways we see ourselves and others– from there, we work together to imagine new paths forward.
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