Pondering our humanity: eight books

Technology

Genesis: Artificial Intelligence, Hope, and the Human Spirit

Henry A. Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, and Craig Mundie
Little, Brown and Co., 288 pages

Henry Kissinger became interested in the possibilities and dangers of AI at the end of his life. This posthumously published book is a follow-up to The Age of AI (Little, Brown and Co. 2021), which he also wrote with two co-authors. It ranges over the nature of AI, how it may affect politics, security, prosperity, and science, and closes with some vague strategic advice. The authors say that AI does not possess consciousness, but they seem to grant it such throughout the book, given their sense of its awesome powers to harness knowledge and control nature and culture as never before. They speak of AI and humans evolving together. The authors know a lot about AI, but not as much about the human spirit. They make passing references to “the divine” but lack a Biblical worldview. When they try to explain how to align AI power with proper values, they sputter and spin rather than illuminate. —Douglas Groothuis

Apologetics

A Summer with Pascal

Antoine Compagnon
Harvard University Press, 184 pages

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662), the French mathematician, scientific speculator, and Christian apologist, was a celebrated and provocative figure in life whose posthumous reputation grew beyond all measure on the strength of a single work that he would never have dreamed of publishing, a collection of fragments posthumously called the Pensées. Compagnon’s little book assumes readers will be familiar with Pascal and tries to reintroduce the canonized thinker from one angle then another, never hoping to comprehend the whole, but rather reflecting on the many small ways Pascal spoke wisdom and shaped the life of modern times. An American audience may find the French author’s points of emphasis misplaced, his engagement with Pascal’s ideas insufficiently earnest, his attentions curiously French rather than chillingly “existential.” For all that, every reader should at some point encounter the bracing, disenchanting gauntlet Pascal throws at our feet in hopes that, in the absolute solitude of our interior life, we may “know God.” This isn’t necessarily a comprehensive introduction, but it certainly provides several doorways to that interior. —James Matthew Wilson*

Read WORLD’s full review of this book here.

History

Our Civilizational Moment

Os Guinness
Kildare, 190 pages

Theologian and social critic Os Guinness pleads for America to return to its roots. The problem he laments is that Western thinkers, and many people, have turned their backs on Christian faith: “Weak or powerful, absent or present, faith is the decisive issue for the West today.” He readily acknowledges the faults of the Church but contends that critics of faith haven’t come up with anything better, or even anything close. The Enlightenment, for example, borrowed from the Christian faith to criticize the Christian faith but lacked a sufficient foundation to sustain its lofty ideals. Likewise, the communist experiments in the Soviet Union and China failed miserably. He writes from personal experience. As a child of missionaries, Guinness spent his early years in China as the communists were coming to power. The economics don’t work, and the day-to-day life for the average family is miserable under totalitarianism. But despite the massive Soviet failure, Marxist utopianism remains influential. Throughout the book, Guinness emphasizes the big picture, assuming that wrong ideas lead to sorry consequences and that error must be refuted and replaced by the truth of Christian faith. —Russ Pulliam

Science and religion

2084 and the AI Revolution

John C. Lennox
Zondervan, 384 pages

Would you feel slighted to discover that the phone conversation you thought you had with your pastor turned out to be with an AI chatbot that he had set up to “extend his ministry”? If that doesn’t sound plausible, too late—this sort of thing is already happening. In this update to his 2020 book, 2084: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity, Oxford mathematician and apologist John Lennox critically assesses AI from a Christian perspective. Over the last four years, AI has invaded our daily lives: at work, online, and, increasingly, in our homes. And so long as we can feed it the electricity it craves (not an easy task), it is here to stay. Lennox gives an accessible overview of what AI is, where it came from, and where it’s probably going. The book’s most important feature is the last section, in which he reminds readers what it means to be human—an idea that will increasingly come under attack as AI replaces people at work and as transhumanists labor to turn us into cyborgs. —C.R. Wiley

Motherhood

Here Be Dragons

Melanie Shankle
WaterBrook, 224 pages

A reader feeling her way through this memoir might wonder: Is this a parenting book? A devotional? A work of art? None of these quite fit. The experience of reading the book most resembles listening to the testimony of a reasonable but funny friend. Shankle writes that “parenting is life’s equivalent of a pop quiz in the hardest class covering a topic that was covered on a day you chose to sleep in.” But this book is as much about being parented as it is about parenting. For most of it, Shankle traces her troubled relationship with her own mother, an enduring “mean girl” in her life. Toward the end, the reader worries whether Shankle will be able to bring the story back around to her own parenting. But she lands the plane well. When her teenage daughter faces her own mean girls, Shankle realizes God has used her painful past to prepare her for this moment of motherhood. The book offers some helpful guidance while avoiding preaching. The best part, though, is the story. —Chelsea Boes

Memoir

Roots & Rhythm: A Life in Music

Charlie Peacock
Eerdmans, 389 pages

“Don’t push me to show you I’m somebody,” a 20-year-old Charlie Peacock argued to his parents. “I already am by conception.” And yet the now 68-year-old Nashville music producer confesses that he “has four decades of cyclical evidence that betrays me and my words.” Tension between grace and the need to prove himself runs through Peacock’s memoir, as the self-described autodidact mines the meaning of place and providence in a dizzying trip through the people, venues, and artistic projects he has touched. Prove himself Peacock did. From 1989 to 1999 alone—his Nashville Christian music decade—he produced over 70 recordings, had over 1,000 credits on albums and singles, and garnered six Grammy awards. Christian music artists like Amy Grant and Switchfoot and mainstream artists the Civil Wars and Holly Williams saw projects come to fruition by his help. There’s something for everyone in his story—gear talk for musicians and audiophiles, anecdotes and trivia for fans, and a discography for historians. But at bottom it is an extended meditation on how life is shaped by family, place, and circumstance—and by a loving God who superintends all things. —Steve West*

Read WORLD’s full review of this book here.

Memoir

The Thing That Would Make Everything Okay Forever

Ashley Lande
Lexham Press, 264 pages

In the discourse surrounding the swelling interest in psychedelic drugs, whether for purported medical benefits or spiritual enlightenment, author and artist Ashley Lande’s memoir fills an important void. It chronicles Lande’s journey from her first trip on psilocybin mushrooms in ­college to her salvific devotion to LSD, devolving into full-blown addiction. Spiritual gurus promised more enlightenment the deeper she delves—but where does it end? Lande’s quest for transcendence rendered the drudgeries of everyday life and work—her “earth trip”—almost unbearable. When her childhood friend, a Christian, lost her 2-year-old daughter to leukemia, psychedelics offered Lande no framework, let alone comfort or hope. With unvarnished detail, Lande takes readers through her bad trips, the inexplicable darkness, and the growing, implacable void, even as she marries a fellow acid junkie and they begin having children. Plunging the depths with her makes the final chapters of the book, when she reaches the end of her rope and Christ rescues her, all the more glorious. The book provides a glimpse into the dangers and spiritual deception lurking behind psychedelics—but also the opening for God’s truth to break through. —Mary Jackson

History

Dear Miss Perkins

Rebecca Brenner Graham
Citadel, 336 pages

Frances Perkins achieved several firsts in her lifetime: first female secretary of labor, first to serve 12 years, and first to face impeachment charges in that role. During FDR’s presidency, Perkins worked closely with the German-Jewish Children’s Aid and personally assisted hundreds of refugee families and their friends. She faced anti-Semitism, political gamesmanship, and a backlash when she refused to deport the Australian leader of the 1934 Longshoremen’s Strike, a decision that nearly led to her impeachment. It’s a fascinating story, but the author’s critical analysis often bulldozes over historical complexity. “Xenophobes,” she writes, “usually white and Protestant—tried to control the ethnic, racial, and religious makeup of the country.” “Xenophobia” is used more than 50 times throughout the book to refer to everyone from congressmen who disagreed with Perkins’ politics to the broader American public. Graham ties Perkins’ personal Episcopalian faith to “systemic Christian Nationalism.” Instead of honoring Perkins’ conviction, the author downplays her hope amid worldwide crisis. —Addalai Bouchoc

*Find a full review of this book at wng.org