Posted September 15, 2026
Michael J. Fox received the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award at last night’s Emmy Awards, and the late Dolly Parton was honored as well. However, I haven’t seen any of the actual shows that received awards, so I’ve got nothing to offer there.
But I can update you on the phenomenon that may transform or even replace television content as we know it. Then we’ll pivot to some biblical responses that point the way to courageous hope.
According to the dean of Harvard College, students are using artificial intelligence “all the time for everything,” a development that is dividing scholars. People have been creating AI companions for the last two years; one man used a chatbot to build a holographic version of his deceased father.
Not everyone is happy with the AI revolution that is happening around us. In a May poll, 71 percent of Americans felt that “the pace of AI development is moving too fast.” Vandalism of $2,500 food-delivery robots is rising. Ex-Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon, whose September 9 post to X sparked what the Wall Street Journal called “America’s Great AI Freakout,” is joining Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and former Trump White House adviser Steve Bannon at an event tonight to push for human-controlled AI.
Hoover Institution and Harvard University historian Niall Ferguson echoes such concerns in his Free Press article titled “AIpocalypse Now.” In his view, “it’s a matter of when” AI is used to launch “a devastating cyberattack on critical infrastructure or a biological attack.” He adds: “It’s the next global financial crisis. It’s the next pandemic. It might even be the next world war.”
Forbes science journalist Andréa Morris similarly warns:
Human extinction at the hands of an AI “superintelligence” becomes possible if it escapes our control and starts rapidly improving and replicating. At that point, humans trying to stop it could simply become comparatively weaker threats or obstacles it needs to remove in order to keep pursuing its goals.
Others in Silicon Valley, however, are questioning calls for an AI slowdown, claiming that they are self-serving and misplaced. President Trump agrees, stating yesterday that he would be a sufficient guardrail against rogue AI. In the view of Wall Street Journal columnist James Freeman, he is “standing up for the economic liberty and vitality of the United States.”
And economist Joseph Stiglitz writes that if we manage the AI transition well, “AI could usher in a new era of social wellbeing. The superabundance economy could provide for all in ways that were never possible before.”
Yesterday marked the anniversary of US President William McKinley’s death, eight days after a deranged anarchist shot him during an exposition in Buffalo, New York. From “leaders of the free world” to the rest of the world, we can all admit with David, “There is but a step between me and death” (1 Samuel 20:3).
The difference is that, unlike our ancestors, we possess the ability to destroy mankind itself.
A single gallon of anthrax, if suitably distributed, could end all human life on earth. As William J. Broad and Cade Metz note in the New York Times, “Humans also face the prospect of doom from killer asteroids, pandemics, thermonuclear war, climate change, giant blobs of incandescent material shot from the sun, ecological collapse, and the onset of a sudden ice age.”
We fear nuclear annihilation for good reason: a single nuclear warhead can level an entire city, and the launch of one missile likely assures the release of all of them. Now many believe that we can add an “AIpocalypse” to the list of existential threats.
But while this news may surprise and trouble you, nothing I’ve written today surprises or worries your Lord.
Jesus is “the image of the invisible God,” the one through whom “all things were created” (Colossians 1:15–16). From the beginning of history until this very moment, “he upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Hebrews 1:3). He proved his supremacy over and over:
Now you and I are “more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37). No matter what the future holds, we know that the One who holds the future holds us as well (John 10:28). We already “have eternal life” (John 3:16) and are thus immortal. The worst we can imagine in this world is but a step into a world beyond our imagining (Ephesians 3:20).
Frightening times are fertile soil for faith. They show us our need for what only God can do, and they show the world what he can do in us. When we trust our fear to our Father, “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard [our] hearts and [our] minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:8).
I’ll close today in a way you might not expect. As Dallas Cowboys fans know, our team lost its first game of the year in humiliating fashion. Many critics are already giving up on the season. But quarterback Dak Prescott has a different take: “We have to stick together, and we’re hanging our hat on our brotherhood, and that’s what we believe we are. There’s no better time to show it [than] after a loss.”
There’s no better time to show a frightened world the power of our faith than today.
“The waters are rising, but so am I. I am not going under, but over.” —Catharine Booth
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