Around Town: AI & Christianity, Shared Story, Engagement in the Public Square

Several gatherings this spring will look at the burgeoning influence of AI and technology in the world and in the church. 

First up, this Saturday (January 25) is AI & Christianity, on the UBC campus. Hosted jointly by the Vancouver chapters of the Canadian Scientific & Christian Affiliation (CSCA) and of the Society of Catholic Scientists (SCS), participants will first take part in a ‘watch party’ of the American Scientific Affiliation’s 2025 Winter Symposium.

Following a pizza lunch will be an in-person panel discussion with Vancouver area experts; the panel will be moderated by Arnold Sikkema, Professor of Physics at Trinity Western University and CSCA’s Executive Director.

The two online speakers will be:

• Joanna Ng, AI technologist, Founder and CEO of Devarim Design, Markham, Ontario
• Rosalind Picard, Director of Affective Computing Research, MIT Media Lab, Cambridge, Massachusetts

These are the three local presenters:

Martin Ester received a PhD in Computer Science from ETH Zurich, Switzerland, in 1989 with a thesis on knowledge-based systems and logic programming.

He worked for Swissair developing expert systems before joining University of Munich as an Assistant Professor in 1993.

He is now a Professor at the School of Computing Science of Simon Fraser University. From May 2010 to April 2015, he served as the School Director.

Dr. Ester has published extensively in the top conferences and journals of his field such as ACM SIGKDD, WWW, ICDM and AAAI. According to Google Scholar, his publications have received more than 66,000 citations. He received the KDD 2014 Test of Time Award for his paper on DBSCAN.

Martin Ester’s research interests are in data mining and machine learning, with a current focus on causal discovery and causal inference and transfer learning. He is very interested in the translation of his research results into practical applications and has had many collaborations with partners in industry, science and government.

Last but not least, he cares about the integration of his science with his Christian faith. He has been a member of CSCA since 2012 and part of a team that has been offering the God and Reason public lecture series at SFU since 2011. He co-authored a chapter on AI in Brownnutt & Fox, editors: Global Perspectives on Science and Christianity (Langham, 2024).

Paul Bucci is a startup-founder, researcher and interaction designer whose research focuses on emotional interaction with machines, and has included building soft robots and sensors, building machine learning models of emotion based on biophysical signals, and qualitative sense-making with large-scale data.

His design practice spans print, film, 2D and 3D interfaces, and large-scale interactive installations. Most recently, he has been working on commercializing his PhD research on large-scale data by founding a startup called Teleoscope.

He teaches software engineering and cognitive systems at UBC and Corpus Christi College.

Yuriko Ryan is a bioethicist and gerontologist based in Vancouver, with an interdisciplinary background spanning business, academic research and healthcare administration, holding a doctorate in bioethics from Loyola University Chicago.

Currently a contributing fellow at AI and Faith, she delves into the intricate relationship between artificial intelligence and Christianity. Passionate about public engagement, she actively fosters ethical reflections within the community, bridging complex concepts with accessible discourse.

Several other events on related topics are coming up this spring:

• Apologetics Canada: Theology of Technology, Northview Community Church, Abbotsford, March 7 – 8
• Arnold Sikkema: The Cosmic Drama Unfolds: Science & the Biblical Story, Central Presbyterian Church, March 12
• AI & Faith: A Christian Contribution to Ethical AI, Peter A. Allard School of Law, UBC, March 19

Shared Place, Shared Story

St. Mark’s Centre for Christian Engagement will be holding its third annual Laudato Si’ lecture next Monday (January 27).

Rev. Dr. Ray Aldred, a Professor and Director of the Indigenous Studies Program at Vancouver School of Theology, will speak on Shared Place, Shared Story: Holding the Story of Church and the Indigenous Story Together.

After reading the Holy See’s encyclical letter, Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home, Dr. Aldred came away with a couple of key reflections.

First, the work consistently emphasizes the importance of embracing our interconnectedness. This point is reinforced through scientific, social and theological reasoning, all of which highlight the necessity of fostering this sense of relatedness to effectively confront the global climate crisis we face.

Second, the Holy See underscores the interconnection between creation and humanity’s destiny within God’s creative work. Reflecting on these ideas, and as someone who has embraced his Cree identity, Dr. Aldred believes First Nations communities have much to teach society about living out sacred relationships – with creation, the Creator and the diverse nations that shape our shared identity.

Indigenous treaty-making, for example, exemplifies how Indigenous peoples sought partnerships with newcomers, aiming to expand and heal communal identities while also restoring the land. Additionally, the Indigenous understanding of sacred land – often misunderstood as viewing the land as divine – offers a nuanced perspective of sacredness. This perspective opens new pathways for dialogue, particularly in the context of sharing place and fostering mutual respect.

On the very next evening (January 28) the Canadian Baptists of Western Canada (CBWC) will be hosting a Doctrine of Discovery resource webinar:

As the CBWC continues our work with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as a framework for reconciliation, we will be offering a second free webinar. This online seminar picks up where we left off in 2021, as we prepared for the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

At that webinar, churches asked whether we had responded to all of the Calls to Action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. One of those calls is the repudiation of the concepts of ‘terra nullius’ (empty lands) and the Doctrine of Discovery.

We are pleased to invite Jodi Spargur (Red Clover/CBM), and David Nacho (First Baptist Church Vancouver) for an hour of teaching on the Doctrine of Discovery, its historical arc and what it has to do with us as Baptists. We will also hear from Indigenous voices speaking on the impact of the Doctrine of Discovery on them today. 

In the public square

Ray Pennings is one of the most perceptive commentators on the role of religion in Canadian life – and much beyond that.

The Executive Vice President and Co-founder of the Ontario-based think tank Cardus will be at Willingdon Church next weekend (January 31 – February 1) to deliver a public lecture (Friday night) and participate in workshops (Saturday morning) on Christian Engagement in the Public Square.

Cardus says of Pennings:

Since 2017, he has been co-directing with Angus Reid Canada’s largest polling project on faith and religious diversity in Canada, seeking to explore and tell the story of how faith is functioning in our post-modern society.

He has directed and published reports in the work and economics, education, health, and spirited citizenship programs at Cardus.

He wrote about President Trump’s inauguration in his weekly leadership newsletter, Cardus Insights, January 18:

Monday is presidential inauguration day in the United States. While most seem focused on what the incoming president will do through the office, it is also worthwhile reflecting on what he will do to the office.

The pomp and circumstance surrounding the inauguration are a reminder that the office doesn’t belong to any one person.

It is something that is both received from history and is to be passed on to a successor. It doesn’t belong to the incumbent; it belongs to the country. That’s why the oath is to uphold the constitution – to provide leadership while in office and to pass the state of the union off to a successor in better shape than you received it.

The concept of ‘office’ is important. The technical definitions vary by institution. (Ecclesial office is different from political office, just as serving as a CEO of a public company implies different accountabilities than leading a private company.)

There are also clear differences between the various institutions that are part of the government sphere. Holding political office requires a different accountability than being a judge or CEO of a Crown corporation like the Bank of Canada or a government agency like Elections Canada.

But all of those differences do not take away something fundamental and common to them all: office-holders are entrusted to carry out duties and make decisions on others’ behalf and they must steward the powers of the position in a manner that not only achieves certain goals, but also preserves the integrity and prestige of the office so that it can be passed on to a successor. Offices are stewarded, not owned.

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Events & Jobs

Events are listed below, but there is also an Events page and a Jobs page on the Church for Vancouver site.