Podcast: Non-Violent Resistence, Robot Soft Exorcism, and Non-Binaries Between Christianity and Culture

“I would say a small exorcism occurs whenever we repent.” You may not agree with everything David Dark has to say, but his use of language (reshaping and re-metaphorizing old terms) is stunning and this dialogue is thought provoking!

For the Life of the World: “I wrestle not against flesh and blood.” (David Dark’s Ephesians 6:12 mantra) / According to David Dark (Belmont University), each of us occupy a variety of robots—roles, titles, occupations, institutions, conglomerates, ways of being, social norms, etc.—and these robots exert a cultural force, sometimes benign, but then again, sometimes violently destructive and degrading of human life. And in order to appreciate and honor our shared humanity, those of us in violent, impersonal robot systems need to be softly, humanely, respectfully, lovingly exorcised from those violent systems. David Dark joins Evan Rosa to talk about his idea of “Robot Soft Exorcism”—a metaphor-slash-parable-slash-theory-slash-way-of-life—that he uses to explain and expound non-violent resistance and prophetic witness. Along the way, they discuss the righteous skepticism he was raised on, the blurry secular-sacred divide, how he met Henri Nouwen, the technological ethics of Jacques Ellul, the real meaning of turning the other cheek, and the constant need to divest ourselves of the power of our positions, our titles, our platforms … our robots.