The Saint Benedict Institute will host speaker Dr. Jared Ortiz on “The Monk and the Machine: How St. Benedict Can Help Us Preserve Our Humanity in the Digital Age,” on Wednesday, January 28, 2026, at 7 p.m. in Winants Auditorium at Hope College.

We have an increasingly uncomfortable relationship with our digital technology. While relishing the remarkable powers and convenience it provides, we worry about the negative effects it has on our minds, habits, social interactions, and mental health. Especially with the rapid onset of AI technology, we sense we are living in the middle of a revolution, one that will have dramatic consequences for how we live and what it means to be human. How did we get here? How should we understand this technology? What does it do to us? Is it changing our humanity? How should Christians respond? In this talk, Dr. Ortiz will address these questions by examining the roots of the modern scientific project and the aspirations of the makers of AI as well as by drawing on the perennial wisdom of St. Benedict.

The public is invited. Admission is free.

Jared Ortiz is the Lavern ’39 and Betty DePree ’41 Van Kley Professor of Religion at Hope College. He is also the founder and executive director of the Saint Benedict Institute. Dr. Ortiz is the author and editor of numerous books on early Christianity and is currently writing a commentary on the Rule of St. Benedict.

The talk is supported by a grant from the Lumen Christi Institute with funding from the John Templeton Foundation and is co-sponsored by the Character Forward Grant, the Office of the Provost, the Dean for Arts and Humanities, the Philosophy Department, and the Religion Department.

Winants Auditorium in Graves Hall is located at 263 College Avenue, between 10th and 13th Streets.

For inquiries, please contact the Saint Benedict Institute at info@saintbenedictinstitute.org.

We often imagine technology as a tool, external to us, that we can use for good or for ill—and so it is, at least in part. Yet increasingly we are discovering the increasing myriad ways our technology uses us, as if we were its tools.  This calls into question the human future as human, demanding we develop a deeper understanding of technology as both the bearer of an interpretation of reality and the possible catalyst of a posthuman fate.

The Saint Benedict Institute will host speaker Dr. Michael Hanby on “Technology and Truth,” on Monday, Nov. 10, at 7 p.m. in Winants Auditorium at Hope College. The talk will discuss technology as a worldview as opposed to a neutral tool.

The public is invited. Admission is free.

Dr. Hanby is an associate professor of religion and philosophy of science at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute in Washington, D.C. He is the author of No God, No Science?: Theology, Cosmology, Biology and Augustine and Modernity, and he has been a contributor to numerous edited volumes and publications, including Communio, First Things, New Polity, The Political Science Reviewer, Modern Theology, Pro Ecclesia, Theology Today, and The Wall Street Journal. Dr. Hanby lectures widely at universities and in other settings, including the United Nations, and has been hosted by numerous podcasts.

Dr. Hanby’s talk is supported by a grant from the Lumen Christi Institute with funding from the John Templeton Foundation. The talk is co-sponsored by the Philosophy Department, the Religion Department, the Dean for Arts and Humanities, and the Dean for the Natural and Applied Sciences.

Winants Auditorium in Graves Hall is located at 263 College Avenue, between 10th and 13th Streets.

For inquiries, please contact the Saint Benedict Institute at info@saintbenedictinstitute.org.