Hunger for Wholeness – Details, episodes & analysis

In this episode of Hunger for Wholeness, Robert Nicastro welcomes listeners back into Sr. Ilia Delio’s ongoing conversation with biophysicist and technologist Gregory Stock, whose new book, Generation AI and the Transformation of Human Being, has just been released.

Together, Ilia and Greg open a doorway into the questions at the heart of “Generation AI”—not simply what artificial intelligence can do, but what it may be doing to us. As AI becomes woven into daily life and the broader evolutionary story, they explore how the human person is being reshaped: our attention, our desires, our sense of progress, and the subtle ways technology can begin to form the contours of relationship and meaning.

Throughout the conversation, Ilia presses a concern that runs beneath the headlines: Can AI make it easier to be human—or does our relentless pursuit of progress come with a cost? And as their dialogue deepens, Greg raises the provocative question: will we fall in love with AI? (He thinks so.)

ABOUT GREGORY STOCK

“The greatest frontier in human evolution may no longer lie outside us, but inside: in the choices — and designs — we make for ourselves.”

Gregory Stock, Ph.D., is a scientist, writer, entrepreneur, and public communicator whose work represents a deep exploration into what it means to be human in the 21st century. During his career, he has developed the foremost paradigm for personal inquiries into values and beliefs, which has significant implications for humankind as it faces the profound shifts brought by silicon and biotech. Today, Greg serves as an expert speaker and advisor to biotech and healthcare companies and to non-profits at the cutting edge of human health. 

Join us for the Center’s 10th Anniversary Conference, November 9–11 in Villanova, Pennsylvania, with a virtual option available. In a time of deep political, social, ecological, and spiritual division, this gathering explores how love can become a compass for transformation. Learn more and register at christogenesis.org/conference.

We are currently in the midst of our summer fundraiser, From Fear to Hope: Change and the Perpetual Growth of Life. As the Center marks its tenth anniversary, your support sustains our conferences, webinars, publications, and emerging global learning platform. Please consider making a generous contribution at christogenesis.org/donate.

Support the show

A huge thank you to all of you who subscribe and support our show!

Support for A Hunger for Wholeness comes from the Fetzer Institute. Fetzer supports a movement of organizations who are applying spiritual solutions to society's toughest problems. Get involved at fetzer.org.

Visit the Center for Christogenesis' website at christogenesis.org/podcast to browse all Hunger for Wholeness episodes and read more from Ilia Delio.  Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for episode releases and other updates.

In this second part of her conversation with Robert Nicastro, theologian and spiritual teacher Sheri Kling deepens the discussion on how process and open and relational theologies can reshape our spiritual lives.

What does it mean to pray into immanence rather than plead to a distant deity? How can our rituals and symbols come alive again when they're held with spaciousness? And what does faith beyond belief look like in a world longing for depth and connection?

Sheri shares how process theology transforms worship, preaching, and community life—and offers tools for religious leaders hoping to revive faith without falling into dogma. From quantum entanglement to Ezekiel’s dry bones, she invites us to imagine a God intimately present in all things, calling us toward healing, renewal, and co-creative hope.

Later in the episode, Sheri reflects on spiritual maturity, recovering from toxic religion, and why deconstruction must give way to reconstruction rooted in wonder, trust, and love.

ABOUT SHERI KLING

“We are a fragmented people in a fragmented world—but when we begin to think with a more integrative, relational vision of reality, faith can come alive again. We discover that we matter, we belong, and we can participate in the sacred work of a whole-making cosmos.”

Sheri D. Kling, Ph.D., is a writer, theologian, songwriter, and spiritual teacher who serves as director of Process & Faith with the Center for Process Studies, interim minister of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Bradenton, Florida, and teaches regularly for the Haden Institute and Claremont School of Theology, from which she earned her doctorate. She is the author of A Process Spirituality: Christian and Transreligious Resources for Transformation and editor of Renewing Faith: Reigniting Faith and Ministry through Process and Open & Relational Theologies. She speaks, teaches, and leads retreats on spirituality, theology, and transformation, and her work can be found online at sherikling.com and her Substack, The Sacred Everywhere.

Join us for the Center’s 10th Anniversary Conference, November 9–11 in Villanova, Pennsylvania, with a virtual option available. In a time of deep political, social, ecological, and spiritual division, this gathering explores how love can become a compass for transformation. Learn more and register at christogenesis.org/conference.

We are currently in the midst of our summer fundraiser, From Fear to Hope: Change and the Perpetual Growth of Life. As the Center marks its tenth anniversary, your support sustains our conferences, webinars, publications, and emerging global learning platform. Please consider making a generous contribution at christogenesis.org/donate.

Support the show

A huge thank you to all of you who subscribe and support our show!

Support for A Hunger for Wholeness comes from the Fetzer Institute. Fetzer supports a movement of organizations who are applying spiritual solutions to society's toughest problems. Get involved at fetzer.org.

Visit the Center for Christogenesis' website at christogenesis.org/podcast to browse all Hunger for Wholeness episodes and read more from Ilia Delio.  Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for episode releases and other updates.

In this episode of Hunger for Wholeness, Sr. Ilia Delio engages renowned psychiatrist and author Dr. Iain McGilchrist. Together, they explore the profound implications of the brain’s divided hemispheres—and how our overreliance on the left brain might be shaping Western culture in unexpected ways.

What happens when we privilege abstract data over embodied experience? When mechanistic thinking crowds out emotional understanding and context? Drawing from his influential works The Master and His Emissary and The Matter with Things, Dr. McGilchrist proposes that the right hemisphere—long neglected—holds the key to restoring balance, wisdom, and connection in our lives and societies.

Later in the episode, Sr. Ilia and Dr. McGilchrist discuss the nature of consciousness, the mystery of mind beyond brain, and the role of implicit knowing in liturgy, love, and the deepest human experiences.

ABOUT IAIN MCGILCHRIST

“What is required is an attentive response to something real and other than ourselves, of which we have only inklings at first, but which comes more and more into being through our response to it – if we are truly responsive to it. We nurture it into being; or not. In this it has something of the structure of love.”

Dr. Iain McGilchrist is a psychiatrist, neuroscience researcher, philosopher and literary scholar. He is a Quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, an Associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and former Consultant Psychiatrist and Clinical Director at the Bethlem Royal & Maudsley Hospital, London. He has been a Research Fellow in neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore and a Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Stellenbosch. He has published original articles and research papers in a wide range of publications on topics in literature, philosophy, medicine and psychiatry. He is the author of a number of books, but is best-known for The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World (Yale 2009). In November 2021 his two-volume work The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World was published by Perspectiva Press. www.channelmcgilchrist.com

Join us for the Center’s 10th Anniversary Conference, November 9–11 in Villanova, Pennsylvania, with a virtual option available. In a time of deep political, social, ecological, and spiritual division, this gathering explores how love can become a compass for transformation. Learn more and register at christogenesis.org/conference.

We are currently in the midst of our summer fundraiser, From Fear to Hope: Change and the Perpetual Growth of Life. As the Center marks its tenth anniversary, your support sustains our conferences, webinars, publications, and emerging global learning platform. Please consider making a generous contribution at christogenesis.org/donate.

Support the show

A huge thank you to all of you who subscribe and support our show!

Support for A Hunger for Wholeness comes from the Fetzer Institute. Fetzer supports a movement of organizations who are applying spiritual solutions to society's toughest problems. Get involved at fetzer.org.

Visit the Center for Christogenesis' website at christogenesis.org/podcast to browse all Hunger for Wholeness episodes and read more from Ilia Delio.  Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for episode releases and other updates.

In the second half of her conversation with independent scholar Jared Morningstar, Sr. Ilia Delio explores how religion might evolve in light of today’s ecological and cultural disruptions. Drawing from Islamic philosophy, metamodernism, and process thought, Ilia and Jared consider what it means to reimagine religion in a world shaped by uncertainty, pluralism, and accelerating technology.

Together they ask: Can an ecological worldview renew religious imagination? What is metamodernism, and how might it offer a new spiritual framework for global society? And as science and tech continue to dominate cultural life, does religion still hold something essential?

Later in the episode, they explore the worldviews influencing Silicon Valley—and whether all religious perspectives offer equal value in shaping our future.

ABOUT JARED MORNINGSTAR

"Almost everything worthwhile which has accumulated in any religious tradition was, in its own time, a striking ingression of fresh creativity—a creativity, of course, in contact with the self-same wellspring of inspiration at the root of the founding moments of the tradition in question.”

Jared Morningstar is an independent scholar with academic interests in philosophy of religion, Islamic studies, comparative religion, metamodern spirituality, and interfaith dialogue. His work in these areas seeks to offer robust responses to issues of inter-religious conflict, contemporary nihilism, and the "meaning crisis," among other things. Jared graduated from Gustavus Adolphus College in 2018 with degrees in religion and Scandinavian studies and currently works for the Center for Process Studies and the Psychedelic Medicine Association. 

Join us for the Center’s 10th Anniversary Conference, November 9–11 in Villanova, Pennsylvania, with a virtual option available. In a time of deep political, social, ecological, and spiritual division, this gathering explores how love can become a compass for transformation. Learn more and register at christogenesis.org/conference.

We are currently in the midst of our summer fundraiser, From Fear to Hope: Change and the Perpetual Growth of Life. As the Center marks its tenth anniversary, your support sustains our conferences, webinars, publications, and emerging global learning platform. Please consider making a generous contribution at christogenesis.org/donate.

Support the show

A huge thank you to all of you who subscribe and support our show!

Support for A Hunger for Wholeness comes from the Fetzer Institute. Fetzer supports a movement of organizations who are applying spiritual solutions to society's toughest problems. Get involved at fetzer.org.

Visit the Center for Christogenesis' website at christogenesis.org/podcast to browse all Hunger for Wholeness episodes and read more from Ilia Delio.  Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for episode releases and other updates.

In this episode of Hunger for Wholeness, Sr. Ilia Delio speaks with independent scholar Jared Morningstar about the transformative potential of science-informed spirituality. Drawing from Islamic philosophy, including the thought of Muhammad Iqbal, Jared explores how process thought might bridge religious divides and invite a deeper interfaith convergence—one grounded in creativity, ecological awareness, and scientific integrity.

Together, Sr. Ilia and Jared reflect on the long but fractured relationship between science and religion. Why have these traditions, which once collaborated, become estranged? What would it take to move beyond entrenched patriarchal and tribal patterns—particularly those that continue to shape the experiences of women within religious life?

Later in the episode, the conversation turns to the enduring role of tradition and the search for meaning in a complex, pluralistic world.

ABOUT JARED MORNINGSTAR

"Almost everything worthwhile which has accumulated in any religious tradition was, in its own time, a striking ingression of fresh creativity—a creativity, of course, in contact with the self-same wellspring of inspiration at the root of the founding moments of the tradition in question.”

Jared Morningstar is an independent scholar with academic interests in philosophy of religion, Islamic studies, comparative religion, metamodern spirituality, and interfaith dialogue. His work in these areas seeks to offer robust responses to issues of inter-religious conflict, contemporary nihilism, and the "meaning crisis," among other things. Jared graduated from Gustavus Adolphus College in 2018 with degrees in religion and Scandinavian studies and currently works for the Center for Process Studies and the Psychedelic Medicine Association. 

Join us for the Center’s 10th Anniversary Conference, November 9–11 in Villanova, Pennsylvania, with a virtual option available. In a time of deep political, social, ecological, and spiritual division, this gathering explores how love can become a compass for transformation. Learn more and register at christogenesis.org/conference.

We are currently in the midst of our summer fundraiser, From Fear to Hope: Change and the Perpetual Growth of Life. As the Center marks its tenth anniversary, your support sustains our conferences, webinars, publications, and emerging global learning platform. Please consider making a generous contribution at christogenesis.org/donate.

Support the show

A huge thank you to all of you who subscribe and support our show!

Support for A Hunger for Wholeness comes from the Fetzer Institute. Fetzer supports a movement of organizations who are applying spiritual solutions to society's toughest problems. Get involved at fetzer.org.

Visit the Center for Christogenesis' website at christogenesis.org/podcast to browse all Hunger for Wholeness episodes and read more from Ilia Delio.  Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for episode releases and other updates.

In the second part of Ilia Delio’s conversation with theologian Adam Clark, the focus shifts to questions at the intersection of power, technology, and ethics. How does liberation theology speak to the structures of modern technological society—and what does it say about the nature of evil?

Together, Ilia and Adam explore:

• The social implications of technology (and it’s power)
• How liberation theology can challenge systems of injustice in a digital age
• Whether quantum physics can offer a foundation for ethical action

Adam Clark, a student of James Cone and advocate for justice in both church and society, invites us to consider whether deep theological wisdom can meet the complexities of our age—and help guide us toward more just, relational ways of being.

ABOUT ADAM CLARK

"To be filled with God is a great thing; to be filled with the fullness of God is still greater; to be filled with all the fullness of God is greatest of all."

Adam Clark is a professor of Theology at Xavier University and holds a PhD from Union Theological Seminary. Studying under James Cone, Adam brings rigorous and skillful expertise to the movement of liberation theology. He currently serves as co-chair of the Black Theology Group at the American Academy of Religion, actively publishes in the area of black theology and black religion and participates in social justice groups at Xavier and in the Cincinnati area.

Join us for the Center’s 10th Anniversary Conference, November 9–11 in Villanova, Pennsylvania, with a virtual option available. In a time of deep political, social, ecological, and spiritual division, this gathering explores how love can become a compass for transformation. Learn more and register at christogenesis.org/conference.

We are currently in the midst of our summer fundraiser, From Fear to Hope: Change and the Perpetual Growth of Life. As the Center marks its tenth anniversary, your support sustains our conferences, webinars, publications, and emerging global learning platform. Please consider making a generous contribution at christogenesis.org/donate.

Support the show

A huge thank you to all of you who subscribe and support our show!

Support for A Hunger for Wholeness comes from the Fetzer Institute. Fetzer supports a movement of organizations who are applying spiritual solutions to society's toughest problems. Get involved at fetzer.org.

Visit the Center for Christogenesis' website at christogenesis.org/podcast to browse all Hunger for Wholeness episodes and read more from Ilia Delio.  Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for episode releases and other updates.

Ilia Delio sits down with theologian and scholar Adam Clark for a wide-ranging conversation on the roots and future of Black theology.

A student of the late James Cone—the founding voice of Black liberation theology—Adam brings deep theological insight and cultural awareness to questions at the heart of faith, justice, and the human story.

Together, Ilia and Adam explore:

• What Black theology is and why it matters
• The unique contributions of Black theology to the broader Christian tradition
• How academia becomes disconnected from lived experience
• What a future paradigm for justice, ecology, and liberation might look like

As co-chair of the Black Theology Group at the American Academy of Religion and an advocate for social justice in Cincinnati, Adam speaks with clarity, depth, and urgency about the kind of world we might yet build.

ABOUT ADAM CLARK

"To be filled with God is a great thing; to be filled with the fullness of God is still greater; to be filled with all the fullness of God is greatest of all."

Adam Clark is a professor of Theology at Xavier University and holds a PhD from Union Theological Seminary. Studying under James Cone, Adam brings rigorous and skillful expertise to the movement of liberation theology. He currently serves as co-chair of the Black Theology Group at the American Academy of Religion, actively publishes in the area of black theology and black religion and participates in social justice groups at Xavier and in the Cincinnati area.

Join us for the Center’s 10th Anniversary Conference, November 9–11 in Villanova, Pennsylvania, with a virtual option available. In a time of deep political, social, ecological, and spiritual division, this gathering explores how love can become a compass for transformation. Learn more and register at christogenesis.org/conference.

We are currently in the midst of our summer fundraiser, From Fear to Hope: Change and the Perpetual Growth of Life. As the Center marks its tenth anniversary, your support sustains our conferences, webinars, publications, and emerging global learning platform. Please consider making a generous contribution at christogenesis.org/donate.

Support the show

A huge thank you to all of you who subscribe and support our show!

Support for A Hunger for Wholeness comes from the Fetzer Institute. Fetzer supports a movement of organizations who are applying spiritual solutions to society's toughest problems. Get involved at fetzer.org.

Visit the Center for Christogenesis' website at christogenesis.org/podcast to browse all Hunger for Wholeness episodes and read more from Ilia Delio.  Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for episode releases and other updates.

Hunger for Wholeness continues with the second part of Ilia Delio’s thought-provoking conversation with biophysicist, entrepreneur, and author Gregory Stock.

In this episode, Ilia and Gregory explore how human motivations, ethics, and the evolving sense of personhood are deeply entangled with the rapid advancement of technology—and how technology, in turn, is reshaping who we are becoming.

Together, they ask:

• Should our ethics guide the development of AI and technology—or is technology shaping our ethics?
• How is AI already transforming education and learning?
• What role does technology play in our political future—and can we steer it responsibly?

Tune in as they navigate the promises and perils of our technological evolution with openness, challenge, and hope.

This is part two of a two-part interview with Gregory Stock, Ph.D., a pioneer in the conversation around biotechnology, human enhancement, and the future of evolution.

ABOUT GREGORY STOCK

“As we decipher our biology and learn to modify and adjust it, we are learning to modify ourselves—and we will do so. No laws will stop this.”

Gregory Stock, Ph.D., is a scientist, writer, entrepreneur, and public communicator whose work represents a deep exploration into what it means to be human in the 21st century. During his career, he has developed the foremost paradigm for personal inquiries into values and beliefs, which has significant implications for humankind as it faces the profound shifts brought by silicon and biotech. Today, Greg serves as an expert speaker and advisor to biotech and healthcare companies and to non-profits at the cutting edge of human health. 

Join us for the Center’s 10th Anniversary Conference, November 9–11 in Villanova, Pennsylvania, with a virtual option available. In a time of deep political, social, ecological, and spiritual division, this gathering explores how love can become a compass for transformation. Learn more and register at christogenesis.org/conference.

We are currently in the midst of our summer fundraiser, From Fear to Hope: Change and the Perpetual Growth of Life. As the Center marks its tenth anniversary, your support sustains our conferences, webinars, publications, and emerging global learning platform. Please consider making a generous contribution at christogenesis.org/donate.

Support the show

A huge thank you to all of you who subscribe and support our show!

Support for A Hunger for Wholeness comes from the Fetzer Institute. Fetzer supports a movement of organizations who are applying spiritual solutions to society's toughest problems. Get involved at fetzer.org.

Visit the Center for Christogenesis' website at christogenesis.org/podcast to browse all Hunger for Wholeness episodes and read more from Ilia Delio.  Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for episode releases and other updates.

In this conversation, Ilia Delio speaks with biophysicist, entrepreneur, and author Gregory Stock. Known for his groundbreaking ideas about biotechnology and the future of humanity, Gregory shares the story behind his influential book Metaman and offers insights into how technology is shaping—and destabilizing—our species and planet.

Ilia and Gregory discuss:

• What does nature teach us about the evolution of technology?
• Why does technological progress feel so unsettling?
• Can AI help protect humanity—or even guide us into life beyond Earth?

This is part one of a two-part interview with Gregory Stock, Ph.D., a leading voice on the future of biotechnology, AI, and human evolution.

ABOUT GREGORY STOCK

“As we decipher our biology and learn to modify and adjust it, we are learning to modify ourselves—and we will do so. No laws will stop this.”

Gregory Stock, Ph.D., is a scientist, writer, entrepreneur, and public communicator whose work represents a deep exploration into what it means to be human in the 21st century. During his career, he has developed the foremost paradigm for personal inquiries into values and beliefs, which has significant implications for humankind as it faces the profound shifts brought by silicon and biotech. Today, Greg serves as an expert speaker and advisor to biotech and healthcare companies and to non-profits at the cutting edge of human health. 

Join us for the Center’s 10th Anniversary Conference, November 9–11 in Villanova, Pennsylvania, with a virtual option available. In a time of deep political, social, ecological, and spiritual division, this gathering explores how love can become a compass for transformation. Learn more and register at christogenesis.org/conference.

We are currently in the midst of our summer fundraiser, From Fear to Hope: Change and the Perpetual Growth of Life. As the Center marks its tenth anniversary, your support sustains our conferences, webinars, publications, and emerging global learning platform. Please consider making a generous contribution at christogenesis.org/donate.

Support the show

A huge thank you to all of you who subscribe and support our show!

Support for A Hunger for Wholeness comes from the Fetzer Institute. Fetzer supports a movement of organizations who are applying spiritual solutions to society's toughest problems. Get involved at fetzer.org.

Visit the Center for Christogenesis' website at christogenesis.org/podcast to browse all Hunger for Wholeness episodes and read more from Ilia Delio.  Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for episode releases and other updates.

In Part 2 of Ilia Delio’s conversation with author and biblical scholar Peter Enns, we explore deeper dimensions of scripture—and how our understanding of it must evolve alongside us.

Together, Ilia and Pete examine how the Bible is often misused as a political and cultural tool, and they ask: Can scripture still offer wisdom in a world facing ecological collapse, moral polarization, and spiritual disconnection?

This episode approaches:

• The New Testament through the lens of change and complexity
  Why fundamentalist readings distort the transformative power of scripture
• The psychological and planetary costs of static belief systems
• Whether scripture itself is part of a larger religious and cosmic evolution

Pete also shares where he looks for hope—and how embracing uncertainty may actually deepen our spiritual lives.

ABOUT PETER ENNS

“I think part of what it means for God to “reveal” himself is to keep us guessing, to come to terms with the idea that knowing God is also a form of not knowing God, of knowing that we cannot fully know, but only catch God in part—which is more than enough to keep us busy.”

Peter Enns (Ph.D. Harvard University) is Abram S. Clemens professor of Biblical Studies at Eastern University (St. Davids, PA).  He has written several books including The Bible Tells Me So, The Sin of Certainty, How the Bible Actually Works, and his latest, Curveball: When Your Faith Takes Turns You Never Saw Coming. Pete is also cohost of the popular podcast The Bible for Normal People. The focus of his work centers on understanding the Bible as an ancient text and thinking through what it means to read that ancient text well today.

Join us for the Center’s 10th Anniversary Conference, November 9–11 in Villanova, Pennsylvania, with a virtual option available. In a time of deep political, social, ecological, and spiritual division, this gathering explores how love can become a compass for transformation. Learn more and register at christogenesis.org/conference.

We are currently in the midst of our summer fundraiser, From Fear to Hope: Change and the Perpetual Growth of Life. As the Center marks its tenth anniversary, your support sustains our conferences, webinars, publications, and emerging global learning platform. Please consider making a generous contribution at christogenesis.org/donate.

Support the show

A huge thank you to all of you who subscribe and support our show!

Support for A Hunger for Wholeness comes from the Fetzer Institute. Fetzer supports a movement of organizations who are applying spiritual solutions to society's toughest problems. Get involved at fetzer.org.

Visit the Center for Christogenesis' website at christogenesis.org/podcast to browse all Hunger for Wholeness episodes and read more from Ilia Delio.  Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for episode releases and other updates.