Peter Lynas, Alicia Edmund and Danny Webster return to Cross Section to review this week’s key news stories. They begin with a news roundup covering calls to withdraw mainstream media platforms from influencer Bonnie Blue, Tony Blair’s intervention on what has gone wrong in Britain and Alan Milburn’s warning about rising numbers of young people not in education, employment or training.
The main discussion focuses on Pope Leo XIV’s lengthy encyclical Magnifica Humanitas on safeguarding humanity in the ever-changing age of AI, drawing parallels with the previous encyclical Rerum Novarum and exploring dignity, work, agency. How do we use AI wisely as Christians? How can we grapple with the implications of A on human dignity and work?
The episode ends with a conversation about religious freedom following the sentencing of a Sikh man who killed Henry Nowak using a large kirpan, the ceremonial blade Sikhs are required by their faith to carry. How does this story tap into the wider theme of the freedom of religion and how as Christians can we respond?
https://www.regent-college.edu/resources/laing-lectures/2026-laing-lectures/
Chapters:
00:00 Welcome
01:20 Bonnie Blue platform debate
03:33 Tony Blair’s Britain diagnosis
06:29 Responding to the “lost generation“
10:07 Pope Leo on AI
18:27 AI’s impact on dignity and work
25:32 Kirpan case and religious freedom
35:27 Final thoughts and encouragements
