What if the future of the church isn’t stronger, faster, or more efficient—but more fragile, more attentive, and more deeply human?
In this episode of The Well Dwellers Podcast, Erik Freiburger is joined by theologian, pastor, and ethicist Jon Coutts for a wide-ranging and deeply honest conversation titled Escaping Superman Christianity: Rediscovering Our Creaturely Interdependent Identity & Why the Future Isn’t Superhuman.
Together, Erik and Jon confront the powerful cultural and ecclesial myths that shape so much of Western Christianity—the obsession with polish, productivity, efficiency, and success; the quiet idolization of the “Superman,” the “Barbie,” and the celebrity leader; and the ways these ideals marginalize disabled bodies, fragile lives, and those who don’t fit the mold. Drawing from disability theology, liberation theology, Scripture, and lived pastoral experience, they ask what it means to truly discern the body in a church culture still captive to marketplace logic.
This conversation moves through themes of disability and dignity, belonging and exclusion, church leadership and ecclesial imagination, and eventually into the ethical and theological questions surrounding artificial intelligence. Jon offers a compelling vision of creaturely interdependence, challenging the promise of a superhuman future driven by technology and efficiency, and instead calling us back to a faith rooted in limitation, mutual need, and shared life.
Along the way, they reflect on Luke 14’s banquet of belonging, the dangers of treating disability as a problem to solve rather than a gift that reveals God’s glory, and the urgent need for churches to recover an economy shaped not by success metrics, but by communion.
This is a conversation for anyone wrestling with the future of the church, the meaning of inclusion, and the question at the heart of it all:
What if escaping Superman Christianity is the very thing that allows us to become fully human—together?
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Pull up a chair, make room at the table, and join us at The Well.
Resources:
Personalist Manifesto(s) ‘Deliver Us From AI’ w/ Jon Coutts — https://substack.com/@personalistmanifestos/p-165794360
Jon Coutts ‘Deliver Us From AI’ — PDF
Henri Nouwen’s ‘In The Name Of Jesus’ — https://www.henrinouwen.org/books/in-the-name-of-jesus
Richard Beck’s ‘On Intentionality’ — https://substack.com/home/post/p-183155944?source=queue
Pope Francis’s ‘Laudato Si’ — https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html
A Christian’s Perspective on Artificial Intelligence — https://christoverall.com/article/longform/a-christians-perspective-on-artificial-intelligence/
Willie Jenning’s ‘The Christian Imagination’ — https://www.amazon.ca/Christian-Imagination-Theology-Origins-Race/
Chapters:
00:00 Opening
05:02 On The Precipice Of Fragility & Hope
16:46 Blind Spots To Inclusion In The Church
25:12 Who Is Invited To The Banquet?
40:41 AI & The Pursuit Of The Perfect
55:00 Social Justice & The Ground Work Of Church
1:17:37 Anti-Heros & The “Sully’s” In The World
1:22:50 Closing
