Second Sunday Book Group

In November, the Second Sunday Book Group is discussing The Gospel Engine (2025) by Samuel Thawley. Thawley’s novel is about a woman who, after a decade at Google’s AI lab, leaves her job to do a doctorate in theology using her AI expertise to discover the process by which Gospel texts emerged and what alternative texts or wording may have been circulating at that time. She wants to know what may have been lost or suppressed and how this might challenge existing Christian theology. She knows her work will be controversial but doesn’t anticipate the size or reach of the public storm that emerges. She wrestles with what can be known and whether her work reveals truth or tempts heresy. Her father is a cathedral dean in the Anglican Church; she is steeped in the history and philosophy of the church. This is a novel that takes both theology and technology seriously.