A.I. Preachers and the Temptation of “Good Enough”
Written by Pastor Ryan Rindels
There is much talk in our culture about ChatGPT, the astounding, versatile artificial intelligence chatbot. ChatGPT can do many tasks as well, or even better than humans. Whether writing contracts, penning research essays, or having a conversation, A.I. is plausibly putting us out of a job.
What about preaching and preachers? Command ChatGPT to compose a message on a particular text, and you’ll have a theologically conventional, albeit wooden, sermon. Hearers who’ve witnessed such chatbot “preach” have commented that the medium and the message lack “soul.” There is some irony in the observation. What exactly is one supposed to receive from something lacking a soul, much less a body?
Last month, a Lutheran church in Germany hosted a service performed exclusively by A.I. Some folks were impressed, others less so, though the consensus was that something was missing. The truth is, there are many things missing from a ChatGPT sermon, even one preached by a digital, projected preacher.
One crucial dimension of a good message is “application,” which involves specific directives aimed at the congregation. When I work on the details of the application for my sermon, I keep in mind the cares, concerns, and even conversations that I’ve had with many of you. While the core content of the sermon comes from a Biblical passage, the various ways that I challenge you to “live out” the message depends on considerations that are unique to our context.
In fact, any sermon a pastor preaches will not make complete sense without the local congregation who hears it. Sermons from the past feel “dated” because the preacher and the congregation were uniquely situated in the inaccessible past.
Artificial Intelligence has no embodied presence, and embodiment is a vital dimension to the “event” nature of a sermon. In a proper sense, every event is unique. The conditions of a sermon—the physical space where it is preached, the persons present, and of course, the activity of the Holy Spirit—cannot be “translated” without some degree of loss.
Additionally, content for ChatGPT sermons is drawn from information on the web. In this sense, such a sermon can never be fresh, for it is always gathering recycled theological content. If the sermon sounds like something you’ve heard before, it’s because you likely have.
Will A.I. take the job of preachers (and other professions)? The better question is: will humans be satisfied with A.I. in the way they are with flesh-and-blood pastors?
More than a century ago, the English author E. M. Forster (1879–1970) wrote a short story called The Machine Stops (1909), which describes a dystopian world that, in many respects, mirrors our own. Humans communicate through handheld projected screens, and food is artificially produced. In Forster’s world, people do not take time to look at the stars and no longer possess the imagination requisite to discern, for example, the mythical figures their ancestors saw in the constellations. Knowledge is mediated to human beings through “The Machine,” which, as the author describes,
…gave only a general idea of people–an idea that was good enough for all practical purposes…Something “good enough” had long since been accepted by our race.
Writing over half a century prior to the digital age, Forster grasped how technology can function as a substitute for a variety of human needs and experiences. His futuristic parable was written as a challenge to Western culture, obsessed as it was (and still is) with inventing synthetic alternatives in the name of progress.
Returning to our initial subject—Christian worship—our concern should not be whether Artificial Intelligence is able to craft sermons, choose music, and determine liturgy but whether "good enough” is the standard we choose to accept. If so, we should not be surprised if even what we have is eventually taken from us.
