Should We Listen to AI Sermons?

On Arlie Coles’s “ChatGPT Goes to Church”: You posit the question incorrectly. It’s not “Should ChatGPT write sermons?” Rather “Can we tell when it does?”

Harried clergy run out of time during the week. They get burned out. Or sick. Or spiritually depleted. Supply clergy may be unavailable at the last minute. Fresh, new approaches to interpreting scripture can elude the most earnest soul at times. Reworking that incisive commentary on Romans, delivered two years prior, is not a palatable alternative. The temptation to fulfill the exhortation “the show must go on” will, for at least some shepherds, overwhelm their moral scruples.

Congregants, awaken to the new reality. AI-generated sermons will eventually descend to a pulpit near you. Ironically, sermons form a wonderfully rich training base for building a large language model (LLM) database, perhaps the best imaginable, given the volume, scholarship, and quality of the writing. There are millions of sermons floating around the internet, freely available and easy to upload. The Bible, Talmud, Quran, Bhagavad Gita and most every other book of faith is an easy upload as well.

Within a year or two, LLM-based machines will become so mellifluous, so compelling, so penetrating in reaching our hearts and minds that humans won’t be able to tell the difference between machine-generated content and the organic variety. Virtually every creative industry – art, entertainment, education – is being overrun with AI-generated content right now. Why would faith be inviolate?

Charles Sullivan
Gaithersburg, Maryland

It should be simply intuitive as a minister of God to know that using AI to write a sermon isn’t OK. God speaks into each new day and he speaks to his servants who are listening for him. In order for a word from the Lord to be fresh and relevant a human, not a machine created by humans, needs to be hearing directly from the Holy Spirit. Otherwise, what you are feeding your flock is processed food. Junk food. Unhealthy shelf-stable dead food.

Discerning sheep will refuse to eat this junk food. They will search for new pasture if it isn’t provided. God’s not dead. AI is only as good as its programming and it is never moved by the Holy Spirit. Only man can accomplish this. And it’s a sacred privilege to be called to serve God’s people. God does not consult with his creation before instructing it. Yet man thinks his inventions should be consulted to instruct man? Does anyone see a problem here besides me?

Xenia Esche, Newman Lake
Washington

The Challenge to Discern

On Peter Berkman’s “Will There Be an AI Apocalypse?”: This article took me a while to digest and left me feeling challenged to keep attempting to unveil the realities under the surface of everyday life. As a youth worker it felt overwhelming to realize that the young people I work with have been born into a different context/reality/metaphysics than me – and also that the need for them to be able to discern the mechanics of this reality, and find ways of developing an ethic to keep up with its power, will only increase with time.

Miranda Haslem
London, England

Nip and Tuck

On Brian Miller’s “Give Me a Place”: Having worked as a college boy on the railroad back in the 1970s (not for the railroad but on the railroad, I like to say – and in Louisiana), I was taught to call it a “lining bar” or a “nipping bar.” The sharper end was thrust into a wooden crosstie and the bar was used to “nip” the tie up enough to then shovel dirt and gravel underneath it. Such nipping and tucking could eventuate in such a solid, immovable situation with the crosstie that the track seemed mounted on a concrete foundation. But “rock bar” or “tamping bar” sure does describe what most of us use them for now. Thank you and thank God for rock bars.

Chip Prehn, Sisterdale
Texas

God’s Timing

On Lydia S. Dugdale’s “It’s Getting Harder to Die”: My wife Anne died in the year 2000 of motor neuron disease at the age of thirty-five. As Christians, we did not believe in euthanasia, as this is to take God’s place. We wanted it to happen in the Lord’s timing, not man’s, so we were committed to palliative care only. However, this was not easily acceptable by the medical profession, and we had to fight them all the way. As Christians, we need to advocate for people to be allowed to die, without unnecessary life extension. As a footnote: Anne died peacefully at home with me and our son.

Nigel Parrott
Kiviõli, Estonia

The Importance of Listening

On Brewer Eberly’s “In Defense of Human Doctors”: As a child, I got to know our family doctor as a friend, one who listened to this little girl with her silly complaints. From him I learned the importance of listening. When I had my own children, he did their routine check-ups. The thought of this caring, face-to-face exchange being cut out of an appointment makes me cross. We are human beings; we need a caring person talking to us. If AI robot doctors take over, there will be an increase in loneliness and worse, I am sure.

Ruth Ann Gattis
Robertsbridge, England

The Cold Truth

On Haley Stewart’s “The Case for Not Sanitizing Fairy Tales”: No matter how often you reassert the premise that kids need the unadulterated versions of fairy tales, I’m stuck on the images of Cinderella’s stepsisters and their bloody feet, the Little Mermaid facing either death or becoming a murderer. Are we really talking about those images as salutary no matter what comes next? I’m imagining Jesus portraying the Prodigal Son stumbling home eyes sunken, hair coming out in patches, teeth falling out from malnutrition. Because, you know, that’s the cold truth. I affirm communicating to kids at age-appropriate levels – in part dictated by their developing capacities to take the lessons on board – of truth, mystery, meaning out of the seeming chaos of the world surrounding us. I do not believe the author makes her case that the original stories gathered and published in 1812 ought to be treated as some sort of quasi-sacred texts.

Kids in 2024 have enough to be anxious about.

Grant Barber
Whitman, Massachusetts

Is De-machining Worth It?

On Tara Isabella Burton’s “Simple Steps to Combat Smartphone Addiction”: This comes dangerously close to sounding like an Apple Watch ad. I appreciate what you’ve said though, about your breakthrough happening when you added enriching commitments to your life rather than merely taking away the smartphone.

Kelly Endicott
Half Moon Bay, California

Like so many people, I too struggle with trying to limit the phone and not being present in the real world. For the past year and a half I have been trying to de-machine my life as much as possible while being realistic in my aims. I gave up online shopping for Lent this year and that was a revelation. Why am I ordering scotch tape on Amazon? The takeaway is that you have to do these new (actually old) ways for at least a month for them to change your habits and it is well worth it. Onward and upward!

Amy Nolan, St. Joseph, Michigan

Send contributions to letters@plough.com, with your name and town or city. Contributions may be edited for length and clarity and may be published in any medium.