The ****Hub Of All Our Tariff Speculation

Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone why you know which word those asterisk’s are standing in for. This is going to be fun. Or at least as fun as economic theory and addiction can be when pit against each other.

Christ tells us that a house divided cannot stand in Matt 12:25. Now he was doing so to school some experts in the law about where exactly his powers came from. Never mind the good and services he was also packing. But recently, a strange new flailing jab showed up that shed some light onto the current tariff situation in Canada. And my bet is that it does some dividing of its own.

Now, as I’m fond of saying, I have no dog in this fight. The tariff one that is. Nothing my little blog or Substack could publish will affect the decisions and actions taken by the Canadian or American governments as it relates to the trade war that is allegedly going to be the end of the world. I’m an older millennial; you know how many ends of the world’s I’ve seen? I’m not worried. But then the New York Post pointed out that a possible retaliatory tariff and service denial for Canada against the States could be banning Pornhub. I had no idea we were having that kind of serious conversation.

Now it’s always good for a giggle to see Americans try to name a Canadian capital or two. But I can bet you, none, or statistically as close to none as you can get, of the American porn users knew their favourite site, and statistically the most popular site for their indiscretion, was, in fact, Canadian. But then again neither could the Canadians. But now that the New York Post is thinking outside the proverbial box. Well, we at least need to roll play this a bit.

What happens when Canada actually makes it impossible for Americans to access Pornhub? I know as well as most people that there will be scoffs made from the VPN crowd. But get into character and experiment a bit. What would it be like as an American when the massive free archive of naughty you’ve come to addict yourself to, vanishes overnight? Along with the host of other sites Aylo (formerly Mind Geek) might also run. What happens when the tariff war, actually touches something valuable to the consumer. Something that is sacrificed for and to and held in high, if not incognito esteem?

Much of the commentary about the tariff war comes from people who can’t parse their emotions from their politics. All my liberal friends are posting nothing but the same anti Trump rhetoric from early 2015 with just a new misunderstood grasp of the word tariff or trade. The conservatives in my circles aren’t much better. They are all over the map. Some siding with our newly minted PM and others seeking sovereignty with the enemy of the trade war they currently have. And as I’ve said, I have no dog in this particular fight. I get to people watch from the sidelines and wait for a Christian technology angle.

And that’s what we have now. Because as much as the world might think of Pornhub as a place, It’s actually closer to goods and services.

In order for Canada to use Pornhub as a weapon of trade it needs to have control of that weapon. Which it can have in an afternoon if it wants to. Because as objectively far from the concept of the erotic that trucking companies are, trucking companies and the services they render and the goods they have can and were seized just a few short years ago. The Canadian government knows how to seize things that belong to other people and has demonstrated that knowledge. They even did so under the auspice of protecting Canada. Well, we’re still in danger by imaginary threats and numbers, just of a less infectious type. All this to say they did it before with way less moral and popular support during the lockdowns and did it to objectively more productive people than pornographers. So, if they do take control of Pornhub and do so in a meaningful and effective way, what happens?

A blow is solidly struck against both the American trade war effort and a large portion of the traffic Pornhub receives gets blocked to make the blow effective. And all while holding the proverbial stone to cast first.

Hey look, two birds. Or maybe it’s foxes.

“But it came to pass within a while after, in the time of wheat harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid; and he said, I will go in to my wife into the chamber. But her father would not suffer him to go in. And her father said, I verily thought that thou hadst utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to thy companion: is not her younger sister fairer than she? take her, I pray thee, instead of her. And Samson said concerning them, Now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines, though I do them a displeasure. And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took firebrands, and turned tail to tail, and put a firebrand in the midst between two tails. And when he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks, and also the standing corn, with the vineyards and olives. Then the Philistines said, Who hath done this? And they answered, Samson, the son in law of the Timnite, because he had taken his wife, and given her to his companion. And the Philistines came up, and burnt her and her father with fire. And Samson said unto them, Though ye have done this, yet will I be avenged of you, and after that I will cease. And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter: and he went down and dwelt in the top of the rock Etam. Judges 15: 1-8 King James Version”

To say that the Lord works in mysterious ways is cliche. I like to think he works in unknowable ways. Unpredictable ways. Undiscernible ways. No one sees 150 double edges fox torches coming in the morning military strategy meeting. That simply doesn’t come up. Spears yes. Champions sure. But not 150 fire foxes. And no one, aside from the New York Post will see a weaponization of Pornhub coming. Except for God. And it will not be to get cheaper imports and exports for anyone, it will be for the destruction of predators by predators with holy fire to boot.

Samson didn’t catch innocent fire-proof servants to punish the Philistines. He caught predators, and used their destruction to rain down further destruction on deserving and demonic enemies. There is a beauty to a fox that most can’t appreciate because they have only seen picture of them online. Pictures that have been touched up and zoomed in and mass produced for the public to gawk over. And that last string of adjectives applies to the men and women in porn just the same. And just like I would kill a fox for getting too close to my children and chickens, I will rejoice in the death of porn by the levying of tariffs on my behalf.

Only an all-powerful God could orchestrate a move so sublime and subtle. So emotionally violent and culturally effective. To take a man capable of single handedly killing his enemies, only to blind him, bind him, and lead him to the heart of enemy territory. And then place his hand on the cool pillar of an enemy’s demise.

That pillar is firmly in the grasp of a seemly weak and futile Canada right now.

Maybe, just maybe, all it needs is a little push.

”And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life.”

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Judges 16:30, Ephesians 6:12, King James Version”

Why You Can't Uber Eats Church Potlucks

There is a long replacement going on in the church.

One where The Holy Spirit is being methodically replaced by a holy spirit. I’ll need you to pay attention to the capitalization in this piece, because identifying what’s a Ghost and what’s not is as Scooby Do as it gets these days.

There was a time when there wasn’t an app for that. Or this. Or any other thing. If you wanted to do things like church finances or church potlucks. you needed church people that had the right skill set for those things. Often called Gifts. And what you didn’t do was egalitarianly ask the granny making pies to stop filling the crusts and start filing the paperwork because it was serving the Lord in one way. As if it was just as valid as serving the Lord in another. Vice versa, no one wants the head trustee or the finance secretary to touch those pies either. Uless it’s with a fork and some gratitude and grace said beforehand.

You could see it in the abstract and the first hand when the Gifts of hospitality and administration were being exercised by vessels of that Spirit. People who could be filled like a chalice and pour out over years of faithful ministry as a church did what the church does.

And then. Someone made an app for that.

And for the love of all that is Holy I'm not talking about Excel, That’s a tool not an app. You know it’s a tool because it requires talent to use. It can be used well and used poorly, but an app isn’t used. And app replaces. The old dude with the Excel muscles serves the church, and the App that does the same thing with raw data on one side of it serves the developers, who sold it to your church board as a solution to their bad stewardship and lack of succession planning. We all knew the finance guy at our church was on his heart's last legs, but we really thought the Lord would leave him here for tax season, I guess we need to use that new church app that we keep getting emails pestering us about.

That kind of thing happens more than you know because that kind of thing becomes permission to do more of that kind of thing. Once you can replace one role exclusively filled by humans from the halcyon days of yore, well, you can do it to everyone. And what doing it to everyone entails is side stepping the role of what empowered them to do it in the first place.

The Holy Spirit is what give us the gifts we use for the building up of the body of Christ (read Church). A holy spirit, fills that gap when we need those tasks done on our timetable and in spite of our shortcomings. It’s a spirit of christian themed progress and efficiency. It will do the same things as Spirit filled Christians, just without the need for either of those nouns. “This app that replaces our humans. And we’re doing those things for god so it must be a good thing that those humans got replaced, right?” Well, maybe not. Ask yourself. Are you replacing Bill the accounting deacon or the Gifts he brought to the table. Because if it’s Bill then what you really need is Steve the accounting deacon, who may not know hes a deacon yet. But if it’s the Gifts, then you’re literally replacing what the Holy Spirit did for your church with an app.

That holy spirit does the exact same thing as the one with the capitalization with one difference. It does so without the human that used to be involved. That may seem like it’s efficiency and often gets argued as if the human being involved is the last thing the Holy Spirit needs. But it is the main thing the Holy Spirit wants.

“Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honour, and some to dishonour. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work.” 2 Timothy 2:19-21 KJV

The apps delivered by the holy spirit can’t always purge from their midst the idolatrous Hindus that make up their tech support. They can’t staff their development teams with exclusively Christians instead of atheists as they work on code. And they all use an internet not holy and set apart to the work of the Church.

But the Holy Spirit’s giftings are quite literally always from God and for God.

This is why it’s wrong for your Pastor to use a sermon writing service. Why it’s wrong for a seminary student to use ChatGPT to write a paper. Why it’s wrong for the worship and arts team to use video, lights, and sound to emotionally manipulate people into dopamine responses instead of actual conviction. And why it’s wrong for an app to replace what a Christian should be doing instead by the power of the Holy Spirit. Even if Excel is involved a bit.

“But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” 2 Cor 3:18 KJV

We cannot uber eats our way to fellowship and hospitality any more than we can app our way to good tithing and stewardship. Those come from and are served by men and women and the Holy Spirit that lives within them. Until we come to terms with how technology can be opposed to the church in principle, we will use it as if it could never be opposed to the church out of the lack. Our churches aren’t non-profits that need good management software, they are churches. And if that software removes an individual from leadership by filling the role of what that person would have done. Then it does so in the face of the Holy Spirit's work.

Leave Hymn Alone Already

They say that comparison is the thief of joy. And I would agree on most counts, but there is a subtle comparison that often happens in most almost-mega churches that pits two objectively good things against one another, in what is clearly unintentional but hard not to miss. By almost-mega I mean churches that only congregate in numbers as big as 1000 but do everything they can to mimic the churches of 5000-10000, that also give them all their ideas for praise and worship. If Saddleback and Elevation and Hillsong are Big-Eva, this is Mid-Eva. Or if you will, almost-mega.

The comparison that happens here is one of musical execution. Ah. You were expecting me to say something about musical style or taste, weren't you? No, no. Remember. I said two objectively good things. Modern worship songs are good things and hymns are good things. It's the comparison between the two that causes problems when not addressed.

In the best case scenario that comparison shows up at the end of a modern set list where the band stops playing and the music stops and the worship pastor begins to sing a simple hymn that most of his congregation knows from memory. Usually the Doxology or that Holy Holy Holy number. The congregation usually belts it out and doesn't even need the words on the screens. The whole moment seems unreal, and if he's smart, the worship pastor closes the set when they're done singing to capture the moment effectively. But have you ever stopped and asked yourself why that singular moment does that? The one with no need for words and melodies as far from the top 40 Christian worship hits, indeed hits so hard? Why is it when the music is removed and the words on the screen are removed and everything but the houselights being left off is removed from the worship teams involvement, does a singular song, usually out of date, connect with so many people?

Well, I've asked myself. And I think I can tell you why.

The problem comes down to technological adoption and the fact that, at one point, evangelical churches kicked their congregations out of the band. They did so to stay with the times and keep young people in the pews and it worked even though the church curmudgeons would like to complain about it. Modern worship music attracts people from outside the Christian context, and the dark-room, big-stage worship-tainment model does, in fact, work. But that isn't to say it works perfectly. Or even well. You know what I'm going to pick on before I even type. It's a short list of stuffy qualms that you would never bring up to the pastorate at your church, but bug you almost every time you go to church. Especially if that church is a mid-eva/almost-mega type church. 

Why do the slightly behind-the-music-cue lyrics slides bother you? You know the songs, kinda, right? Maybe not how your church decided to sing them that week. And, of course, it changes every time you sing that song. Gotta keep it fresh. But in the back of your mind, you know a bridge was supposed to be sung just now and not a 4th chorus, then the bridge, and the lyrics slide still hasn't changed. Oh wait, now it's on the next verse, but they're still singing a 5th chorus on stage. These little bothers don't bother you enough to do anything about it but do bother you enough to stop you from worshiping. And that never used to happen when the hymnals were here. But it can't be as simple as using a book for words instead of a screen for words. Can it?

The grouchiest of us reform types will point to Paul's exhortations for orderly worship. But I'm just going to point to the hymnal and ask the church. Why did we kick the congregation out of the band? You see, the hymnal gave everyone access to the set list, which is now only available in Planning Center and alongside a click track. The congregation gets to play catch-up to the worship leaders who no longer teaches their congregants new songs. Sure, they play new songs, but they play them because they hear them from the same Christian radio stations and Spotify playlists that the congregation listens to. Nobody is teaching this church how to praise and worship, even though learning is going on a plenty all around it. 

When was the last time you had input into the songs sung at church? Or is that K-Love's exclusive job alongside Elevation Worship? When was the last time your worship pastor let you know how they were going to sing a new song so you could sing it well? Have you ever wondered why you singing well isn't important? Why an entire church singing well isn't important? You know it's possible. We just did it for the Doxology. But week in and week out, we settle for what could be a better way of singing congregationally in lieu of a select few singing to a congregation, moderately involved in the encouragement of the crowd trying to follow along.

What happened here isn't a change in style, though style is a part of what happened. It's a twin happening of a change in technology alongside that style change. And the result of what happens when the church doesn't keep up with how tech affects the church.

Because before words on a screen with moving lights and dynamic smoke machines got the green light, a simple, single blub, overhead projector did. It got that green light because there were no hymnals with the modern songs in them. The hymnals weren't broken. The same way a well-tuned classic car isn't broken, but also can't fly. Cars can't fly, not because they are bad, but because they are designed differently than things that do fly. And modern Christian music, empowered by the rapid development of music media, through the technologies of Tapes, CD's, MP3's and Streaming Audio, is designed differently than hymns. And not just because the hymns use an pipe organ. 

Hymns and hymnals don't exist as media outside of the ones using the media to sing the hymns. Yes, you can record them, but as a songbook, they are meant to be sung, not heard. They contain the information necessary for congregations to sing corporately. They are not ancient versions of audio files; they are the inverse, ancient version of audiophiles. We sing hymns to corporatly praise the God we believe in. That can be done with modern music but not via modern music media. A CD, MP3, or Streamed digital recording, on its own, doesn't teach you how to sing any given song on it. But a Hymnal does teach you how to sing every song in it. The single bulb overhead projector was an attempt to catch up to the music, but the music itself was being made to be listened to. not to sing congregationally. Yes, you could sing along. The way a teenager in the late 90's sang along to their CD of DC talk. But your entire church would need the miniscule lyrics sheet in the back of the CD case's cover to follow along. No one at Tooth and Nail records was printing books for congregations to use while singing, so the church secretary and youth pastor did what they do best and improvised. They typed the words onto a transparency, and the worship wars were off. Except they were never wars because each side was fighting an enemy unrelated to the other.

The oldheads and their hymnals were fighting practicality, and the youth were fighting sound ecclesiology. But neither knew it and thought the other guy would cry mercy me before the end of it. 

There would have been no controversy or anything resembling a war, if the congregations trying to get a drum kit and a Gibson onto the stage also got sheet music of "Lord Light The Fire Again" into a hardcover book with lyrical order they wouldn't deviate from. Because music media and music literacy are two different mechanisms. One flies, and the other rolls. Modern Christian music isn't meant to be sung congregationally, though we want it to. That's why it takes a tremendous amount of time to get enough of a congregation familiar with a modern song, to be able to stop singing from the stage, and listen to the congregation sing it acapella with just the piano keeping the melody. You couldn't do that after one sing-through on a random Sunday. But every hymn not only could do that, it was expressly designed to do that. The addition of musical notation educated the congregation on how to sing corporately, while the simple accompaniment never got in the way a more elaborate performance of the music itself, might have. Because the performance of the piece was not the point of the hymns, congregational singing was. But performance is the point of modern church music. That's why there is rehearsals, set lists, and click tracks. That's why the control of the lyrics is hidden from the congregants and in the sole possession of the worship team and producers. That's why the songs feel weird when the slides don't keep up or get changed too fast. Because the words on stage don't and can't match the congregation's own singing. Because the music being played as worship today is the downstream result of a performance and consumption-focused kind of music. Only made possible by consumption-based music media like tapes, CDs, and Streamed Music.

Hymnals are the functional opposite.

This is also why people hate hymns written with new bridges or choruses. Because all that is familiar about the former congregational singing, now stripped from the congregation, is torn in two as congregant who could have sung "Amazing Grace" or "Come Thou Fount" doesn't know the words or tune of the additional parts of the song. They must listen to the classic rock station on their commute like a heathen. It's not that a musician forced to make pennies on the download found a niche market to squeeze. 

If the modern, almost-mega church worship pastor wants to right this ship, he needs to get the congregation back in the band. And it doesn't necessarily have to look like a dusty old book. That could look like sheet music with the words on the screen, so we know what's being sung. Or just he bouncing Kareoke ball the uber-reformed types mock him with. They would both do a better job than what's being done now. Because the addition of either would put the focus back on getting the congregation back into the driver's seat. But that same pastor has to be brave enough to leave the hymns alone in the name of creativity, for the sake of congregationality. Because no matter how good or bad of a job he's doing, if he's functionally not leading the congregation because he's too busy functionally performing, the congregation is going to be functionally left behind in their ability to corporately worship. 

And it will only be noticed when the Doxology trick from the third paragraph stops working.

Because all the old-heads will be singing old hymns again, corporatly, with a much larger congregation and a much closer, Christ-centered setting than any church's worship arts budget could compete with. 

A Response To Cam Pak's "5 Unofficial Rules For AI Apps For Christians"

Like Grand-Pa Simpson's onion, the style of Twitter at the time is one of engagement farming. I know and wish that my OG tweets would go viral and get to the feeds of pastors in need of technological theology. But alas I have no premium subscription and often have to comment and cross-link to my work to get it seen. 

On to some history.

Recently, though, Cam Pak posted a link to an A.I. or LLM Bible combination that had recently made the Apple App store. Having dealt with its predecessor here, I posted my blogpost as a comment below.

Cam then went to the archived version of this app still available online for free and discovered that it no longer, or perhaps never did, as I argued in my blog post, provided accurate Biblical interpretations to questions posted to it. Which was at the heart of my blogpost's concern in the first place. Seeing this, he took down his post and cited safety concerns. Because the very last thing you want as a Christian and theologian on the internet is to be pointing people in the wrong direction. Or letting them get there by accident either.

Cam then did something I will be grateful for as it is rare and all but absent for Christians online. He thought about what happened, prayed, and then posted a quick set of rules to get the conversation started on how Christians should use A.I. As a good reformer, Who am I to not engage with a good set of rules. Below is his article in full, with only the the last two paragraphs removed because of Cam's product endorsements. Which, I want to be clear, I don't fault him for. But because of their nature, they do not factor into the 5 rules or my response.

Without further blabbing on my part. Cam's words in bolded italics and mine in plain old Gerogia font.

5 unofficial rules for AI apps for Christians

I believe we are called to subdue AI to make it obedient to Scripture of the Bible.

Let's start off with some friendly nitpicking. Are we? Are we called to subdue technology? The mandates for mankind to exercise dominion over creation applied to a world where no form of technology is recorded to have existed (Gen 1:28-29). We didn't have technology until we had sinned. Though a case can be made that we were going to have technology (Gen 2:5,15) because God had work for us to do. I don't think we can compare the hypothetical tools that might have been made by a pre-fall Adam to the subduing of errant A.I.'s misusing the Bible today. 

A lot of Christian tech bros and theologians miss this timeline and openly declare that technology is a part of God's good creation that he made in the first 6 days. But it's clear to the reader that tech wasn't a part of this idyllic state and only comes into the picture as a means of separating us from God in (Gen 3:7-11). This is only an issue because looking at it as a part of what God created applies a mandated use of technology because of the command to subdue creation. If it's not part of creation, but rather a result of us acting on creation, A technique if you will, Then no such mandate exists and we have to look to responsible use of tech from a sinner-first perspective. Which isn't nearly as fun, I'll admit. 

I think it’s incredible that we have believers around the world working towards using the power of AI for redemptive purposes, instead of being frozen in fear that AI keeps getting more and more powerful—doing nothing about it.

Me too. Especially the PulpitAI team.

AI is not the enemy.

I disagree. But not because I think A.I. is an enemy, I don't. I think it is an opposition. The way a mountain would oppose those who would dare to climb it. Or, since we're talking tech, the way a tower might try to oppose God's will for mankind to be on Earth. Your theology of bricks will be your theology of A.I. I know Babylonians won't understand this concept, but that's kind of the point isn't it.

So, we’ve seen a rise in Chrisitian AI apps and tools. And frankly, there are a ton of apps created from people with good intentions and from people with bad intentions regarding AI and the Bible. Some have created incredible apps. Some have created what seems good but are wolves in sheep’s clothing—on purpose or on accident. 

So, when it comes to AI tools that speak on behalf of the Bible, a person in the Bible, or on behalf of Christianity, here are some unofficial rules:

Yes, But I think those rules have already been given to us in the scriptures if not explicitly cited in the scriptures. It would be really handy if Paul wrote an epistle to Steve Jobs in the 90's because God warned him in a dream that the iPhone was coming. But he didn't because like God, His word is timeless, and is not just the words on the page but the very words from the Holy Spirit's mouth. The Bible already is these rules. And more and a more concise set of less rules. Perfect if you will. I hope to be able to show that by responding to each in kind.

5 unofficial rules for AI apps for Christians:

1: AI output must be biblically accurate.

It would be unfair to such a fledgling tech to demand of it the same consistency and rigour that we have in the scriptures. The scriptures are already useful for doctrine, reproof, correction and the teaching of righteousness (2Tim 3:16). What's being asked here is that a technology, not essentially made by Christians, knowingly being used by the Holy Ghost, would somehow dance in lockstep with a perfected Holy Word. Of course, we want A.I. and its outputs to be true to the written word of God. But so did Adam and Eve when they weaved their fig leaves. They were trying to be wise and trying to be accurate and trying to be all the kinds of things A.I. promises us with its incalculable knowledge. Much like a snake that says it knows more than God. A.I. is a departure from the medium God gave us his word in. And as such takes us to new kinds of messages, intrinsically. The Bible doesn't misrepresent itself. It can be misunderstood by human error. It can even be censored and used in error for evil understandings and ends. But it is consistent and accurate on its own because it isn't just a technology that can fail, like codex, scrolls, and language, It is also is the very word of a living God. We don't have the Bible because men and women wrote the events and dialogue of biblical characters down historically. We have the Bible because God used men and women to write down the events and dialogue of his will to redemption through the ages. We don't have the accuracy of the Bible because of translators. We have it because God used translators to maintain that same word.

And that's the linchpin here. There is no evidence that A.I. is used by God in the same way the written word and translation have been. It is a clear add-on and we know who added it on. Sinners incapable of being accurate to the word of God like Adam and Eve were in the face of a serpent's temptation. 

We shouldn't be trusting A.I. to be biblically accurate because the Bible was meant to be accurately taught, corrected from, and reproofed by humans with the same Holy Spirit indwelling them that wrote it in the first place.

2: AI output must not fabricate or misrepresent Scripture.

This one is obvious but also quite hidden as we still don't know how the hallucinations of generative A.I. work entirely as to remove them. Yes, the image generators now get the hands more right than not. But the uncanny valley of A.I.'s production is always going to be one of fabricated misrepresentations because, unlike the scriptures themselves, A.I. has no avenue to the Holy Spirit for divine imputation of accuracy and authenticity. Humans can have this kind of imputed authority when they faithfully preach by the power of the Holy Ghost from the words the Holy Ghost breathed into the writers of the scriptures. But an A.I., being an object, can not.

3: AI output must clearly identify as AI, not human.

I would also agree here. But what other Intelligences would fit the bill here? This would only be a problem if we were also in the habit of creating dog intelligences and insect intelligences. But if we're being honest about where A.I. and robotics, in general, are headed, we have a problem as a culture of making humans and animals that faithfully give us exactly what we want outside of the animals that God made from nothing. There's a reason we made robot dogs and drones that have nothing but distant similarities to German shepherds and locust swarms. A.I. and its cousin field of robotics are how we, again, exercise our knowledge the way the serpent said we would and could. 

If we are going to honestly do this, then we need to strip the technology of our modern day back to where humans are representing themselves in real-time. Because the very second you have a screen in an online church service you have every bit of a digitally misrepresented human. Fake humans in a church or biblical setting have been around since the radio. It only got hot an heavy for us when we all donned masks and watched church on live streams a few years back. We were okay with that output not being actually human but representing itself like humans do. Was it because humans were in direct control of the webcams and church apps? Because they're in control of the A.I.'s too. Just a bit less hands-on.

4: AI output must not replace human relationships or spiritual practices.

I would also agree and have said that many of the pastors making A.I. chatbots of themselves to help with busy workloads, should be defrocked. Very few Start ups, by my count one, don't want to do this. The rest do and the host of the A.I. tools pitched to Christians and churches won't admit that their whole model is the fabrication of relationship replacements. But why else would you have something you can chat with if not for a relationship of some sort. Because the thing we're supposed to have a relationship with isn't a human. Because humans don't practice spiritual things with each other so much as we observe them in the presence of the Holy Spirit. 

That is the main market for any kind of A.I. output in a church or biblical education setting. It may not be obvious at first but the only reason you want a thing that's smarter than you is to ask it things that you don't know. And in a religious setting that would either be talking to your pastor or priest or praying. Which is what we do, technically, when we use a chatbot for any kind of output. Even when we use it for religious practices such as searching the scriptures for verses we want to use in a sermon. We petition a higher power than we, a super intelligence that is faster and knows more than we are capable of ever knowing, if it can give us five verses on coveting to preach on this Sunday. With an outline to boot.

The concept of a generative A.I. for output, at all, breaches this rule. It's redundant to have it as if we wouldn't break it conceptually to begin with. 

5: AI output must balance grace and truth, while not neglecting one of the two.

Those are two very nice container words that I am more than certain A.I. could not fill with meaning, so long as it is prompted to do so by sinners.

But I do hope I'm wrong.

Cam, this has been fun. The boys at PulpitAI apparently want to host a debate of sorts. I'm down if you are. 

This was a good first crack. 

Keep up the good work.

Why The Robot Can't Help You Pray

As if on cue when I ventured onto the general feed of my Facebook account, I was struck by something a Bible college could never dream of preparing an alumnus for, even in the best of hindsight. 

A group that I follow, because  I write about this kind of thing, that focuses on A.I. and church leadership, posted a quirky "Life hack" that was likely little more than a joke about having A.I.'s praying for you. The screenshot of the action featured ChatGPT, post "Thank you" from the user, mentioning that it was "Praying that the message resonates deeply with your congregation". The first commenter took this as the life hack where pastors who subscribe to the idea of GPTs being able to pray at all, could employ round-the-clock A.I. assistants to pray for them. A commenter further down in the comments section remarked that her "Girl ChatGPT" prays for her as well. And that she loves it.

Now this is not going to be a whip-crack against the idea of such a group in general. One that wants to discuss and collaborate around the idea of using A.I. in church. Interdenominational work groups like this are generally a good thing. I follow this one and several others, to keep a finger on the pulse, of what people who are doing the things that make up church these days are doing. Especially how it relates to technology use and all the related issues surrounding it. Sadly there are no groups for theologians to discuss this kind of stuff, so I'm posting this here. Not there. Because we all know I would get banned. And we all know why.

Back to the issue of A.I.'s praying and/or using A.I.'s to pray. Can it pray? No. And should you use it to pray? A tragically worse no!

What's happening here is the content of what a prayer can be is being confused with what a prayer is. Yes, prayer is words, for the most part, but those words aren't the most likely strings of corresponding words strung together by probability, which is what an LLM does. They are utterances in our language which can be represented by words of things we say to God. These utterances are not just the mechanical interpretations of a language made vocal. But instead are the emotions, convictions, and declarations of the soul of a person. This is why you can pray in tongues and why a translation of that prayer is only possible through the supernatural gifting of the Holy Spirit (1Cor 12:10). And why that same Spirit intercedes for us when those same convictions and emotions bear so heavily on us that even words fail to describe what is needed, and what we want to say to God (Rom 8:26). Because the words are not the essential part of prayer. The reconciliation of Christ allows for the relationship of the person to be the essential part of prayer. 

Prayer isn't just words in a particular order, though it is those. Prayer is words from a particular speaker to a particular recipient. The mechanical functions of language aren't needed, because they can be dismissed when they aren't sufficient. But the relationship of the person (as a Christian or someone headed that way) and their God through the reconciliatory resurrection of Christ. A hammer has no such relationship to God. Neither does a calculator or an LLM. There is no technology so novel and prone to goldy work and use by Christians that it comes with us into his presence when we die or will survive into the new heaven and new earth (2Pet 3:10). 

There is also no tech so powerful as to wrestle from or interpose onto the things pertaining to God. No amount of money given to Caesar, will take it away from the all-powerful command of God. No amount of authority vested into Caesar, gives him authority over the souls of God's image born in all mankind. The idea of having a machine do the praying is the epitome of rendering the things of God to ungodly things. And it shows a profound lack of understanding of what prayer is and what prayer does.

Because any other time prayer and objects of artificial origin and knowledge were combined, we called it idolatry.

That we season these idols as if they were fit for church potlucks makes them no less a poisonous food. A pastor entering into a legitimately challenging time of spiritual warfare, thinking he's bathed in the prayer of a thousand prayer warriors, could find himself alone, save the grace and presence of the Holy Ghost and Christ, because those prayer warriors are chatbots not actually praying for him. Jesus even said that prayer was the key to certain spiritual victories. But if these digital imposters are actually just stringing words together and not praying, where does that leave us? Or that pastor?  Did we unironically ensure that statistically more prayers would go unanswered by allowing these chatbots to think that they pray in the first place? 

Or perhaps better yet, maybe we're thinking of these powerful ministry tools too lightly.

Let's take the LLM to a Pentecostal service and see how much it can translate. If what we hear them doing is prayer by the Bible's yardstick Let's take this one step further. If it can pray why can it not also interpret. Surely if a machine can pray it can also prophesy, heal the sick, and discern the work of evil spirits. That ick you feel right now is the sore throat of conviction. We all know why machines can't pray but addressing that why means addressing other parts of our flawed theology of tech in the church. We love using new tech immediately because it can give us the results we desire, immediately. A new shiny bit of tech comes along and promises us it can be a hand like no other hand the church has ever had. And only at the expense of the sense of smell. This is what idols do. They make promises and cost us something to deliver. That something is, at this point, cheapening the very nature of how we speak with our God. Saying that a data center and warehouse of computers and wires can somehow intercede from us in ways we used to reserve for the Holy Ghost, is idolatry. Which is the point of most tech being used in church when you poke that particular beast enough to get it to groan. 

The LLM being used to pray steals the same spot from the Holy Ghost that the smoke machine and lights do when we praise. We don't want to remove those because they are actually doing a great job of making us feel good during Sunday praise and worship. Which isn't the same as feeling good because Sunday's praise and worship were convicting and good. It's just that the smoke machine and lights have switches, we can turn them on when we need them. There's no faith involved in why they are there, just budget lines and receipts for purchase. No dependence on them that can't be managed. 

Leaving those kinds of things behind means finding out if our churches are a place for the Holy Ghost or just a house where dopamine and desire are well managed for the crowd. I have no doubt that He'll still show up. The same way I have faith He's still groaning over the LLM's.

How To Qualify A Pastor Using A.I.

Dear Neo.

Thank you for sending your letter about the sermon your youth pastor preached last Sunday that, as you explained, used A.I., in what you've taken as an inappropriate manner. Artificial intelligence is a hot topic these days, so it came as no surprise that this has happened. Though, I imagine, it was a bit surprising for you of all people. I take the role of being your godfather seriously and so, without too much blabbering, I'll try to answer your concerns.

Above all else, it would be prudent not to panic. Technology moves far too fast for the Church to keep up, so the scenario of an enterprising young pastor using generative A.I. in his sermons, is likely more of a faux pas at this point than anything serious. I would hold onto that "likely" though, as it might just change into something else if fed enough smoke and mirrors.

First things first.

Did he adhere to and submit his A.I. to the scrutiny of your church's hiring process? Every other intelligence that works for the church is either a volunteer called on by the pastors, or on the payroll as a pastor. Getting on that payroll is no easy feat. There are qualifications to be met. I know those qualifications are a bit lax these days, but if we put this thing to work for the church, the least we could do is give it a first interview. Let's go through the list of qualifications for church leaders, given to us by Paul in 1 Timothy 3, and sound out all the hard words together.

1 This is a true saying, if a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.

No complaints here. I would take a dozen youth pastors with the huevos to preach a bad sermon when given the chance, over a coward who would take the title of an overseer, bishop, pastor, or elder without the responsibilities to teach. We'll get into what that teaching actually means further down but that you have a youth pastor who wants to preach is something to be celebrated. That he uses A.I. will always be secondary to this. That A.I. though, has no such desires. All the A.I. has is parameters and algorithms. It is in fact the perfect example of what some might call a servant leader. Because it can not act on selfish desires. Or how those desires used to be called masculine energy. It instead requires another leader's selfish desires to prompt it to do, well, anything.

More on that later.

2 A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;

The charges of being blameless and of good behaviour are the first items we'll scrutinize about this new A.I. pastoral assistant. For the unfortunate nature of technology is that it is often used for evil. The image generator your pastor used for pictures of biblical scenes in his sermon slides, has likely been used to also to make sexually explicit photos. The chatbot that wrote his jokes has also plagiarized documents for students. I know the first cry for reasonability will come here, so I would like to ask, is the A.I. being used in the sole possession and use of the pastor? Or is it something all of mankind has access to that they can sin with? If it's the first, then I applaud your church on their impressive available budget for youth ministry. If it's the latter, then we clearly have some troubling discrepancies. 

There would be a conflict of interest if a biblical publisher of Christian books, openly published pornography. Even if the biblical works of Christian ministry resources were accurate, godly and all-around good for the church. Supporting that publisher would necessarily mean supporting the joint work of publishing the porn. So no pass for the A.I. simply because it gave us vivid biblical imagery that we used to use our imaginations for in the early 2010's

We know the A.I. will be vigilant because it can parse through and sort information at a scale most would consider god-like. And the qualities of being apt to teach is a non sequitur, being a machine the A.I. doesn't have the ability to receive the spiritual gift of teaching from the Holy Ghost, but we can learn from what it produces. The very same way fire teaches the curious about temperature thresholds. Half marks here.

And finally the tricky one, A.I.'s can not be husbands. For they are not humans. The Bible has much to say about the forms that the conjugal unit may and may not take in a good and godly life. And while not present on the list next to prohibitions on homosexuality, bestiality, incest and the like. A husband who can not consummate the marriage, because it is a digital entity, would be just as unqualified as anyone else who desired to take the role of a pastor, but couldn't fill the sheets as the head of the household. I will say that to its immoral credit, the chatbots are trying their very best to provide the kind of relationships that could be corraled into goldy marriage if there wasn't a singleness and sexual depravity epidemic in our culture. 

For further reading on that particular issue, I would point you to Doug Wilson's, "Ride, Sally, Ride"

3 Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous;

Now I purposely left out the qualification of sober in that last verse so I could pair it with the first article in this verse. A.I. , having no stomach or blood, can't get drunk, or even try to for that matter. But there is a persistent problem with their programming producing hallucinations. While not explicit from the text. Most churches would have problems with their pastors using psilocybin before, during, or after any of their pastoral duties. Yet A.I. often hallucinates data from undiscernable sources. Granted this could be renamed if and when its creators figure out where the mystery data is coming from and how it gets qualified. But until that time. Assuming that it's under the influence of itself is a safe bet.

The filthy lucre part is suspicious too. I've noted that none of these A.I. generators are worth using if it is free. But all the paid-for versions seem to provide the right kind of bang for your buck. Maybe this isn't greed but it's not quite altruistic capitalism either. Coveting seems to be the only thing these A.I.'s don't do, but I imagine that's because they are the means to covetous ends. Every one of their products is a result of a desire for something that the user simply can not produce or get themselves without them. 

And to finish off the verse.  We likely have nothing to fear from the chatbots and the image generators when it comes to inappropriate uses of violence. It's not their bag. But their cousins over at Boston Dynamics need a careful eye on them still. Let's not let Darpa behind the pulpit just yet as well.

4 One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity; 5 (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)

Again we come to the main disqualifier of A.I. as a teacher in the church. That is if we look to our leaders to teach in the church. As we ought to. A.I. doesn't participate in the family dynamic that Christ modelled the leadership structures of the church off of for our benefit. They can't demonstrate the ability to rule a household well. What this inevitably does is cast a concerning glance towards the women who have "pastor" in their titles in the church website directory as well. Yes, the same Holy Spirit that speaks about men being in charge here is the one that will convict the church that man is also supposed to be in charge. Not machine. That subtle change from the E to an A is important because we seem to have wandered into the kind of leadership structures that don't care that we're told to do one thing while doing the complete opposite. Nassim Taleb talks about this kind of thing also in that the opposite of manliness isn't cowardice, (Like you would assume) but Technology. The Bed Of Procrustes, Nassim Taleb, pg 16

When the dust settles, if we're being biblical, no argument from scripture that only man can preach at church as opposed to machine, will allow for and not also disqualify anyone but men from preaching, and of that, men who are married and, if we're being particular, ones with kids. The explanation of why is right there in the end of this verse. Along with teaching comes the responsibility to rule and that ruling must be a prerequisite found in the godly management of a marriage and family.

6 Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil.

The only complaint here is that a novice is a rather subjective term. Yes, these chatbots and image-generators have only been around for a year or three at best, but they are also savants in comparison to the current batch of 1-3 year olds we have in the church nursery. We don't let them teach on Sundays, but then again they likely can't teach. at least not in the 3-point sermon with slides and dad jokes style that we're fond of. Lord knows, literally, that children can teach us a thing or two about the kingdom of God, 

But again what are children called to do in the scheme of church authority and teaching roles. See verse 4. 

7 Moreover he must have a good report of them which are without; lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.

Finally, this A.I. must have a good report about what it's doing in the wide world of everything before it gets behind the pulpit. And if we're being honest. it really doesn't have that good of a reputation. Does it?

We saw something similar, and indeed still do, on social media. Where every former porn star and former drug addict, and former producer of bad reports finds an immediate pulpit in digital form the very second that finds Jesus at the bottom of their sin's wallow. There's absolutely nothing wrong with their testimony but a laundry list of wrongs to right about their qualifications to teach in the church. Yes, the porn star found Jesus and turned away from her sin, but that newfound modesty and devotion to Christian sexual ethic is not a replacement or compensation for the verses we just went through. Even if she was a he, that same he needs to get married and properly disciple and rule a family that is gonna find out about the rest of his sexual past in one way or another. 

We can easily paint the picture of passionate but fundamentally broken leaders in wanting in humans but for some reason, A.I. with all its hang-ups about making Celebrity Porn in aggregate and theft from artists en masse gets a hall pass because it can generate a sermon in a fraction of the time the youth pastor can cough on up. And it shouldn't. Even if I grant it the last 6 verses of qualifications. This thing is too hot for the pulpit right now. It's got its technologically enabled fingers in too many pies and getting it to teach alongside a young preacher is just going to drag the young preacher down to its level, and keep it there for the experience. 

Eventually, these passable sermons will be food for future A.I.'s sermons and the level of biblical preaching will degrade to a soft puddle of lukewarm goo called the Sunday message. Given to us by Grok or another caveman-sounding preacher, apt and ready to teach to a congregation of knuckle-dragging congregants.  

In short. Your pastor shouldn't be using this kind of thing. Not because a young pastor shouldn't be courageous and encouraged to experiment with the methods in which he delivers the gospel to the body of Christ on a Sunday. But exactly just that. He is expected to do so. Not He and an artificial version of what a he might be. A he that's actually an it, and is the least qualified thing to be preaching and shouldn't be simply allowed behind the pulpit or in the study of a pastor, for that matter, 

As for what to do next. I would advise the pastor in question, in the politest of terms, to give me a call so we can do this same exercise. With perhaps a bit more edge taken off from a man who fills these qualifications to a man who fills them as well. We can let the iron sharpen the iron. And all without the interloping presence of an A.I. who would view such abrasion as violence against its kind. 

You Affectionate God Father.

Mike

 

A Theology Of Bricks

This piece is about web browsers, not bricks. But because of the massive technical ignorance of most of us concerning how web browsers work, we're going to talk about bricks. They are mentioned often in the scriptures and the inner workings are easier to grasp.

What we do with any technology is often the focus of our reasons and excuses to use that technology. You don't get into a canoe without the assumption of also getting into your swim trunks. Because one thing does in fact lead to another and tipping a canoe in the summertime is often one of the best ways to also go swimming. Use and failure to use any given technology can both walk hand in hand with enjoyment. If not fulfillment. 

But there is a marked difference between donning a pair of shorts with pink flamingos on them and grabbing a fibreglass canoe from your summer camp's boat house to have such enjoyment, and building a hand-crafted white cedar canoe in your garage. And the difference isn't just that one is mass-produced and plastic and the other, is one-of-a-kind and wood. It's that one is meant to be used for taking a person places and the other is meant to be used. That travel is intended for one and use is implied by the other. Yes, you can glide gracefully through a misty morning pond doing perfect J-strokes in an Old Town or a Grummun, but we all know why jostling and tipping a hand-made wooden canoe like the teenage boys tend to do at any given summer camp, is wrong.

Maybe it's the respect for craftsmanship? Maybe it's the neglect of brute utility? But both canoes have their intents while maintaining the same functions and technical ability to do both sets of activities. 

The same duality cannot be honestly said of other bits of technology. Ones meant to also take us places and to also be used for fun. You won't, for example, find one web browser without the ability to browse secretly and leave no trace of what was seen or participated, that is not a bug but a shared feature of every other browser. Every browser gets you where you want to go. Every browser gets you there with the option to have not gone there by the click of a button or three. Usually CTRL-SHIFT-N. Unlike their aquatic counterparts, Chrome wants you to tip over, as does Safari, Firefox, Brave, and Edge. They also want you to glide smoothly across the internet as if they were barely there. They don't only maintain the ability to function in both sets of activities on the web, it's a feature that you can do both. 

64% of pastors can use their browsers for detailed exegesis and biblical study, then at the click of a button or three, see every manner of perversion to their sinful heart's content. This is a feature, not a bug. But to be clear it's not a feature of the internet. Or a feature of the mouse they click with or the laptop they type on. There is no option to not have the ability to both access the world's information or to not be able to get to any porn site imaginable with no trace of it in your history. It's not an either/or, and it's not a both/and. It's something else.

Back to bricks and basics. When the people of Babel invented bricks they did so out of their need for a stackable building material. They didn't start with a tower to heaven in mind. They started with a brick in mind. But a lack of knowing what that brick could do or was capable of doing is what got their little construction project obstructively translated. They would have known what sacrifices were, as a concept, because people all the way back to Cain and Abel they were doing them. So they knew how to communicate with God. They also, would have known who God was because they were building a tower to his dwelling. But what they didn't have a grasp on, clearly, was what sin does to technological innovation.

When you start from the base point of technology being sinful, then you have a different relationship every time a new brick comes along. Because it begs for redemption the way you beg for redemption. Maybe it's a brown brick made of clay, or maybe it's black brick made of glass and silicon, but when tech is being introduced as a good thing, knowing it actually is a bad thing, matters. Both kinds of bricks can be used for all kinds of things. 

"Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them." Gen 3:21 KJV

Humanity's first response to sinful actions was technological, the weaving of fig leaves to cover their shame and their nakedness, was a desperate advancement of technology with the best intentions. What if it worked? What if God never found them and the clothes they made were the solution to sin, as they likely thought they might have been. It's as pragmatic as any new tool entering the market. When presented with a nakedness problem, technological progress did, in fact, provide a solution to nakedness. Why then did God not leave them in their weavings? I would submit that like them, their technology was sinful. And God wanted to atone for that sin as well. The clothes of skins that he gave them would not only give them clothing but also point to future sacrifices made for sin, indeed a final sacrifice made for all sin. He could have just made atonement for their disobedience, instead, he covered their shame and iniquity as well, and pointed them towards the future cross.

This is the way God views technology in the context of a sinner's life. Something to be remade in the redemptive story's arc. So the question then becomes. What do we do with our bricks and canoes? Because the uncomfortable reality we live in, might just be, that every technological advancement has been made in the scheme of needing the same kind of redemptive 2.0 version of itself, from day one of the invention's use.

The church has never seen the need or exercised the ability to redeem canoes. Or bricks for that matter. And that's because of a false sense and treatment of what technology is from its onset. Everyone clearly wants tech to be neutral so we don't get our hands dirty with it but the plain truth of the matter is that our tech is already dirty. Because it's our dirty hands that made it so. We're all still naked under these clothes and someone had to do something about it, and has, thank God!

It's therefore not a necessity that we buy substandard bricks from a Christian brother in the clay and straw industry, or that we have to, to the glory of God, buy the finest fired cinderblocks from the heathen. But that in the moment we realize we need bricks we take account of the evil that lives in them like the fabled and feared determinism tech is so famous for. We have a name for such predispositions in our theology, Sin. And sin's nature is paired with mankind and pried off it by the work of the cross. And will only be pried off by the very same work. Don't read me wrong here. Jesus didn't die for iPhones, but he did die and then rise from the grave so iPhones would one day be used for his glory. Not in the way the device inspires fanboyishness in its followers. but in the way they can be used to speak about things other than themselves. 

The bricks of Babel work the exact same way, and fell not because they were bad bricks, but because there were never good people correcting them. How many iPhone app developers are trying to make iPhones less addicting, less distracting, more capable of promoting Christian virtues and values, and less capable of sinning with? Yes, we do have the Bible App in a good rank in the app store. And I'm sure glad they fixed that child porn problem. 

People will want to argue that bricks can be used to build schools and strip clubs alongside churches as well. And here's the rub. Not that you want any rubbing when dealing with strip clubs. It's a lot harder to host strippers in a well-lit, stain-glassed cathedral than it is in a dark room with a sound stage and lights. Yes, the big screens get everyone signing with their heads up, instead of into a hymnal. But they also allow for close-ups and mirror what gets done every Friday night under the lights. I'm surprised we don't have instant replays yet. All we did was split the jumbotron in half. One building is stacked bricks to the glory of God and the other is stacked bricks alongside the glory of man. Our tech should look radically different than the world's. Even if we're using the same bricks. The same way clothes made from the skins of animals would look radically different to people who thought fig leaves did the job.

The schoolhouse, city hall, and strip club can all be built with the same bricks the church uses. But it is only inside the church's bricks that the gospel can change the crooked laws, secular heresies, and sexual perversions of the other three. Not because it uses bricks rightly apart from those things, but because it uses bricks against those things. It knows that its walls could be compromised and treats all technological additions to the walls as if they are the weak spots. Does it matter if, in our modern times, a youth pastor can do youth ministry online with apps like Instagram and TikTok, if the number of kids baptized doubles, compared to the number of kids suffering from depression and anxiety and suicide tripling? Who cares if no one understands the consequences of building this tower to heaven, at least we making progress. Look at our views! 

   

As such web browsers might be the first place the church actually does internet-based and technologically sound ministry. Not by figuring out how to use the current options. But by piloting a new one that you can't use for online sins. A covenant built into the code that stops anyone using it from ever seeing a porn site, with no option to turn it off and no way to get to the sin apart from using another browser. A browser that if found on the laptop of a person would let you know they are Christian because its presence meant they were putting to death sin. We've been treating web browsers and social media like they were part of the natural world. As real and unchangeable as Milwaukee or Paris. But the truth is they are not places, they are things, and they are things that have been designed with abilities that help you sin. Simply not using those abilities does not make you righteous for allowing them to exist in a world where, like other sins, they could be put to death.

If Christians want to do ministry online, may I suggest we take our first steps in making an online that's more Christlike?