A Change Of Coates' Now That It's Flu Season.

I should start off by saying it has been a hot minute since I stopped writing about COVID and tyranny and started writing about where that tyranny pushed the church. My focus as a writer has been and is the relationship the church has with technology in general. But to not address what was one of the iconic moments of my province during the last few years in relation to where COVID pushed the church, Well, that would just be cowardly.

James Coates was acquitted of all charges of health order violations along with his church a few months ago. All, not some, not (but we'll stick you with a big fine for the sake of the crown.) some, All. 

Shortly thereafter, Tim Stephens had all his charges withdrawn by the court.

These two pastors were held up by the media as objects of derision for the churches that would comply and close their doors. And while I would love to get into the nitty-gritty of all the things the COVID mandates did to change how we did church and truly how we do church now, I'm going to focus on one aspect. Moving our churches online.  

These two pastors chose not to merely accept the baseless assumption of moving their church services online as a valid activity in the face of the risks COVID presented. In doing so, they both ran against the grain of the church at large, which almost uniformly moved online in one capacity or another. Barna Reports that 96% of churches moved online as early as 2020, But these two men stayed firmly in the 4% that remained. While the new field and market of online church service began to bloom and the government began to arrest pastors for exercising their charter rights, we saw what might be one of the biggest changes to church liturgy or ecclesiology happen across almost every denominational background. That being the equivalency of online worship and in-person worship.

The church at large decided that online worship was not only a possibility but was the right thing to do. And they did so in the face of a small minority of church leaders like Coates and Stephens that did not. This minority was painted as wrongdoers and the online church was the obvious right thing to do given the circumstances. Those logging in and signing up for online church were being righteous and what was happening at Gracelife and Fairview Baptist, was just plain wrong. We could be sure of them knowing it was wrong because of federal law enforcement fitting nicely into a simplistic understanding of Romans 13, but more on that later. 

The issue we face is that the same government that declared them to be wrong, found them to be acquitted of their wrongness, and withdrew their charges. If these two pastors weren't the bad guys legally, if they weren't the law-breaking radicals the news and government painted them as. Who were they?

The problem with handing Romans 13 to a secularized government, like all of them we have up here in the true north strong and free-ish, is that if you don't teach it to them right, because you don't understand it right, then they end up twisting scripture to do wrong in the name of God's word. We simply can not have a freedom to exercise our religion that can not be infringed upon or abridged or abrogated, if three layers of fencing or a health order can do the impinging or abrogating. A health minister should have near total authority to do what is needed to be done during a pandemic response, but the charter is written as to be a total authority with measures put in place to make sure no one else gets near it. And it got trampled on like the lawns of Gracelife as the fence went up. 

James And Tim clearly knew this when they took their stand and the health ministry did too. That's why there are measures put into the Emergency Act as to grant universal amnesty to the health minister for actions done in good faith. Pastors who act on their good faith, because they have good faith, well, they get to go to court.

And while I'm happy for Fairview Baptist and Gracelife and the people I know that no longer attend my church that closed but attend these churches that stayed open, we have a lingering issue to deal with in the church at large.

You see if the government loses a lawsuit like this, it isn't like it's some neutral party to that loss, despite the assurances the Emergencies Act gives the plaintiff. If these pastors are now acquitted of all wrongs. Then the plaintiff was wrong to arrest them, jail them, but most of all, it was likely wrong in the ways it told churches to worship in alternative ways, unlike these two churches. We were told by our government and our churches that we could simply if not by concession, worship online. And that this was the right thing to do in light of the wrong things being done over at Gracelife and Fairview Baptist, We Romans 13'd our way to live-streamed at-home eucharist and these men spent a few months in jail. We were told we were doing things the right way, and that was contrasted by trying our very best to not talk about what was being portrayed as the wrong way.

I could rip into the individual communion servings. The ways we did weddings and funerals and a host of other things. But I want to write about how the church went online. Because prior to all the nonsense, we had every opportunity to move church online without a government essentially telling us to do so. Youtube accounts are free as are their reach and effectiveness. If the Government told us to do so from a position of wrongness, was our move online during the pandemic an exercise in righteousness? Would you have made the changes to your church, (I'm talking to you, pastors) that you did, in how you look at the online service model, had you not been in a position of either causing a super spreader event or going to jail? Because the capacity to do so was freely available to the church for a decade or so prior to the pandemic.

But you did make changes, changes that had no theological backing only pragmatic ends. And those changes were lauded by a government now found in the wrong for insisting on those changes at Gracelife at the point of a gun. If you listened to that insisting on the right thing to do at your church, insisted on that particular interpretation of Romans 13, then any way you swing it now, you got that wrong. The pastors that went against the grain and ended up in jail for it, turns out, were doing what they not only were allowed to do, but what they should have been doing.

Does that not put us in the position of having done what we shouldn't have as the church at large?

Again, Barna reported that 96% of pastors moved their churches online in some capacity in 2020. leaving a very narrow gate of 4% that either did nothing or did enough of something to catch the eye of authorities. 96% of pastors who historically don't agree on baptism, women in leadership, church membership, the end times, scriptural authority, wine in the eucharist and what to think about rainbow flags. Yet somehow all agreed that online church is a valid and appropriate place to practice worship. Even when it isn't a place.

That needs to be brought back up for the kinds of questioning and cross-examination that pastors like  Coates and Stephens are all too familiar with. The reasons we move online are not just blind progress and if you let blind progress and pragmatism get you online. You now have a reason to at least check your motivations. 

Because fear is the worst reason to do online church, and I fear, it's the only reason we're 96% in favour of it right now. Or at least it was.

So, take this to your next general assembly or annual meeting or bible study if need be. Do it in person. do it without a mask on and ask the church a few things. 

Why are we online? 

Why did we go online?

And, Do 96% of us think we fit on the narrow path or not.

Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

Matthew 7:13-14 King James Version (KJV)

A Hand Up The "Ehem, Interpretation" Of A Biblical Puppet.

We all get told at Bible college that eisegesis is a poor way to make our arguments in any faith conversation because it doesn't say what the text said, it says what we want to say by using the words of the text. This twisting of scripture is problematic on a number of levels but mostly because it makes the focal point of the text used for justification, the person's own mind and not the original intention of the Holy Spirit, that wrote the words down through the biblical authors.

Now that doesn't mean that a verse at any given time only has one given meaning or interpretation because the word is living and active. (Heb 4:12). But it does mean that when you notice someone is taking a verse out of its clear context and that you should be offering correction after listening or offering a refusal to listen in the first place.

But this exists in the give-and-take world of Christian debating, which is at least the kind of human event to expect humans to act like and sin like humans do.

What happens when we remove the human part of the equation? 

Does the debating still happen?

Various "Well-meaning" actors in the church tech world seem to think so, as the generation of bible A.I.'s did not take that long to green light. Like the top Google hit of bible.ai which purports to be a powerful tool for people seeking a deeper understanding of God's word. But as you dig a little deeper into the function of the tool, you begin to realize something about the answers the glorified chatbot (and I do mean glorified) is giving you. Specifically, that it won't give you an answer that isn't couched in some form of interpretation. If you ask it about the sinfulness of homosexuality, it always divides its holy words with a "however" when asked about the standard fare of controversial topics. Plainly put, if you take a reformed view of scripture, and call sin, sin, the A.I. bible will give you a "however" and explain why doing so isn't the best version of Christianity to be practiced. That perhaps you need an upgrade.

An interesting note is that culturally risky topics such as bestiality seem to still get a flat biblical response, with no "however", even a call for repentance if the questioner is possibly practicing the sin in question. But should those sins have a flag and a parade slotted in for June, the "however's" persist.

What you're seeing here is a very complicated puppet, paper mache'd out of the pages of your Bible. No matter what is on the outside, it still has a progressive hand up its ass, making it pronounce the "however's" and respect the pronouns. It looks like the Bible on the outside. The words of the scriptures that are glued to the puppet's carcass give it that credence. You can see that it looks like the Bible and enough of your mental guards go down as you approach this strange new way of interacting with God's word. But inside of the puppet is always someone wanting to say something while hiding their face, or throwing their voice. That's how puppets work. And this one, in particular, lets you know that reality any time you ask about sodomy. 

The irony is disgustingly palpable.

You would reject an app on your phone with a golden calf icon that planned your child's sacrifice for you, with just as much convenience and ease, the very same way you accept that yoga is "just stretching." but in reverse. Knowing how idols work is more than just recognizing the materials they are made of and avoiding the golden statues in your life. Because how the idol benefits you is agnostic to its relation to the worship of God. The big idea is that this new age of technologically empowered churches is going to be the concept of "Christian-Flavoured Idols". Things that mask themselves as orthodoxy 2.0, but are just the next version of idolatry, but this time with three cameras or no headphone jack. 

There is a necessity of twisting of scripture, inherent to this automated bible answering machine, that is being overlooked. You can't let the Bible talk for itself without human intervention because the words of God once recorded have already been touched by the hands of man, or written them. But this isn't just an addition to the canon. That would be too obvious and, again, dismissed as wrong at the onset. This is an adjustment of the canon. This is making a verse like Lev 18:22 or 1 Tim 2:12 say "however", when it doesn't. This isn't a commentary on what the words in those verses mean. This is adding to them so you can't know what they mean plainly. You can not find a way to make a "Shall Not" mean anything but "Shall Not", unless you add a "however". And once you do you are not giving the reader the Hebrew root for "Shall" or the contextually biblical meaning of "Not"

But what is happening is an ultra-convenient avenue for people to not have to wrestle with "Shall Not". The spirit of the age of internet porn learned that it did not need the children of God to actually have sex with temple prostitutes to worship the false gods of technology. It could simply attack other appetites. Like sloth. You could get a real bible that can't be remotely edited. You could learn Hebrew and Greek, or you could surrender all those freedoms of intellect to an app that you don't control and that adds "however" to the Bible where it needs to. No more arduous Bible study. We have a single button to press for our demands of the scriptures, to say what we want them to say.

If a bible A.I. doesn't only respond with the Bible, it necessarily will have the ability to answer questions of it by avoiding the use of the Bible altogether. If it can add a "However" it can subtract anything put there by the same sinning human hands that wrote the Bible in the first place. Which is why it's important to know that humans didn't just write the Bible. The Holy Ghost did this through His humans. And no part of The Trinity is adding "however" to its already completed and perfect word of God. That's being done by the hidden hand, literally. And it's still up the puppet's ass. 

What we need to stop doing, as it pertains to technological use, is stop using it like idol worshipers. At a praxiological level, technology needs to serve the mission and not contradict the heads of that missionary movement. There is wisdom in using a sharp tool for the work of sharp tools and not complaining that an axe grows dull as if it doesn't affect the work. Or refusing a chainsaw when the invention reveals itself. But when the chainsaw begins to let you know that building houses is the leading cause of tree death, or that pulp mills are often used to supply paper to extremist Christian literature printing. Well, then you need to start looking for a whetstone. 

A.I. could be the next great thing for missions, but it's currently demonstrating to be the next place progressive ideologies hide from reformers with hammers and theses.  If we're not careful we will follow its suggestions to hop off whatever cliff it needs us to, to stay progressive and ideological. And God might not be there to catch our fall, because of how our A.I. prompts were worded.

"And he brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence: For it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee: And in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God."

Luke 4:9-12 King James Version

Is It Okay For Christians To Autofill.

In a recent article on churchleaders.com , James Emery White did a great job of illustrating the need for wisdom in an age of asking Google things. And the associated why's that orbit that particular part of our modern-day culture. Here's a link for those interested. 

But that title was frankly wasted on such nice writing. 

Can Christian autofill? At all? Do we even have the resources available to answer the should question when it's not attached to moveable objections in our faith via culture at large. Because we've asked this question in every variation and the answer is always yes, if we give it enough time. 

Can Christians use drums in worship, Yes, but only yes after some hesitation?

Can they use digital Bibles instead of leatherbound ones? Yes, but only after some hesitation

Can they? Can they? Can they?

Yes, yes, yes. But only after the hesitation works its way out of our late adopters first.

What you see here is how change management works and how wisdom is necessary to make it work. This is seasoned advice on how to drive a car when a road trip is warranted. Its directions are based on the next turn ahead from the passenger to the driver.

But what if where you're driving isn't a road anymore?

There's a delightful experience everyone needs and that is the delightfully plain and slightly busy trip from Vancouver to Vancouver Island, by ferry. Because there is one of the few times when you get to "Drive" across the water that sinks most cars that attempt it by themselves. Tragedy is avoided by "driving" onto a ferry, that sails and at no point does your car need waterproofing, outboard motors, or a mast, because what you were doing and what you are doing get mingled by what something entirely else can do.

Can you drive to Vancouver Island? You'll never leave your car if you don't want to, but does that mean you drove? that kind of odd but technical detail matters more than you'd think it would these days. I blame it on all the fake news your read on the internet, and the Deepfakes that cause problems for Christian men there also.

What's not happening in the act of using autofill in anything, is words from nowhere coming to save you. That can happen in real life but doesn't happen with autofill. What is happening is a complicated and calculated series of processes that are designed to remove you from the writing that needs autofill. Even the smallest grammar fix by the spell-checking red line is an adjustment to how you think. Maybe you think with bad grammar, but maybe you think the way you do, and trading a "which" for a "this" alters how you would say something.

At its heart, autofill is a surrender of control and an admission of ignorance or apathy.

Where this becomes a problem for Christians is we have generative processes of our own that are for things bigger than our tweets and emails. Namely our preaching. Our sermons have one foot firmly in the Holy Ghost's power and no clear line to the ferry that is the technological intrusion into the writing process. 

"But when they shall lead you, and deliver you up, take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate: but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost."

Mark 13:11 King James Version

Now ask yourself. Is the spell checker in MS word, or on your iPhone, or in the care of Grammarly, sharing that indwelling of the Holy Spirit?

There's a very big difference between using a tool to compensate for mistakes and mistaking a tool for a person that works for you. And that's the fundamental issue of Artificial intelligence. Not the intelligence part. We can tell the machine was made by some very smart people. It's the artificial part. Because We want human interaction. Christ did not come to die for Siri and ChatGPT. But those two "voices" will be used to preach his gospel and it will be because of a passive understanding of where the proto-A.I. we've all been using led us. Straight to troubled waters that we'll need a boat to cross with. 

While hindsight is 20/20. Technological habits are historically fuzzy. We'll use the same justification for any given technologies use, to justify further progressive use of it. Everyone does it. Any pastor looking to look authoritative on the use of A.I, will point to things like spell check and autofill to show we are already using A.I. So, we must therefore be fine with it. But I want to argue that like our aforementioned rod trip to Vancouver Island. We're only now approaching the shores of what might be our engine's doom if we're not careful. We may have ignorantly but honestly thought we could drive where only boats doth tread. But now that we can see the breakers over the dash, perhaps we should pump the breaks a bit. 

Yes, we've been using forms of A.I. for a while now. But now we see where those roads lead. So back to our original question. Can Christians use autofill?

No. At least not for ministry purposes. Because then it stops being a Christian doing the filling and it becomes an object doing it instead. More specifically an object used in the service of a God that forbids objects in worship. Especially ones that do the kinds of wordsmithing that most auto-fills do. 

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;"

Exodus 20:3-5 King James Version

We all get the graven image part. That means mand made in today's nomenclature. And there are not many theologians that will bicker on the mand madness of A.I. systems of any shape and size. but two more words I'd like to draw your attention to are "Likeness" and "Bow Down". Okay, that's three. But stick with me.

Likeness comes from Strong's 8544,

"8544 tmuwnah tem-oo-naw' or tmunah {tem-oo-naw'}; from 4327; something portioned (i.e. fashioned) out, as a shape, i.e. (indefinitely) phantom, or (specifically) embodiment, or (figuratively) manifestation (of favor):--image, likeness, similitude."

and Bow Down from Strong's 7812

"7812 shachah shaw-khaw' a primitive root; to depress, i.e. prostrate (especially reflexive, in homage to royalty or God):--bow (self) down, crouch, fall down (flat), humbly beseech, do (make) obeisance, do reverence, make to stoop, worship."

It's that obeisance part that's going to come back to bite us because it's a word not often used these days, which is generally the case for things that bite. It means to express deferential respect. and in the context of objects involved in worship, would mean respecting what the object says. The idols in the Bible were in fact mute statues and high places. Ours have text-to-voice now.

What happens when you accept Grammarly's re-writing of your sentence if not an act of conscience to what is ostensibly an object. In the context of religious expression objects necessary for the practice of worship would otherwise be considered idols. Or representations of what's being worshiped. The Holy Spirit prompts you to say one thing and creates those words, like he does all things, Ex Nihlo, or actually out of nothing. However grammatically incorrect as it may be, compared to Grammarly's programming, it still is what the Holy Spirit wants you to say. Clicking the autofill to switch which's for this's alters that and give a slight if not noticeable nod to the programing that Grammarly houses in its servers. It's because those servers house a likeness of human writing for the programming to draw from to illicit that nod of "You're right, I didn't mean to write that." All that's missing from that little piece of inner monologue is the "Forgive me." at the end. And if you don't think the kinds of A.I.'s that are being trained won't start asking for confessions, you're simply not paying enough attention. Remember, large language model A.I.'s are being trained by what we put online. And the central heart of our faith is the gospel that preaches forgiveness upon confession. 

This is different than typing "from" instead of "form" because your fingers type faster than your inner monologue and the "F" and "R" buttons are so close, along with a program that knows these two words are often confused, which flags it for your review. It's the assumption that it gets to write for you on account of you. A spell checker might use the same bricks as the tower of Bable, but instead builds a road out of them. The medium being the message doesn't lock the message down to a singular form. The message of electric light isn't light, like McLuhan says, but late-night baseball and brain surgery now being done in the dark. McLuhan saw this coming but we seem to be looking in the rearview mirror on our road trip to the future of church tech. So much so that we're not going to notice we're in deep until there are fishes chasing our men. Sermons, as it were, written with spellcheck in hand aren't apostate by nature but are closer to it than they would likely ever notice. And that's the point.

As Technology progresses and gets more and more entwined, not only with our lives but with our minds, we are going to need ways to set boundaries for things that act like people. Butler, shouldn't be the only one waging a war against thinking machines, when justified. And if you don't know what Butler I'm writing about. you have some reading to do. 

As for those thinking machines, you are already at war with them, whether you know it or not. And because they think like machines, their plan is to keep you never knowing.

Red letters before red lines, friends.

The Technological Progress That Never Was.

Did technology progress throughout the scriptures? Or did we just find varied ways to do what God did first? 

I get a common response to most of my tweets when I challenge the blanket use of tech for church purposes. That response tries to get me back on my theological heels by asking a practical question. If I am against technology (x) then I likely am ignorantly, also, against technology (y), and thus a hypocrite by implication. This happens when I ask questions about the online church. Immediately the user on the other end says must then be against the Bible itself. Because the Bible is a form of technology. It was simply the technology of the day back when it was written. I'm the one looking for specks in the iPhone useage, likely because of a lack of depth in experience in the field. 

Touche. 

I'd like to offer a thought-provoking idea, or three, to those who can't see why online church and the Bible might be different kinds and modes of things. So...

En Garde!

What format of technology does God use like us? And the inverse. What forms of technology do we use like God?

When given the licence to use anything that works, or worse, seems to work. We can find ourselves in places that are painted with a Christian whitewash but are actually places filled with death to actual Christianity. Technology isn't neutral. As I've argued before. It's made by very not neutral people in relationship to the ultimate good person. So as we try to use it in feigned neutrality. We can gloss over the fact that much of what we enjoy as technological advancement isn't actually progress it's just speed. Yes, a word carved into stone is clear, but it can't be shared like a TikTok. So, therefore, we should share the gospel through TikTok's

However.

A letter written by hand and printed by the press and lasered by Xerox, are all text, but that same letter displayed on a screen is no longer just text the way a word written in the sand in front of an adulterous might be. One is pure communication, and the other is almost a conversation, with math alongside it as well.

Like this next sentence.

01100100 01101001 01100100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01110101 01101110 01100100 01100101 01110010 01110011 01110100 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00111111 00100000 01001001 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101111 01101101 01101001 01110011 01100101 00100000 01001001 00100111 01101101 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110100 00100000 01101101 01100001 01101011 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01100110 01110101 01101110 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00101110 00100000 01100010 01110101 01110100 00100000 01001001 00100000 01100001 01101101 00100000 01110011 01101000 01101111 01110111 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101000 01101111 01110111 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101011 01101001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110100 01100101 01111000 01110100 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100100 01101001 01100110 01100110 01100101 01110010 01100101 01101110 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101011 01101001 01101110 01100100 00101110 00100000 

If you failed to understand the last sentence, it's because you failed to understand the language being used. Go to this website, https://www.convertbinary.com, and copy and paste the zeros and ones. 

Now, is that how God used text. No. While we might not speak the Hebrew that was used. God still wrote the original 10 commandments in Hebrew for Hebrews. He communicates with the people he wants to communicate with and then they preserve that communication, often by recording what he said, which would by necessity need to be translated for us. But is never translated for the audience it first was given to. Because that's where editable meanings tend to come from.

God participates in the communication he has with his people, with the medium his people receive. He doesn't give us information by means we don't understand. His instructions on marriage, murder, and the worship of Marduk are all the same kind of communication, even when captured by the technology of the day. Direct. The speed at which a technology can do the same kind of communication is not factored into his communication. He had every ability to give his word in every language at Sinai, seeing as his plan was to have the whole world reconciled to him. But he didn't.

"It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed."

Exodus 31:17-18 King James Version

"At that time the Lord said unto me, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first, and come up unto me into the mount, and make thee an ark of wood. And I will write on the tables the words that were in the first tables which thou brakest, and thou shalt put them in the ark."

Deuteronomy 10:1-2 King James Version

These words have been translated for us and copied for us in an effort to keep us connected to the original text alongside much of what the scriptures are. The verbal plenary inspiration is important because it connects us back to the times in our faith's history when God participated in the same forms of technological communication we used. This kind of incarnational act is absent in the digital world. though it is assumed because we see letters that look like the ones we can write on screens made of zeros and ones like the sentence above. But it comes to a head when the spoken word of God that was present when he intentionally wrote on tablets and walls in the old testament, subdivides the scriptures, and shows up in the flesh to write on the ground (John 8:1-11). And then authorize the writing of the new testament by association with him (2 Tim 3:16-17)

That's a different kind of thing than a blog. And not just because God did one and I'm doing the other. People can read my blogs as much and as easily as they could read a tablet with 5 commandments of 10 on them. They can even use a tablet to do so. Ipad for the win, right? But what they don't have is the text in the same way Moses had those tablets. Moses could hand the tablets to someone ignorant of them, all we can do online is copy the intent of what words are in real life. Ready for another thought-provoking question. Perhaps it's never crossed your mind, but the unbroken chain from you to Mt. Sinai exists because of how potent God's word is when written down on actual things.

Why was it important that Moses broke the first set of Tablets?

Because the Israelites were breaking the laws on them before they ever got them.

They were about to receive the clear and life-giving instruction of the Lord. On how to live in promised Land. Ushered into the land by the presence of the Lord so visible it lit their path in the night. 

And yet when left with no one to lead and no instructions, so their leader could get his paperwork done, what did they do?

"And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.

And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me. And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron. And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To morrow is a feast to the Lord. And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play."

Exodus 32:1-6 King James Version

Why make an idol when you followed your God by cloud and fire to the base of a mountain to receive your way of life? Because you wanted to speed up the entrance into that life, on your terms. We get to speed again being the actual thing doing the heavy lifting. The speed of casting a molten idol filled the market's need for things to worship. It's not like there weren't idols carved of stone like the tablets were carved out of also. Idolatry fits into any medium available to it. Even ones we think are Christian because we use them for Christian things. But that is exactly what the Israelites tried to do. They tried to have an idol for the god leading them into the promised land. The problem was they had a God who was leading them to the promised land but that leading required that they participate in the same mediums of communication that he was. That they abstain from things, That they partake in things that others abstain from. And most of all that they set themselves apart.

This is just the tower of Bable with more steps. Instead of fire-baked bricks being the way they would get to heaven, they got a fire-birthed cow. And you don't get to heaven by your means. you get to heaven by God's means, which include the peculiar but steadfastly and historically resilient hand-written accounts of the gospel. 

"But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light;"

1 Peter 2:9 King James Version

Sorry, I forgot where the Old Testament version of this idea is, perhaps I should Google it. Moving on.

This is where the online church and online church tools deviate from orthodoxy. They claim a technological progress from the scriptures that was never there. They heard a catchy show number from Andrew Lloyd Webber talking about a lack of mass communication in Jesus' day and age, and thought, "Jeepers, why wouldn't Jesus have a Twitter account or an Instagram profile. Perhaps We should start one on his behalf. He really did pick the worst time to start off this whole proclamation of the gospel thing." Or maybe, just maybe, he did it in a way that can't be separated from who God is and also resists the marrying and muddying of the gold that all idols have. Because if ever there was a thing not to google, it's people who think they're Jesus online. I can promise you they are not the worst thing you'll find online though.

How many pornographic performances happen during your worship set? 

How many share your stage when you say your online presence is the new front door of your church? Every girl on Instagram showing more skin than sense is right next to your church's 30-second butchered sermon clip for the exact same engagement reasons. With nothing but an algorithm separating the two. And that's because they know people can in fact worship online but that worship uses online as an object of worship, Because the internet is a thing, not a place. 

Maybe, this is why the gospel, the greatest story ever told and the greatest single positive communication for mankind, has yet to go viral online. At least in any meaningful way. With leagues of supposed technological advancement and reach, the molten calf of online ministry is still feeble. It's just better at editing its photos so it looks successful. Like most people on Instagram. It has a really good TweetDeck on repeat and knows all the right angles and filters for its shine. But that still leaves us with the question. Why hasn't the gospel gone so viral that the same amount of people that know the Babyshark song, or who Joe Rogan is, or any other viral sensation, know Jesus as their Lord and Saviour?

Maybe the medium is the message, like McLuhan said all along. And the medium of the internet might just be idolatry. You can use Idols to do ministry, But you generally have to use them the way Gideon did (Judges 6:25-32).

.  

One final thought provoker before I let you go.

When does God stop writing in the Bible?

He doesn't.

"And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works."

Revelation 20:11-12 King James Version

Writing is something God does, and he does that writing on a medium. Not in a way that can show what writing looks like but is actually zeros and ones. He writes words and gives them to us. Even so much as to make the word flesh. There is a book waiting for you are the feet of Jesus and a white throne of judgement. He writes words and gives them meaning. And because he does that in Heaven, a place with no time to progress and no technology to get outdated, perhaps we should hold our technology at arms-length for more than just selfies. And truly assess if what we're doing is what God wants, or what we want God to want. 

There is no technological progress in the scriptures, and I would argue, God's plan for humanity. You've just been convinced of that by the use of technologies that require progress to exist. Could you even use an iPhone 3 to do ministry now? Could a streamed service for prayer and healing work in 360p? I can see that this is pagan magic just by turning down the resolution on my smartphone. I don't even need writing on my wall, who goes on Myspace anymore anyway. With that bit of late 2000s nostalgia, I'll leave you with this.

God's words, even his written ones, are eternal.

"The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever."

Isaiah 40:8 King James Version

The Feminist/Robot Cocktail Headed Our Way.

Continuing with the last post theme of jokes we ought to take a bit more seriously. I'd like to take a closer look at the odd relationship women in pastoral and church leadership roles, are going to have with the various forms of A.I. headed our way.

You would think that these two broad categories wouldn't interact past a lazy lady pastor using ChatGPT to phone in a sermon once or twice. Gender didn't even show up until I mentioned it just now. But the questionability between women behind the pulpit and A.I. powering the pulpit, pivot on the same hinge of orthodoxy. A hinge, We in the evangelical camp, tend to avoid instead of greasing so it stays quiet, instead of working quietly and in submission to Christ. 

But first the joke.

"Southern Baptists are more likely to Let ChatGPT preach a sermon than a woman."

Crass, I know. I did not write or retweet this joke to my knowledge, though I certainly bookmarked it. 

This came up in various theology-focused Twitter threads and lists as the edgy water tester as the Southern Baptist Convention, held to its founding documents and maintained that women can not be pastors in its associated churches. Prompting a brief and firey exodus from the convention of several influential, but frankly, out-of-line churches compared to said founding documents.

I have no dog in the fight past the obvious. We like to joke in my own church tradition that we are small "r " reformed. And while I tend to be more of an ALLCAPS-REFORMED kind of guy, I recognize that it's the Holy Spirit who makes the pastor. Not just the church. Including all the implications of that one-liner. 

Onto the robot part of this blog post.

The issue we are going to run up against is the issue of what words do when we draw on them for our authority and organization. Large language model A.I. systems, require that the words used in their training correspond to the same kinds of things in real life. If you ask an image generator to show you a picture of a salmon. It can and does give you pictures of a singular approximation of a salmon a fish with fins and a head on the right end of it and no hands to mess up. Some are speckled wrong and some have more fins or gills where there shouldn't be. But you still get what could be a salmon. We won't judge the early forms of this amazing tech too harshly. But it gets as much of the intent as possible down and we get a picture of what could be a fish. Ask it to show you a picture of salmon in a stream though (not a salmon singular but salmon plural), and it sometimes gives you delightfully hilarious pictures of fillets of pink salmon in the river as if that's how you caught them with your flyrod.

To it, The A.I. image generator, the criteria of what is being asked is being answered. You have salmon, a type of fish that lives in a stream, being shown in a stream. That the fish has been processed into salmon (the short term and same word for salmon fillets) is more a feature of our unique nature of language use and the way the name salmon can be both a singular and a plural. We might have the same problem with Moose as well.

Where this fishy business is going to come to a head is when similar A.I. down the road, are asked, for whatever reason, who can be a pastor and the apparent historical evidence will include women as if that is an option. While the instructive text on the matter will say things like...

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

1 Timothy 3:2 King James Version

Yes, Mary Magdeline was the first person to proclaim the gospel to the disciples. Christ had risen and as such the new covenant was in effect. There was now forgiveness of sins. She would have taught the men there this information that they did not know before, and God's work would have been done. His will would have been done and his joy made complete, by faithful children learning of his plan for salvation. But Bishops, Pastors, Overseers and any other name for the leaders of the church you'd like to use, have to be the husband of one wife.

Because contrary to the evidence online the bible says so. Now the robot has conflicting data

It's that pesky word husband that will cause all sorts of trouble to the robots because there will be a lot of wives claiming to be pastors in the A.I.'s training data. It will have to sort through lesbian couples of episcopalian churches where there are two wives married both claiming to be pastors. Alongside uber-reformed pastors whose wives don't even run the women's ministry. It will consider all of this and several classes of information more when asked about this gendered pastoral qualm. When asked to present its finding at the next SBC, it will still likely kick Elevation and Saddleback out of the conference.

And it won't be because, like the salmon fillets, it didn't understand the search terms or didn't have the right information to generate an answer for us. It will be because we asked it the wrong question as if the kind of response it gave us involving swimming salmon fillets wasn't an option, even incredulously. 

I'm keen on the idea and prediction that the next great church fight won't be on A.I. use, because of a theological distinction in the things it replaces. Things like sermons and songs. We generally don't pick those kinds of fights in evangelical circles anymore. We are too soft to hit a robot square in the jaw because he got too close to the temple of the Holy Ghost. No, our fight will be a troublesome theological slasher flick, where every time we try to use A.I. it shows up like Martin Luther on Halloween.

The grounds on which A.I. can preach or not are just as shaky as the grounds that the fairer sex walks on. Because if the robots are truly out to take our jobs in the clergy, then proving that they are our jobs would be a likely and necessary first step. To do that we land on verses that don't just say only humans can preach or should preach. Or that humans can lead or only lead. But that specific types of humans can and should and only should because they can, preach and lead.

And those humans are husbands. 

To prove that A.I. can't preach a sermon means to prove that sermons have intended preachers. If we do this biblically we will land on husbands, every single time. Which means, to explain how A.I. will be able to preach or not will be an exercise outside the scriptures. In the same way, while appearing to be something else, the exercise to explain how women can preach or not, necessarily deviates from the scriptures to accomplish its goals.

It doesn't need the salmon in the river to be fully alive and doing what God made them to do, to answer this question. It just needs salmon in the river, and fillets floating down the stream works enough for the girls we dance with.

Until you want to catch something. Or better yet, convince something to bite.

Jesus spoke of this too, to an entirely male audience to boot. And turned one of these audience members into the cornerstone of his church. The leader of leaders.

"And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers. And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. And they straightway left their nets, and followed him."

Matthew 4:18-20 King James Version

The Inevitable Clash Of Church Tech And Climate Science.

A joke we ought to take a little more seriously.

There's a single-panel cartoon making the theological Twitter rounds, (or X as it were now I guess) that warrants a bit more thought than most Saturday morning paper comics, that no one in my demographic actually reads. Mostly because we have Reddit and Substack now.

Essentially, it points out the very real and very timely correlation, that at one point the false gods of the world demanded human lives for apparent control over the weather. Be it good weather for crops or reliable weather for campaigns, deities of all sorts were on the same page and demanded human death and loss of life and human florishing for the alleged control of the climate. Thankfully the Bible has something to say about demands from anything claiming to be a god, that isn't nailed to a cross on our behalf.

"But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils."

1 Corinthians 10:20 King James Version

I want to point out that it's not that there is an obvious hallmark of demonic activity in the climate science community. It's just that the only other group that has ever sought to control something as massive and complicated as the climate, or weather, has been demons masquerading as gods. Our infallible collection of holy texts tells us so. You know, the Bible. If you don't believe the Bible to be that kind of infallible, then I can't fathom a reason for you to worry about the demons mentioned above, though I do wonder how you reconcile the necessary mastery of the weather that our authorities need to have, to insist that it's their tax-funded programs, that will reverse what we have thus far ignorantly caused, so far as climate change goes. 

This is another great example of the concept of consilience. A word that I find I'm using and finding uses for, far too often for it to be mere coincidence instead. 

What we learned during the last phone-enabled human tracking experience.

Where does this connect with Church Tech exactly? Through the wifi and 5G data plans of course. Something we accepted via ignorance or attrition the last time this kind of control was assumed to be possible by our authorities. only instead of taxing us for carbon they just leveraged the tax of our descendants for relief programs, by borrowing against the national debt. A few years back our smartphones were used to make sure something infinitesimally smaller than the earth's climate was being managed. A virus. By some of the most authoritarian means and measures seen to date. You couldn't get toilet paper without the proper paperwork in hand but since another part of this climate change Behemoth is "going paperless", guess where that paperwork was kept. 

On our phones. 

Those same phones gave the authorities all they needed to insist on how our churches opened and closed because through them the barely supported idea of online church, was at the very least, a possibility. It became an, if not the, argument against those with proper liturgies and doctrine to close their door and limit their numbers at the demand of the authorities. I also became a whip from those that did light the incense to Caesar to urge their Civily disobedient brethren to comply via Romans chapter 13. 

"You can go to church online!" was the argument. But in fact, no arguing or other theological debate was ever done to establish if we could do so. It just looked like we could go to church online so we all agreed, in ignorance or attrition. Without the internet, or as most experience their use of the internet, the smartphone, the online church is not a possibility. We would not have accepted the terms of years without regular gatherings for church, if our means of communication were bound to paper, ink, and the postal service. But since it was convenient, we took 4K streamed services to the chin and said, thank you to the small g deity that gave it to us, though it likely wasn't the one we claimed to worship.

Those phones will be the only feasible way for any organization, government otherwise, to feign an attempt at controlling the weather. Because it's through those phones that they will establish control over the populace instead. The same way they did before. Only instead of an invisible bug, we will have a super visible climate that in fact is always changing in the first place.

Valid reasons to distrust pagans with white clothing.

You'll notice that the term I've used to describe the next crisis de jour isn't the more familiar Global Warming. Some time in the familiar past that term was ditched, likely when the icecaps did not in fact flood the earth like Al Gore Promised or when the polar bear population grew instead of shrank. I could give you a list of internet-based research to show my position, but it won't matter, because we have officially got to the part of the story where you think I'm a conspiracy theorist. Not just a guy who knows Baal worship when I see it. Instead, I'm going to give you a quick Twitter (Or X now I guess) thread to read to show you how climate change is not (at least possibly) what it seems to be. 

Found Here.

It's 15 tweets long and is one of the best explanations as to what's going on with the weird pivot to climate science mania, we are seeing this close to the end of a global pandemic, that isn't technically over yet. The best parts, and what I'll build my case on are tweets 5 through 8.

They show in essence that you can, in fact, say truthful things for dishonest reasons. If only we had a biblical example for that kind of behaviour as well.

"Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made." 

Genesis 3:1 King James Version

"And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone."

Matthew 4:6 King James Version 

"For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.

And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works."

2 Corinthians 11:13-15 King James Version"

If you are paying attention we now have two different kinds of things lined up like they were drawn on both sides of a ruler. Demon-led cults with scientists wanting to control the weather, and people saying one thing but loading the words with ill intent towards mankind for another. They make a very grim matched set if they do in fact go hand in raise worshipful hand, together.

So far I only have two nickels for every time I noticed something fishy, how many coins are going to be in this tribute fish when I finally fetch it for Jesus. And will we have saved the whales by then?

The necessity of a smartphone culture for @Christianswhocusssometimes and online pastors.

Because the climate lockdowns will need the smartphones of the faithful to be inseparable from their hands and foreheads (looking at you Vision Pro types even more closely), It's far past time to start looking at how these technologies are affecting the church. Not just in the kind and quality of the wool pulled over our eyes, but in the kind of wool that belongs to sheep, not goats, regardless of how cashmere the texture of the wool might be. 

We do not have a broad and widely accepted theology of the internet but those who would close the church's doors do. And they're not Christians. We use it for utility and for entertainment and blur that line like it's the word Husband in 1 Timothy 3:2. We have Instagram accounts of sneakers and brethren who cuss sometimes, of every and any sort of niche to derive an audience from. Twitter accounts so you can fight from every corner of the theological ring, and still have backup, and enough pastors on Gab and Truth Social to make David French's fingers sore on any given Saturday night. 

All of this and more is simply there. Using the same tools of data collection big tech hoards while reaping none of the data collected. This online world of the Christian faith only exists because Christians think and believe, and as such practice, that you can have your faith online. Blissfully unaware of what that entails when other faiths show up to practice their worship too. 

The small g-gods of the climate change ideology are worshiping at the same high places we've flocked to in this online landscape. So, when push comes to shove the church will be asked to change so the climate doesn't. Even if the climate isn't changing just like the weather that never obeyed Baal but came to heel at Jesus beckoning. Their followers are willing to superglue their hands to the pavement and destroy priceless artwork for their cause. What are ours known for doing in the face of a similar if not worse existential crisis? Someone check in with Jmac and Coates. We may need a refresher.

The glut of data we are giving the scientists now, that we will be unable to un-give them later.

On one hand, we are feeding an information-consuming state with all the information it needs to warrant a public shutdown of modern evangelical churches. Especially the mega-church model. When carbon trackers register 1000 cars all pulling up to one of the largest air-conditioned buildings in the city, will we be as exempt from the rolling blackouts as our tax status says? We don't bring in tax dollars like professional sports. Or Walmart. We actually take money back from the government because of our tax receipts. And they won't forget that when it comes time to offer grants to the altar of peer review, Did we have the requisite reasoning to say the church was essential when we agreed in 96% unity, (according to Barna) that the church can simply meet online? Even when it can't? will 96% of us be okay with foregoing an in-person gathering for the sake of Mother Earth?

Or maybe we need something meatier for the sacrifice on our side. 

Does an earth that is destined for fire and renewal need to be saved from change? Or by Jesus?

What to do when the authorities shut your church down for being north of net zero.

Quite simple really. 

Stay open this time. 

A Theology Of Apples And Visions

Let's get the obvious low-hanging fruit and cliches out of the way. 

Yes, my target for this theological lash is one that chose a bitten apple as a logo as if that wouldn't come back to haunt the company and their version of good and evil knowledge later.

Yes, the fanboys are as easy to mock as their obsessive and expensive foibles would suggest.

Yes, these are the kind of first-world problems that shame me to write about as there are more important things to write about.

Tasty. Glad for the snack of easy writing. Now on to the meat.

What seems to be the most troubling and marketable part of this product launch is the combination of VR with AR. What the Oculus and other headsets lacked. Apple intuitively picked up on and saw that it was pleasing to the eyes. Namely, the eyes that would be covered for augmentation in both directions this time. The user, like other headsets, gets a screen so close to their face their eyelashes could keep the lenses buffed. But the audience of the headset spectacle, otherwise known as normal people, now get to see a projected picture of the wearer's eye's to make the device more, human, I guess.

Like all virtual realities that borrow the terminology from fictional virtual realities, this one isn't virtual but is in fact real. No amount of AR takes the coffee table away so you don't hit it as much with your toe. Not nearly as much as the haptic feedback seems to add the reality in the icon you now get to pinch, in what Tim Cook is calling Spacial computing. But the clinch to that pinch is that it isn't spacial. The icons aren't floating around your house they are made to look like they are. So they can ease their way into your version and source of normal. Unlike the Matrix movies, Where people's entire minds and souls are uploaded into the virtual reality of the computer, the reality here is still real and the computing is still happening in computers. Not in living rooms but on faces. We're just making it look that way because, like Eve, we want to know something. In this case, not the difference between right and wrong, but between cool and uncool. Because that is what all Apple products are. They are for cool kids, not obedient children. 

This gadget is harmless in these quirky features in and of itself. What will be the theological problems it ushers in, are what I'm more concerned about. Problems like what it means to be incarnational or to touch things. Because there are plenty of things we are and aren't supposed to touch or be touched by as Christians, and this little piece of overpriced tech will blur those lines. 

When the pastor insists that he is laying hands on you in prayer, because your computer generates an avatar, and his avatar can haptically feedback between each of your two servers. Then the same pastor then has the means necessary to insist he wasn't cheating on his wife with that avatar as well. You see the porn star wasn't actually on the black leather loveseat in his office. Her avatar was spacially computed there and he was actually just by himself, sinning alone. When the virtual baptism is called into question by the previously wet and the ChatGPT sermon preached by the A.I. appropriation of the pastor's face over the Facetime app is not paid for, because it wasn't actually him it was just enough of him for us to ask if it might have been the Ox who's due his grain sans muzzle.

There is nothing in the church that this device fixes that haven't also been broken by this device. Its solution to the obscuring of the user's eyes to the public is not fixed by the projection of fake eyes on the screen across them. This is a compromise. Along with much of what it offers as features. It is not a solution to workplace clutter to have a headset on instead of a functional workstation. Putting monitors on your corneas does not free you from your desk, it chains you to your job description. Oh, You think you'll just take off the headset? Like you put down the iPhone or stand in line for days to get one of the first releases in store? Stores I might add are being redesigned so that up to 40% of the floor space is dedicated to demonstration of the tech. 

Yes, now you can walk through the holy land on a tour marketed to Christians by people who know Christians are a market now. And you can do it without walking or a holy land for that matter, just pixels and true depth cameras to give you an equivalency. I'm sure the ever-increasing graphics won't ever be used to change where virtual things are in relation to real things. What happens when the temple mount is slowly edited out of the VR holy land tours your church uses and no one actually knows that it used to be there. 

A virtual-only world would be rife with the ability to edit what can be lived in that world. So the binding of that virtual world to the real world should be held in the suspicion of such editing. That is what Apple is doing differently here compared to other VR headsets. Apple is not trying to give you a virtual world to explore, knowing that those worlds would be fake to the same degree that they are real. It's exploring the virtualization of the world God made. The questioning of what God said in real life, and what it actually means. 

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Genesis 3:1-5 English Standard Version

Apple is not giving you forbidden fruit to eat with this headset. It's making sure you stay on your high-fructose diet. By blending anything that it can with the reality of the situation and a general crop of technological and theological ignorance. The church has a unique opportunity in the face of this new tech to be the kind of reality that Eve needed when a snake was near. One that rightly defines things by what God says they are not by what god's creations say they are. A real place where a multi-trillion dollar company that peddles overpriced addiction in white is noticeably absent.

The church bell can't be censored by a moderator.

Nor the steeple be pixelated for the performance of those who view it.

And the Christian cannot be made of the world and also be not of it.

Boniface.exe _AXE is "getting rusty": true

You'll have to forgive my Luddite attempt at a  C++ joke in the title. It was a swing of an axe too heavy for me to lift. One that is often thrust into the hands of coal miners and truckers, as their jobs are deleted via ideological progress. The ever inflammatory, "learn to code" is simply not going to just happen. But then again, neither seems to be this technological reformation we've developed a whole set of terms for.

Terms like Gutenberg Revolution.

This phrase has been applied to a lot of things since the actual Gutenberg revolution in information technologies. The actual Gutenberg did what wasn't being done to the detriment of the lack of it being done. The church had itself in a bind and was being run by perverse and heretical people. So alongside theological heavy lifters, Gutenberg took what he had made and paired it with the truth in a meaningful way. But what he didn't do was use his technology because of the technology's inherent value. Or perhaps better put. The Gutenberg press did not make the reformation happen it joined with it. That was the revolutionary act. Not the man-centred and initiated action but a technological and faithful response to the gospel already actioning.

The same people who printed Bibles would have hand wrote them if it was needed. But used the printing press because they were as available to them as they were to it. 

This is very different than the myriad of false Gutenberg revolutions the church has suggested we have been in and are in the middle of. Because unlike the first one, we don't have the will and means to revolution. We have the will and account-based access to the means. Gutenberg had total control over the mundane magic of being able to use his printing press to print Bibles. In a similar way that his hands would have done the writing if it was needed. 

We don't have that kind of control over our social media. Or A.I. Or any VR space or whatever comes at us next technologically. What we do have is truth. But what we don't have is control over what we do with that truth. Posting what the bible actually says about any number of socially controversial topics patently shows this. Because those posts will be made to not show that, by the hands at the actual helm. Yet, our jean jacket and airpod festooned pastorate will state on these platforms and about these technologies, that we are definitely in control of this ship. Despite the evidence and icebergs to the contrary. 

None of these bright, and shiny, and rainbow clad in June technologies and services is the next printing press. But they are doing a great job of convincing everyone that they are the next printing press. What we need to be doing is a good job of using the technology we have control of as we bring the truth of the gospel. Because what we are doing isn't working the way we claim it will when we claim the title and terminology of Gutenberg Revolution. 

There isn't a statistically relevant person with a smartphone and the internet that doesn't know who Joe Rogan is. But there are a number of people in a relevant statistic that don't know who Jesus is as their personal Lord and Saviour, on any given Social media and through the internet. That could be because bro-science talks on elk meat and DMT, alongside political centrism and talk of ancient Egyptian aliens, may be a different kind of truth than the gospel. But it at the very least begs the validity of our use of actual transformative technologies to label what we play video games on and how we scroll. Another great example of this misalignment, is that there isn't a person out there using the internet, in most forms, that doesn't also know that the internet is where porn is found. 

But for the moment let's assume that this era we live in is home to the next big thing, and we do need to reconfigure our churches and strategies to benefit the most from the technology of the age. It's a big enough assumption to go without criticism so I'll limit my criticism to stuff I've already mentioned before. If social media is the next big thing for evangelism or discipleship, then why are we only going where we are already? Finding Christians who also like to watch TikTok's isn't the same kind of thing as writing Bibles that used to only be made by hand by the catholic church. But if we claim it is of equal or comparative value to do such, Then why are we preaching our social media gospel where there are already Christians? Paul didn't.

"by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God—so that from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ; and thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else's foundation, but as it is written, “Those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand.”

Romans 15:19-21 English Standard Version

There's a social media site out there that knows you don't think of it like you do Instagram and Facebook. One that is in desperate need of the gospel for its unbelievers and reformation for the backslidden believers who keep showing up as well. One that is as unapproachable as the temple prostitutes of Corinth were to Paul, where he wrote the letter to the Romans, and one where anyone can make an account and use the technology of the day to do their worshiping. You know which one I'm talking about without being on it because of the same kinds of comparison used to call TikTok akin to the printing press. I'm not saying this kind of thing doesn't work. I'm saying what we're doing isn't lining up with what would work.

St. Boniface found himself in a similar position but with fewer distracting apps on his phone. Tasked with bringing the gospel to an 8th-century German audience. But a particular tree stood in his way as the place where everyone actually gathered because they had no online spaces to conflate. Boniface could have taken the approach we are fond of, one with social media, and began planting Christ Trees to sway the Germans to a more and better fruit from the Spirit. He instead took an axe and exercised his dominion over the plants, given to humanity for their bodily food and turned it into a pulpit from which food for the soul would come.

Maybe, just maybe we need to apply what we argue for, on behalf of our social media churches, and take an axe to another social "Hub" where there is more than enough sin and sinners to warrant the presence of the Saviour's gospel. But what that will require is a Boniface Resolve, in lieu of a Gutenberg Revolution. 

If anyone needs me. I'll be sharpening my axe for the Germans. 

Take it away there, Johnny.

"And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire."

Matthew 3:9-11 English Standard Version

The Naughty Bits Of Social Media, And How We Use Greek Words.

There is a reason we call the girl who is loud, and wears tight clothing, and is overly inquisitive, and suggestively opinionated, and all those things combined, an attention whore. It has nothing to do with her sexual activity, though, it is tangentially related to it. And also, a reason why that character I have just produced in your mind does not have to be a She to be an attention whore. Plenty of dudes filling that role too. Because what whores do, and what people who visit whores do is a matched set with the concepts of attention and how you give and get it. It's a currency. And how we spend it matters. So I'm going to propose something for parents and pastors alike right now, that will seem out of place. That Porn and Social Media are one and the same, or at least the same kind of thing. But seeing how Social Media and Porn are essentially the same kinds of thing, requires that we know what at least one of these things is to make the comparison.

You see, it's not that there's porn on social media, it's that porn is social media. Social Media is just the kind of porn with no nudity. 

And the reason that concept seems strange to you, is because you likely don't get your definition of what porn is from the Bible. You get it from the film ratings and the motion picture association. From what you were and weren't allowed to watch as a kid but not the reasons why you were or weren't allowed. 

We get the word Pornography from two Greek words 

Pornos: Strongs 4205

A debauchee, libertine, fornicator, or whoremonger.

Grapho: Strongs 1125

To grave, write, or describe.

I'm by no means a Greek scholar but you don't need to be to see how this word works and to then infer how similar workings need to be put into words today.

Slap the two of them together and you get what is essentially the writings of the debauched, the descriptions of fornicators, and the graven images of whores. Sound familiar? It should. This is a no-nonsense labelling of the multi-billion dollar porn industry. They make money by the commodification of fornication, adultery, and whoremongering. They turn these illicit sexual activities into a product that can be bought sold and advertised for. They do this by taking in person and real-life events and capturing enough of their essence and appeal through different forms of media. They do so for money and attention. They need one to fuel the other in that dichotomy. In this case, predominantly male attention and money for commodified females.

What's important to know though is they, the porn industry, started this commodification before the advent of social media as we know it. In crude terms. Porn stars were giving us pictures of what they would put in their mouths, well before Instagram gave influencers a place to post their brunch pics. But the reason that the influencer and the star do both actions is the same. The commodification of an activity or experience, hinged on the gathering of satisfaction from an audience. 

Pornography, was the first social media, by any and every definition we try to apply to the fully clothed version owned by Zuck's and Musk. They were the first selfies on the web and the first places where user-generated content ended up. That TikTok and Instagram do it with clothes on is beside the point of social media as a concept. Turns out the Mennonites were wrong and dancing didn't lead to worse things, it was the other way around, at least Tiktok.

The commodification of an activity or experience. That's the "pornos" part of this bait and switch that most people don't see because they don't take their understanding from the Bible they take it from everywhere but the Bible. Speaking of... 

"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," 

Romans 3:23 English Standard Version

"Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." 

1 Corinthians 6:9-11 English Standard Version

What these four verses show us, from hundreds of verses that could illustrate the point, is that there are no morally good or neutral people creating social media accounts, running social media sites, or moderating social media content. There are sinners that know Jesus and sinners that don't. And a smattering of both that know where the word pornography comes from or tragically do not. People who have since day one of their use of the internet, let pornography on the internet, dictate what being a fornicator or a debauchee or whoremonger might look like. Instead of taking anything the world might hand over to them on the plate of convenience and speed and comparing it to a word more true than anything graven so far. You don't have good people on Twitter alongside bad people. You have bad people alongside bad people who are covered in the blood of Jesus, on Twitter.

"All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work."

2 Timothy 3:16-17 English Standard Version

You've likely heard it a couple hundred times by now. A pastor is about to make his first point of a sermon after the opening joke or story. What does he quote to define his subject? Websters? Google? Wall street journal statistics? Whatever version of ChatGPT we're on? What's happening here is a strange form of persuasion steeped in everything but the word of God that's supposed to be preached. And it's indicative of a generation that doesn't take that word of God as seriously as it could for the aforementioned sake of convenience or speed.

For parents teetering on the philosophical fence of what to allow their teenager or pre-teenager to do on their phone, or if they should have a phone at all, they hit an all too often wall of specificity in the scriptures. Where the word of God doesn't speak about smartphones or social media on smart phones. So how and I or any other parent supposed to know what God really wants for a child's life in this regard. 

They're not wrong and not alone, but they are also not reading their Bibles enough, maybe in frequency, but not in understanding.

"What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun."

Ecclesiastes 1:9 English Standard Version

No, the Bible doesn't speak directly and specifically to how your teenage son is going to find pictures of barely still teenage girls on his phone, through his Twitter account. But it does speak very plainly about what teenage boys should be thinking about, who they should be avoiding, and what the actions of immoral people are in explicit detail. Our blindspot de jour is one of thinking that Bible verses that speak about sexually immoral people aren't also talking about immoral people in general because there's sex involved. And is the same mental gymnast accident that sends us off that horse and into the hard ground of reality. 

There is no sin simplistically in having a Twitter account but there's also no sin simplistically in recording yourself masturbating in video format. Sin enters the picture when the two of those mediums meet for an exchange of media. Then the message is clear. That media is attention and what we give it to in excess and for sin. Because you can find all kinds of things labelled as porn that wouldn't make your network admin at work batt and eyelid. Garden Porn, Car Porn, Gun Porn. everything and anything ramped up in aesthetic value with 0% sexual content. Hell, I'm waiting for the Theology Porn trend to hit Tiktok given the current state of the slippery slope. All this so that you can find exactly the kind of car of your dreams driving the exact road you want to see it drive. Interchange any hobby, interest or collectable and repeat ad absurdum, and what you have is every discovery algorithm out there being sold to you as social media, instead of just porn. Then again both are free and give you exactly what you want when you want it. Maybe there isn't any selling going on, just exchanges for attention. What we're missing is that in that kind of environment, it might not matter what is being displayed for consumption it might matter that it's being displayed for consumption.

Because consumption and communication are two different things, and porn is not a medium of communication, it's the media of sexual consumption.

"In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths." 

Proverbs 3:6 English Standard Version

And.

“You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes."

Deuteronomy 11:18 English Standard Version

The Christian way to interact with and use social media isn't limited to the posting of certain things and the avoidance of posts of other certain things. It's in the assessment of any part of our lives from a perspective blinded by the word of God. Like it were a phylactery between our eyes obscuring the vision that would be used to tempt us otherwise. It's a biblical reproof and correction of the sinful people that make social media work and the sinful people that use it as well. When we stop to take that kind of biblical look on the platforms that are consuming more and more of the everyman's day, in near mindless algorithmic streaming and scrolling, we can see that, yes, there is potential for the gospel to be communicated here but, no, that isn't what these places were designed for. They were designed as traps for the human mind and work great at that. But can be used to trap those same minds in a cage with the gospel. 

Having a bear trap that you intend to use and having a bear trap used on you with intent, use almost all the same words and motivations but both shake out in very different ways for the guy in theological flip-flops. And this is why in the decade or more that social media has been out the gospel still hasn't gone viral like you'd think the life-changing power of it would. Not that it couldn't but it would require that same gospel to be preached on something that might be inherently broken or even antithetical to it. Ask yourself, how many people with a smartphone know what the baby shark song is, or any number of dance/meme trends on Tiktok, or who Pewdiepie is. How many of those same people have heard or could have heard about Jesus via that phone and those social media apps. Everyone knows who Joe Rogan is, Maybe we just need Jesus to come back and sit down with him and Dr. Jordan Peterson. 

Why isn't this working the way it is for the pop culture of the day? 

Because our God doesn't just use anything because it works. Asherah poles and high places worked great for worship services throughout the scriptures, but they were still torn down for a reason. And this isn't me saying that I'm not for a good Boniface option now and then. But our adoption of any given social media platform for daily use and ministry, and the chopping down of Donar's Oak to build a church, are again, two very different things in the shakedown even sans bear traps. 

Christian-flavoured paganism won't get the kind of outpouring of the Spirit needed for a revival in our times. Because of how the sacrifices of praise are shared and filtered. But it will look like it works because it needs to traffic the attention of anyone who gives it to exist in the first place. Social media doesn't care that the gospel isn't going viral on its platforms. It cares that Christians don't care that the gospel hasn't gone viral on its platform. Because if there was ever a demographic that was easy to sell to, it was the kind of crowd that is based on unending tolerance, forgiveness, and grace. That kind of person never returns what they've paid for. It defeats the whole purpose of being works-based. Which is why we need to care about how we use it. 

In short, we need a theology of the internet. If only someone was writing a book about it without the assumption of its necessity. 

The Macbeth's Dagger Of Online Missions

In high school, I participated in a one-act condensation of Macbeth. It was roughshod and fun. We did it as opposing hockey teams and the three witches were played by one girl with two sockpuppets, A gag we stole from another one-act version of Macbeth with clowns in it. All that the high school drama world has done to a play about Scottish kings and destiny can't simply or adequately be written in a blog post. But I'm hoping that if you read the title you know what I'm talking about when I say "Macbeth's Dagger" Because ours was a plastic dollar store sword, suspended by a 6-weight flyrod for extra movement during the monologue, and couldn't harm a fish if it wanted to.

Do you have to use something if that something is presented to you? 

It really boils down to this one line. And there's plenty of toil and trouble if you don't adequately consider the consequences of grabbing a dagger out of thin air and using it. But enough about high school drama class. Let's talk about the internet.

There is a common thread among every pro-online church personality right now. One where like a script they seemed to have memorized. Everyone knows their lines and they all say this one in unison. "Online ministry is an opportunity we can't afford to miss." I know this because I said the same kind of thing in my book about online ministry that beat most of theirs to the market by a good two years. But we've all been to, or at least know what it would feel like, to be at a play with bad actors trying to do a good show. Everyone still watching SNL right now likely feels this in their bones. When what's trying to be said from the stage and the actors doing the saying isn't lining up in a believable way.

Online ministry is an opportunity to use a thing (The Internet) for the Christian mission. But it is being marketed as an opportunity to go somewhere to do Christian missions as if it were a place. This would be fine if it were a place, but if it's not, then we have some issues that show up, like what happens when you've misquoted Shakespeare in a high school musical. There are several avenues to go down. But we'll stick with a three-act structure for harmony in the theme, and try our best to avoid the sock puppets.

Act 1: Missions

When we treat the internet as a place the mission field seems to get wider. Before there were a couple hundred countries to visit and only a few that would get you killed for doing so with the intent to be salt and light. But if the internet is a thing, what changes about that perception of these online spaces? It looks like you can reach people by going where they are, It looks like a way for anyone with a data plan can now start acting like missionaries in the games and social hubs of the internet. But what's actually going on though. The missionary drive is a noble thing but is this vehicle being driven nobly? 

My first critique is that there isn't a place where you're likely to find widespread internet users and social media addicts that isn't already a place where churches are within walking distance. The problem with using a thing, especially a thing as socially prevailing as the internet like a place is that it overlooks the place you're in, so you can use the thing you have wrongly. When missionaries go to a different country and learn different languages, they actually go somewhere, from somewhere. But online missions change that. Now you get to say that last line so long as you're holding onto the joystick, mouse, and/or keyboard. That hardware is attached to the same lines as the local church's internet down the street. And their doors are wide open for people to come find Jesus. 

Missionaries give their entire lives to the mission. Moving their families and often every possession they have to where they intend to spread the gospel by gathering like Christ instructed. Online missionaries give their social media time or their gaming time, redeeming it for the chance to do the same kind of communication with none of the risks. Because they are protected by the thing they call a place. You don't need to risk more than your social time in online missions because there are no risks to online missions. Every person you speak to and website that you visit will not and can not stop the spread of the gospel by ending your life like countless martyrs have been over the centuries. You are safely separated by the technology you use to connect with. Because every technology that connects humans together also separates us by it.

By accepting the terms of online missions as a concept we bifurcate the actual mission of the church. If you'll connect with people across the country because of a video game, but won't connect with your neighbour because of your faith, you're not building the church, you're complicating it. The Bible talks about people being your neighbour and loving them, even people that you don't know personally, but those are always people that you are near, people you could bind a wound of, feed and clothe from your own food and clothes. This is what missionaries do. They make neighbours of people across the globe, by going there and sharing with them the love of Christ as the embodiment of the church. This is what all Christians are supposed to do even in their local context. It's not that you cannot have the same deep and meaningful relationships with the people next door and down the street. It's that you prefer those relationships to exist in a world where you can block and turn off that relationship. or rather, that you can prescreen for common social ties. Like the ones that get you all on the same Rust server or in the same Metaverse world.

You, online church, are spending a lot of time playing video games and enjoying your social media. Even if you are doing so as a Christian with Christian good intentions. The Christians you find along the way even the ones you see become Christian along the way, are doing the same thing. 

Act 2: Evangelism

Which brings us to evangelism. A hashtag on Instagram with over 500,000 entries and a term no non-Christian has ever searched for on Instagram in an effort to find God in their online life. Sure, they need evangelism. And sure, there is a need for evangelism online. But putting out content with a string of hashtags like #evangelism, #apologetics, #jesussaves, and #christianityistrue, will only trend into the feeds of people looking for those terms.

How many non-Christians look at these terms without the prompting of another Christian? Or maybe better put, given what's popular in these discovery algorithms, how and when would anything tags like this show up next to people dancing, pranks, and cute videos of cats? 

What's going on here exactly? Christian porn, that's what. Not the naked kind that gets you off physically. It's the inspirational kind that gets you off spiritually. Feel-good posts meant to inspire and bless someone who would look for that kind of hashtag in the hopes of a positive response. But is that the sharing of the gospel?

13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” 14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” 16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

Romans 10:13-17 English Standard Version

There are two missing pieces to this puzzle, a "sent " piece and a "heard" part. What we have online, specifically here on Instagram is a "searched-for" piece and a "read". You see, you don't see things on the internet, and while there is audio to be found as well it's held back by the same kind of thing too. You don't see things on the internet, you search for them. And Evangelism isn't a searching-for activity on the side of the lost. it's the other way around. We missed this because we were too busy building online-only churches in the fishing simulator, or frankly, showing our biases because we didn't do that exact thing.  

16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.

John 15:16 English Standard Version

Act 3: Discipleship

Finally, our rubber hits the road in a good way, a way that both sides of this car to the theatre can agree on. Discipleship is what the internet was made for but there has to be a recognition that discipleship only happens after a person meets Jesus and joins a church. and that those meetings and joinings only happen where hands can shake and arms can hug. 

But the process of discipleship, in fact, most training, is something that thrives in an information-rich environment. Discipleship uses the internet like the internet was meant to be used. It uses it to transfer information between two parties. The only issue here is that while it's good at doing just that. We're bad at using it for just that. 

The church has an opportunity to really nail down the way pastors and other leaders in the church get their training and become stronger in their faith and practice in ministry. All the building blocks are there but that's precisely the problem too. They're scattered on the floor of an online Christendom like so much Lego, and no one is either cleaning them up or building something with them. We have the technology to make a free and valuable online seminary, something any Christian could attend from home, and meritocratically prove their worth as a leader in the church to prospective search committees or pastors, looking for more people in their church to step up. We have all the websites, tools and technology to make discipleship something that could happen online better than it's currently happening anywhere in the church. But we are floundering somewhere between online seminary classes that cost the same as in-person ones and theology TikTokers.

That's how I know that this online thing isn't all it cracked up to be. Because the church isn't 100% on board or online with this stuff. It like's the low-cost nature of online spaces, likes the idea of messages going viral and generating content like all the cool kids. But is dragging its feet on this discipleship angle like it got stabbed by Macbeth and now needs a place to hide as a dead body. In a few short generations, the church could close almost every seminary down and move online in a powerful way that would produce a hundredfold more disciples, pastors, leaders,0 and church workers, but isn't. It could close down these valued and important historical institutions just like so many Blockbuster Video Stores, and capture the attention of a world of online Christians ready to find the work God had pre-ordained for them. 

But until that happens, until the church's hands and feet meet their ideals and ambitions, then there will be no online missions worth the kind of lives that martyrs lost or viral content of revivals that were more than just college kids getting out of midterms via worship service. Until the church brings discipleship online in a meaningful way, there will be no meaningful online missions. Just a crowd of Christians meaning well and justifying the use of something. All while working towards a high score and that new set of non-armour or god.

"Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still."

Macbeth Monologue (Act 2, Scene 1)