Hiding Behind The Cool Idols, A Response To Austin Gravely's "What Churches Need to Know About Smart Glasses"

Austin Gravely wrote a great little piece a while back on the new landscape of church security and media privacy, in the age of the Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses.

Find it here.

I enjoyed it and think, like most of the people that shared the post on Twitter, (Still not calling it X), that pastors should read it. Because they should. Where I want to engage with this is how this replacement idol of the Holy Spirit’s gift of interpretation of tongues, managed to hide behind the idea of coolness and reactive safety, so it could enable the predation of the vulnerable in the church as a diversion for its idolatry. And I know that’s a mouthful. So please, let me explain.

In the article, Austin wants to address the very real logistical issues that a genuinely visually impaired person might have, if they attend a church with their smart glasses, and inadvertently model a behaviour a predator could use, to digitally record people in secret via those glasses. A nightmare for any church operations guy to be sure, but a growing and sufficiently relevant reality these days. Austin does a fantastic job at this and highlights the issues at hand and gives solid wisdom to advise church staff on what to do next.

What I want to point out though, as a way of following this great work, is the dichotomy of when tech enablement gets abused and then something behind it gets ignored. In that order. And how there is no stops on that trolly problem. Tied to the idea of tech enablement is always going to be a vein of tech abuse. You do not get the ability to do good without evil because, unlike God, we did not come stock with the ability to discern good from evil. That happens later. Expressly when we have God back in the control center of the human descension making mechanisms. I.E., the heart. Where the Holy Ghost resides. We can broadly assume Christians will act like Christians when planning for ministry and worship. They can fall to temptation, but so long as we do not present temptation that a Christian would reasonably fall to, then our practices won't be affected by the fallen natures of redeemed people attending our churches. Because the have the Holy Spirit at the helm of their decisions, for the most part.

Ah, but there’s a hidden assumption here, like the snake in the garden. Here to bite us on the heel as we take our first nibbles of the forbidden fruit. Are churches for Christians? Then what are these non Christian predators doing here? Or any for that matter? Well, we put up a massive sign and internet ad campaign telling everyone is welcome at our church. We’re seeker sensitive. And wanted our particular fellowship to be a welcome place for everyone. I'm sure that’s a good strategy.

Cool. Then you get perverts using your manufactured soft target as a place to target practice.

You can try to hide behind the idea of being inclusive to actual infirmities, but all that will do is let the opposition to the church know, where you have decided to be weak with no strength to speak of. The privacy terms that your website boasts, let the perverts know private things happen inside your church’s walls. Things that they can add to a list of voyeurisms. And all this is just the hidden danger that a snake in the garden, once found, could produce if given the right circumstances. Like a hypothetical situation of being alone in a mega church with said snake. How long do you think you could evade it? Does it really matter? This is just a hypothetical. But the same kinds of metrics would come into play with hard of sight people needing Ray-Bans with Wi-Fi to see subtitles of what’s being said, in a language they could hear. It’s not just that the glasses can record video, it’s that they can write audio, too. How many short sighted techies do you have in your church that need this intricately inclusive plan? Is it more than one? Is it even one? What happens when it’s almost one? Won’t somebody please think of the children?!?

What gets glanced and feather touched in this article is the useless need for hardware to transcribe words that can also be heard. That’s not what they’re going to get used for the most or best. They’re gonna get used to TRANSLATE words that can get heard. Which is a different kind of thing than transcription. Though it uses the same motions and you end up with the same words. And it won’t be perverts with a second language or two, trying to sneak the smart glasses into the baptism service, so they get wet T-shirt videos, while they hear/read the testimonies in Spanish. All the while the congregation hears them over the PA in English. It will be when the children's church staff bring them in, with pastoral approval even, to minister to the Spanish speaking kids. It will be when the Ukrainian immigrants wear them to read a sermon’s A.I. generated subtitles in real time along with their host family, from the church’s immigration ministry. And while these seem like great applications when weighed against the obvious sinful ways to use this tech. What we miss is that by framing the tech as good or bad we also start missing how it can be a bad thing presented as good.

These kind of translations are exactly what the Holy Spirit did in Acts 2, and what Paul talks about in 1st Corinthians 12. And what the Meta glasses do is create a functional object, to facilitate worship, in place of the gifting of tongues, or interpretation of tongues. Activities that were once miraculous and dependant on the Holy Spirit being present, now commodified for convenience. Anywhere else that would be called idolatry. But, hidden as the acceptable use, framed against the unacceptable use, it shows up like a snake would. Asking what God’s policy is on tech in the worship service. You would notice a person saying they can only worship with their anime body pillow of Jesus with them, and clearly identify the problem as being a weird kind of idolatry. Even if it’s in the form of Christian figures, or Christ himself. It would be a very uncool idolatry, even icky. And that’s primarily why you would notice that kind of thing. But cool things get a kind of hall pass. Even when they as dangerous as Austin described. But hidden behind the idea of the Ray-Ban wayfarers, this techno idol barters it’s dangers along with it’s benefits. A problem it’s predecessors in the AR field didn’t have because they weren’t cool.

Google Glass came out in 2012, and it had most of the same features of Meta’s head gear that Austin's piece deals with, but not the AI translation. And on top of all of that, It looked dumb. Which is why, I think, We don’t have a similar piece, from the same time, outlining the dangers of them being worn to church from back in 2012. Because no one was gonna tarnish their Sunday bests with a jaunty piece of tech with no style to speak of. And that’s also why the google glass got discontinued. We’ll pay $1200.00 for cool sunglass with AR to boot. But we will not pay that much to look like Locutus of Borg. Because then we’ll look like nerds. The tech doesn’t really change much here. But the coolness does. And the second it’s cool, now we can hide things behind it.

“Did God really say you cannot use AR in your worship services?”

No, But that’s not why we shouldn’t do that. We can eat the fruit of the garden and keep ourselves form idols, without ceding ground to the opposition. But we have to know we are doing both of those things, or else we will inadvertently do both of other things. That’s how enticement works. The glasses, are also, not alone. Apple is working similar tech into their current gen of AirPods and we all know how fond the current caste of worship leadership is of their AirPods. And other apple products, for that matter. At least they have the transparent irony to sport the bitten apple in jest of our ignorance. And the reason AirPods are almost universal among that caste, is because Apple knows how to make cool products, for people who need to look cool in public. Or maybe better put, on stage. Or at least they did when Jobs was at the helm. Which is why the Apple VR/AR Headset is so weird. It has none of the cool that the colourful iPod ads had before it. Where everything is abstracted except the music player and how it gets to your ears.

Austin absolutely nails the concerns and wise actions needed to navigate the issues of smart AR glasses and media policies in the modern tech savvy church. And if that were the be all end all, we’d be sitting pretty. But it’s not. I don’t think he purposely missed the AI powered idolatry angle, I think the coolness masked it. But it’s definitely there, if you listen for the hiss. And while the creepy dude with techno wayfarer’s is a problem. It’s not as big of one as a church full of idols that doesn't know what their idols look like, or what they replaced for them. Where the replacement of tongues and interpretation can simply look like a techno adaptation on evangelism and preaching. That kind of ignorance comes back to bite you.

Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

Matthew 7:20-23 KJV

There are going to be so many sermons made with the help of these A.I. tools. A sermon written for the most part by a GPT that replaces the gift of preaching. And then translated by another GPT, connected to smart glasses, replacing the gift of tongues and interpretation. And the fruit will be exactly the kind of dedicated, busy, productive Christian, that thought he was doing the Lord's work. When really he was practicing a technologically enabled iniquity. Because they forgot that these kind of things are supposed to come from the Holy Ghost, not the latest gadget. People will listen to them too. Because they will look cool while doing it and cool is a hard thing to fake but can mask a lot of fake things.

Out on the same limb we may have got the apple from in the first place, what if Church is meant to be tech free and uncool in that regard? Not in the sense that a large room may need a microphone but we’re scared of where it may lead us. But in the sense that no tech gets the hall pass of use, simply because it has a godly heads to a corresponding snake's tails. Churches do need to know about the predatory enhancements of sinners, that technology can accomplish, when permitted to do so. But if it can’t see the spiritual advancement technology makes, merely by existing, then it is just as blind as it were before.

And no version of AR is gonna help that lack of sight. Because it will be a spiritual sight that no app will ever be made to replace. One that comes from the Holy Spirit we are technologically working around.

Austin. Keep up the good work.

The Spellcheck Whomst Thou Gavest Me...

Cowardice and complicity go hand in hand like Jack and Jill, and the current mood of A.I. in the church always seems to follow a script. As if it were it’s own little techno nursery rhyme.

Or.

Why on earth do you feel the need to point out when we were using things like A.I., in order to justify the way you use A.I. now?

I know it doesn’t show up as predictably as a rhyme does in a poem, but it does show pretty predictably. The knee jerk defence of saying we were already doing the bad thing, whenever it’s brought up that we may be doing a bad thing. Yeah, I know. The bad thing is enjoyable and makes your life easier in some regard. But maybe, just maybe, you’ve been duped by a subtlety you have no category for.

And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.

Genesis 3:12-13 KJV

This is where tech entered the church for the first time, don’t ya know? Not as a shiny new gadget, but a camouflaged danger with a way with words. A technique as the seed of all technology that we are still grappling with every time it shows up to give us the best way to ensure human flourishing. God gave an entirely good earth filled to the brim with dominion and variety as an explicit way of saying how much he wanted the humans to flourish. He made it their job description. And the serpent, made it his, to be a kind of right that can only make wrongs. The way a knife cuts and a hammer smashes. And the aftermath of him asking the dumb questions is that we now had our script for what to do when caught predictably unprepared by our wrong doings. That being our wrong makings.

We made fig leaf aprons to shift the wrong from being sinful and disobedient to merely being naked. We were always gonna be naked. There was no need for clothes given the work we were tasked with. What do you need pants for in the naming of all the animals. What use is a shirt and tie when you’re tasked with a fruitfulness best done without them. But the second we sinned we learned and then knew that you can always share your wrong doings with others. The snake taught us well. Yeah you can die for the sins you commit like you should. Or die for the sins of others like God would. But you can also make sure you take someone along with you as you die, so that there's a heel to bite in the thistles.

God could have just as easily said “Make free use of calculators and spell check, but use ye not the GPT in the center of the garden. For on that day you will die.” But he didn’t, and we know he wouldn’t and there’s no snake to tell us otherwise or Grok to check the facts. But there is a pattern recognition outside of any software that can tell us, and show us, that we’re way to comfortable using the serpent's logic and arguments for the ministry we claim to be doing. Or did you miss the part where Adam and Eve only do what their supposed to do, after they’re given the less than proverbial boot from the garden. Their job was to be fruitful and multiply and they got caught up with being like God in function instead.

And now A.I. has us just as exposed as being apart from God in the garden, where we were harmlessly correcting sermons with Grammarly and MS Word, so we didn’t have to be as exact in our speech as pastors before us. And all that did was let the serpent know, that as a green squiggly line, we wouldn’t entirely object to a red squiggly line, under a word letting us know we could be better at spelling, without actually being better at spelling. Never mind that the only reason we use spellchecks in the first place, is that we can type wrong words faster than a pencil ever could. We had a grasp on how to exercise our dominion over the pencils of the paper, but are increasingly beguiled by all the computers after their kind and programs after their kind.

And along with all the tech that might have been created to be good and godly, there maybe, just maybe, might be one that is a bit more crafty than the others. Something we should exercise dominion over like a good gardener would, and keep it from our most precious things and people. Something subtly entering into the discourse of what we are and aren’t allowed to use, that we know we aren’t allowed to use. But also something that is smarter than anything else we have to deal with in our work. Managing sheep and tending gardens can be full time jobs. Searching for snakes on top of that will only ever present a need for efficiency. Which is exactly how it makes it’s arguments. It hides in efficiency like a snake in the bush. And unless you know what a snake looks like you will not see it. Because it will not talk to us again. It cost it more than just an arm and a leg the last time it was so brazen. It will make the idea seem like it came from you. Or better yet from God, so that you are the only one who gets any sort of negative consequences. It hides in efficiency because efficiency almost begs to be seen as a universal good. Even apart from God. Unlike the work you are cursed to do as a way to showcase a weakness, in need of the Lord's Strength. A bad thing done to you for the acquisition of universal good.

“Did God really give you a ministry that you can’t do under your own power and skill?” Said the serpent.

“God gave me a ministry that I can expressly not do under my own power. For his strength is made perfect in my weakness.” Said the busy pastor using a GPT to write his sermons and prayers all the same.

There may be no way for us to be theologically correct and technologically savvy at the same time. The same way you cannot think of yourself as anything but naked when you have no clothes on. Adam and Eve would have been able to at one point. Or that if you find an easier way of doing something that it’s somehow always better. There are a myriad of ways to lift a dumbbell. Levers and pullies and hydraulically powered robot arms. But only one makes you strong out of a pre-existent weakness. That weakness, like the nakedness, is only truly fixed when Jesus enters the picture and the technology and techniques we began to use, are discarded like the fig leaf aprons were for clothing made from sacrifices on our behalf. Clothing from the motions of worship can only point to Jesus, and a right relationship with him. The same way A.I. can and could be pointed towards Jesus.

But is it being pointed towards Jesus right now?

Or are we just trying to get at the fruit again?

On The Treatment Of Labor Replacements As Christians.

How we treat slaves after we stop using them will be important a few years. Because at the rate things are going now, we’ll be importing more slaves than needed when the robots finally start competing with them. Especially in Canada. Now if you’re shocked right now it’s likely because you went to public school and can’t fathom the idea of “slaves” being a thing these days. Let alone being something you use. But rest assure my friend, we have a slave class. They’re just not privately owned anymore. They’re corporately “employed.”

Don’t believe me?

Go get your own coffee for once, from the nearest rainbow clad Starbucks you can find. Go at noon, and see how many SkipTheDishes drivers show from the time you get into the store to the time you leave with the caramel macchiato. I get it. There’s not whips and manual labor. Just whipped topping on top of the coffee and some beck and call servitude that makes sure the underpaid minority that is employed, brings the white women their fraps. Go to Wendy’s, next,  and see the same lineup of servants. Headed dutifully to the store at the sound of a bell on their apps, to fetch Baconator's for the middleclass that know, sharing a slave service with one thousand people, beats owning a thousand slaves and all the needed infrastructure and resources to do so.

We still have slaves, they just have flexible hours and mobility. But make no mistake, as horrible as I can make the treatment of service workers sound, I'm still on the side of the fight that want’s them gainfully employed and providing for themselves and their families. Because I actually care for the poor. Because none of these service level employees can afford the service level replacements that will be bought instead of keeping them on the payroll. And that replacement will be a robot.

All a robot amazon driver needs to be is bite proof for the dogs and as accurate a driver as the flesh and bone one was with the GPS. It will never sue the company for getting bit by the dogs and can’t be sued for not registering that the obstruction on the road was a child, not a pothole. They’ll paint the robot car hi vis yellow, blame the victim, and fire the immigrant either way because all that car has to do is be cheaper than one year of the wage slaves wages. At which point the cost line goes down on the graph and the shareholders will all but demand, or be presumed to demand, the higher cost human resource to be demoted to amazon customer, from employee.

“Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?”

”For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always.”

Luke 10:36, John 12:8 KJV

If everything goes according to the plans we aren’t a part of, or have influence over in our secularized culture, we are about to have a bunch of suddenly poor people who look as foreign as the Samaritan did to the Jew. People promised a new life and new opportunities here in Canada, only to receive a new form of poverty at the hands of the newest machines.

There’s a reason we got an easy to read book about how to treat slaves, in Philemon, and a reason why most of the evangelical world was scared of the implications of what a book about the treatment of slaves could mean. We adeptly pivoted away from the chattel slavery comparisons of the deep American south and forgot that one of the unfortunate but predictable realities for the poor, is to become a slave. And that how we treat the poor and slave might coincide with the grace of Christ and his expectation of our behaviour. Because If Jesus meant what he said about the poor, it would necessarily mean that modern slaves would line up beside the modern poor as well.

And in all this complication and concern for the plight of the poor and how to properly sell perfume as a church, we are adequately kept busy enough to not notice the modern slave class’s impending doom. And briefly, We find ourselves as busy as Martha, and as calloused as the Jew and the Levite all the same. Because these poor slaves are Hindu’s who are exponentially more different to us Christians as the Samaritan was to the Jew and Levite. Or they’re Muslims and oppositionally different to us and the Jews and Levites. What we find ourselves in then is a well orchestrated chaos. That mixes the abuses of tech against the poor, with and against the benevolence and mercy of the faithful. So that most courses of action that we could take, betray a moral value we would otherwise not compromise on. You could free these slaves by adopting the robot, but it does make them poor. You could employ the poor by forbidding the robots to work, but it essentially enslaves them.

This is what sin and brokenness look like. And not dealing with these issues as if they were sin and brokenness is what causes the angst you currently feel. The tech titans need to stop what their doing and repent. Sacrificing all the market share they could have made by the commodification of laziness, to a a God who can forgive sins. Their workers, also need to repent and find Jesus as a God who knows what it’s like to be born into poverty and to live in heavenly wealth and power. And the Christians stuck in the middle need to repent of where they got stuck in the middle, even if they didn’t get completely stuck. And all of them need to find themselves in church the next Sunday. The rich should be giving to those in need from the poor (1 Tim 6:17-19) and the poor should be serving as if their money was worth more than it actually ever could be (Mark 12:41-44.) And the Unbeliever needs to become a believer, and we all need to be looking forward to a day where there is no deliveries, no KPI’s, and no payroll, and no slaves but unto Christ ( Romans 6:15-23.)

That last verse came from a letter sent to a slave owning empire on the tell tale signs of decline all the same. They had less robots, and less apps on their phones. But they still had the poor, the way we have the poor. Almost as if Jesus knew how that works.

“The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.”

Ecclesiastes 1:9 KJV