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.
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