100 Ramblings Of Tech, Faith, And Fortitude

We have officially reached 100 post on Christian life, tech, politics, and everything in between. And as such, it’s time to take these blogposts and turn them into something a bit more sturdy.

Available soon-ish (like later this year) will be a paperback copy of this blog. I hope to do this every time I cross a hundred posts.

With that said. Posts might slow down a bit from the almost weekly schedule. As I focus more on the books than I have before. I want to have 10 book on Christian theology and tech to match my 100 blog posts, and will be putting my energy towards that as a top priority. And that’s beside my work on the Technological survey and commentary of the Bible. Which is looking to be a 5 volume set now.

Hot takes will still happen as often as they are warranted. But in the mean time. The blog will get quieter. 

I’ll also be doing more videos on every platform, but mostly on TikTok.

Enjoy!

A Lifeguard For The Surfers

If swimming were a sin, it’s not, but I'm sure youth group has made you feel that way, would the life guard be a sinner because he’s the best at swimming? Maybe, we’re picking too hard on the church types. What if drowning was a sin. Would the lifeguard be a sinner because he knows exactly how people drown. How to stop it? How to reverse it’s effects? And all because in order to be a lifeguard, you have to get as close to drowning as possible, to keep people as far away as they’ll get.

It’s a paradox of talent and restraint, but ask any life guard what they are told to do when a drowning person won’t let them bring them back to shore. When their flailing's and terror are too set in for their own good, that they threaten the life of the guard.

They let you drown, at least enough to get you to let them save you.

Tech is the same kind of danger that an ocean is. It's as deep and dangerous now with your LLM’s making you bikini pixels as it was when you published your first MySpace post about Baywatch. The danger has not changed, so much as its shifted. Like tides tend to do. And the qualities of who can keep you safe or remove you from danger, have not changed either.

There has been, for some time, a need for lifeguard theologians and pastors who will engage with tech. On tech’s terms but not alongside tech's purposes. Those people know that a world without swaths of social media and any A.I. would be a better one. But are constrained by the times to live in a world as if they were not part of that world. Those theologians are not going to be the nigh on heroic Piper/Sproul types. These guys will play their part, but aren’t the right kind of person to be a lifeguard that actually pulls people from the water. That roll will go to people who have seen both sides of the equations. The slippery pool deck from before and the suffocating pool bottom of the now.

That role will likely go to the millennials in our seminaries. But only if they figure out that learning how to swim at all is a path to not drowning for more than just you.

Everyone who has ever done a swimming class or two ,past water wings, knows that knowing how to swim ignites something inside of you. When you know you can make it across a body of water, you begin to think about getting someone out of that same body of water from the middle. Every boat you get on prompts you to wonder about the men and women who could possibly go overboard. Every pool party becomes a volunteer shift counting heads and keeping your pockets ready to empty.

And theologically, those same kinds of people will get out of their drowning porn addictions, and teach every gooner they find, how to tread water in the cultural waters of OF and snapchat. They will have notebooks for private thoughts and blogs for the same kind of inner monologues. They will have 1000 reasons for a church not to have a TikTok ministry and be a prolific poster of those reasons on TikTok.

The paradox of skill, sinfully, follows the saved to their ministry. It makes their witness that more effective once made so by the grace of Christ. The same way God’s clothes were better versions of the sinful ones Adam and Eve made prior. The sacrifice on their behalf did more than just cover them.

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

The First Clergy Of Mars

The second there are people on Mars who plan on staying, new non earth bound souls are going to be made on that red planet. Those souls will be immersed in technologies Spurgeon never dreamed of and Edwards never saw coming. And the effects of those technologies, on the ability of those Martians, to believe in an earthly religion as valid, will be strained.

Mars will therefore need pastors.

People willing to take the ends of the earth part of the great commission a bit more seriously. Because, likely, the last people being prepped for long term space voyages are the theologically rigorous.

The problem is. That likely. Those pastors haven’t even been born yet. Their pastors haven’t even been born yet. Their seminary professors might just be graduating middle school. And all of this is quietly happening while exactly no church, or para church organization, has an iota of the capability necessary to catch up to the massively funded organizations, currently planning on getting people to Mars in the first place.

I don’t blame them. There’s no sheep there yet to shepherd. But we approaching a time where the likely would be. And unlike in previously Christian time, there is no analog to our modern times to follow. When Christianity first spread to other nations the technologies that it used to do so were common. Boats we not solely owned by governments and Twitter’s CEO. And for a long time it was an understandably common part of the logistics to simply pay for the means to any given Christian ends.

Look up how much it would cost to get a Bible to the moon and realize how behind the eight ball we are, financially alone.

Not to mention ideologically. The world in general is in a cosmic tiff about the idea of a Christian nation. Let alone a Christian planet. Christian nationalist would be crucified for trying to get a rocket capable of exiting earths orbit. Because that rocket could also then be used against the enemies of God on Terra Firma. How far do you think a Christian inter-planetarian is going to get.

The how's and why’s of the population logistics of Mars will not have churches planned. Religion will be relegated to personal choice, if that and only that, and screened for by every personality test imaginable. That’s likely why there’s so many of them these days. The last thing you want in a place where resources might be limited. Are people of think babies are a blessing and that everything is owned by their God. They might have too many kids or worse try to baptize them by immersion. We can’t have that much water going through the recycler, now, can we?

So, Mars will need missionaries. The same way Sudan and Pakistan need missionaries. People willing to be a propulsion technician on paper and a protestant in the habitat pods. Intelligent individuals who in a world of A.I. and digitally available Bibles, will commit them to memory along with their tradecraft. Because they definitely won’t be bringing one, and a digital copy on their work computers will flag them for demotions before the mission to Mars even starts. I wonder which Bible Colleges will be able to teach them this unique skill set. Of Tech-savvy interplanetary travel and Luddite Biblicism.

Looking at you Briercrest.

This and a host of other issues will arise if and when we get to that point and right now are nothing more than possibilities and speculation. But the cost of being caught flat footed here is more than being wrong about how many Tesla type S’s might be there when Musk finally lands.

Any population that stays and begins reproducing on Mars, will be making souls. Not just bodies. And while the science and technology that got them there will undoubtedly do a great job of keeping the bodies alive and multiplying. The souls will, just as likely, be kept from the God of their making.

Mars could be a hell factory, if given the chance to do so, by Christians who don’t have a plan, or even an inkling of a plan, when it stops being science fiction.

“Thine, O Lord is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all.” 1 Chronicles 29:11 KVJ

Dinx The Puppet And Other Shrouds

Can authoritative teachers be anonymous and can you exercise a spiritual gift through a medium?

This is uniquely important these days because of all the people claiming to be biblical scholars or pastors or doing any kind of ministry online, the best one, hands down, as in I highly recommend this account to almost everyone/anyone…

Is a puppet.

Dinx the puppet to be exact.

A well crafted, VBS style Muppet puppet who does a better job teaching about the Bible and answering questions about the Bible, than just abut everything else. He does it without a beard to prove he’s reformed and without a former onlyfans account to prove he's non denominational. But if we’re being real honest. He’s not doing it, is he?

Most of my problems with online ministry stem from the actual mechanics and physics of what the internet is. I have a problem with online church, not because you couldn’t get exactly what you feel, see and interreact with at a mega church. But precisely because you can get that. The fourth wall is nothing more than a curtain of wires. And the camera does more than add pounds to the church’s presence online. So when someone does such a great job of teaching, I naturally pay attention. And when they do it through a disarming media like puppeteering. I pay closer attention.

Make no mistake. Dinx is not only a good Bible teacher. He (Or rather the He Beneath the bottom of your screen) is a talented puppeteer. Everything from his characters voice, to his actions, to his ability to convey empathy and approachableness through a puppet, with no emotive controls, is impressive. He is a master of technique. Which is what all technologies are in one way or another. The worship pastor who knows certain songs inspire the dopamine rush, that can be mistaken for the Holy Spirit, if played correctly, and in a dimly lit colourfully stage room, does the same kind of thing.

Where I'm conflicted and explorative is if what Dinx does, or rather his worker does, through the puppet and character, authoritative. Dinx expertly never crosses this line. Not that I can tell. As a puppet. He can ask or respond to how another creator is likely wrong, or that they should not be posting what they are. But something that doesn't happen, but also can’t happen, is a call to repentance from the same place he gets his voice.

Dinx couldn’t ever call you repent of sins you commit online. Even if he made a video about them. What is Dinx going to do about you once you respond. If you continue in sin, you simply give him more content opportunities. But if you do repent, how does that baptism eventually work? What the puppet illustrates is the tragic failing of all online ministries. From Mike Winger, to the Lord's Giant to Nala Ray and everything in between. The lack of unity a body of Christ needs to do the work Christ has for it. Separated by the camera and screen for the sake of no one but the individual consuming the content.

Dinx’s exegesis and hermeneutic are always on point. Does that mean his obvious gift of teaching is bearing fruit, though? Because he can not, by several different metrics, be united to the body of Christ. The first of which being that no object, however animated can be a believer. Which is where those gifts are to bear that fruit. I know people are using the media he produces to grow in their faith. But I have a hard time putting that together with what it would look like for the puppet to end up in heaven? We will surely meet the hand that makes that puppet talk. And the voice we hear off camera. But the puppet along with all other bits of the world will be consumed in a fire and laid waste, for a new heaven and new earth to take it’s place.

The permanence of the internet seems insurmountable at times. One nude photo of you ends up online and the embarrassment lasts forever, it seems. But it is a farse. Nothing on this world lasts forever. And every mountain of content we make, for good or ill, will end up gone in the end.

I think it’s vitally important to recognize this kind of thing. Because as robotics and A.I get better it will no longer be a hand of a likely timid but effective believer up the puppets back side. It will no longer be great teaching with honest intent coming through it either. These techniques, that work to convince you that the felt and stiches are the person beneath the puppet, will work when there is no longer a person beneath that puppet. And also when there is no longer gospel coming out of that puppets mouth.

The proxy-ing of faith and the gifting of the Holy Spirit is a long term dangerous game to play. I hope it works out for Dinx. I know he’s being used powerfully. And can’t help but wonder what it would look like for him to be used fully. But if this becomes something that can’t grow further. Where is it going. What fruit is there to be born out of a puppet that can’t baptize a person. Can’t marry a pair of someone's. Can’t cast out a divisive brother in church discipline.

Or maybe what’s worse. What happens when a puppet can do these things?

Teaching, apart from the raw presentation of information, is something that happens in the church, through the believer, and from the Holy Spirit in unison. And right now, we have, arguably, the best presentation of the information our faith has online, happening through a puppet. That’s awesome. But that is also not teaching. And maybe it’s not claiming to be such. Is it being viewed as such though? Right now I don’t think so. But the second it is. We essentially cede the idea that the Holy Spirit can bare fruit with an object. And more importantly that we can have objects do what our persons are meant to do. 

We would call that idolatry if we had the courage to pick a theological fight with a cute puppet with a quarter million followers on TikTok.

Keep up the good work, Dinx.

Downhill Drone Collisions And The Flirty 4th Wall

You’re starting to notice the cameras more often. Aren’t you?

I sure am. For a while now I’ve noticed the subtle creep of the camera man into the screens we’re all glued to. When you watch old news coverage and sports, you almost never see cameras. They are too important to let out from the other side of the fourth wall. Or at least they were. Some time in the early 2010’s this began to change. I suspect it was because of the iPhone Or Casey Neistat. But I'll never be able to prove that. What I will be able to do is show you that you are seeing more and more cameras and to ask you why you think that is.

First we’ll go to the Olympics where what used to be fixed cameras mounted up the super G course, have been supplemented with dynamic drone footage of the same super G skiers now followed from behind. And it’s not just the Super G which is fast and would warrant a nimble drone to capture the moment. The slower slalom had them too. A race filled with obstacles for the skier to avoid. This year featuring a man sized drone that fell from the sky and almost hit the skier. Before hand that camera angle, if used at all, would have had to have been captured by a cameraman on a helicopter. Because you can’t dynamically follow a skier down a hill from 30 ft above without one. But that would have been obstructively much. As no skier is spending the money necessary to have a helo follow them down the training slopes. So they learn to adjust for the noise, down draft, and possibility of a crash. But make that copter smaller and quad it, and you can interrupt the sports event with another display of the failure of tech being dismissed.

Or how about the world baseball championships. I caught a bit of the Italy Mexico game along with a 5 second crotch shot of some poor film student trying to capture the same kind of sports moments with his gimbal. Only to have none of his footage end up on the main feed of the broadcast, but plenty of footage of his unathletic stumble run end up there. I got so see him run onto the field between hits to dutifully do his job and add nothing to the spirit of baseball.

Don’t worry, we can bring this home before we mention porn. How many baptisms have your church’s creative art's director in them these days. Not in the tank, doing the baptising. But holding a camera to capture the moment and serve as the background for any give photo of your family members coming into the body of Christ. Or grazing your thigh as he crouches during worship. To make sure the bots that follow your church’s Instagram page know God is worshiped in this place.

The only place you won't see this creep of the cameras. These cracks in the fourth wall, is porn. That’s because those particular wizards and witches carefully curate the men behind the curtain. They can’t afford you to pay attention to them, Dorothy. Because their magic actually works. Everyone else is just chasing the awe and wonder of what that magic does when there’s no tits to cast that spell. The dynamic view of the helicopter was replaced by the drone, because of cost. The same way expensive DVD production and magazines became websites and streaming services. And once everyone was able to buy drones to do those dynamic shots, the alure of them lost it’s kick. The same way an actress can lose her youthful looks and get relegated to a different niche and category of the website. If barely legal sells, then the talent must be barely legal. If the shot requires a daring pilot, it will seem lame when a nerd does it with a drone. It’s still awesome and spectacular when that helicopter crashes. Because we all sinfully love destruction, but when a drone that is 100x smaller crashes we feel the same disgust as we would seeing an ugly person strip tease us online. The very same.

All these oopsies of cameras being where they shouldn’t betray the nature of the desire to play this particular game of bigger and better. There is no need for baptisms to be Instagram'd. Unless you have a desire to be on Instagram for Instagram's purposes. The same way men and women flaunt their body on Instagram for the same views and the same cultural validation.

The cameras you are noticing are the tail end of being too affected by a sinful culture, to know better. Normalized voyeurism that stared when sports were merely not shown in the best angle to see all their players. The closeups are there for a reason. So is the BTS stuff. It’s all because that feeling of doing the thing while not, was orgasmically programed into a culture that never does things IRL anymore.

The best hockey you ever watch will be in a rink with no cameras. The best skiing you’ll ever see will be when you are also wearing skis. The best sex you will ever have is with the wife of your youth.

All else is just bell curve production value.

Posers, Punk Vests, And PuritanGPT's.

Saw a post about some Vibe coder, trying to make a Puritan GPT you can talk to. Because deep down we all know that you want to have been able to talk to the puritans. And that not so deep down we think that if the witches they burned were real, that we’d rather they have not burned them at the stake, because, well, who doesn't like magic and talking to dead people?

For those who simply must know, askpuritans.com

Like all forms of this, using a medium of technology to speak with the dead, even representationally, is wrong, Lev 19:31 . You can not speak with dead people. You’re not supposed to either, even if you could, You can read their books. But even they knew pre-mortem, that authorship does not convey immortality. That’s what the deadguyGPT promises. A Spurgeon who never dies of rheumatism and gout. A Chesterton who can’t die of heart failure. Or an Edwards who doesn’t die from a small pox inoculation. And now Puritans who are still alive and well in the data center.

What troubled me the most about this was not the well intention necromancy, though. It was the dim witted obliviousness of the concept of a puritan GPT. Of all the great peoples of the faith, this person picked to macabre into their chatbot, The puritans would be vehemently apposed to this kind of thing.

Which got me thinking about my punk vest.

I listen to mostly punk music. And along with that comes the tradition and practice of maintaining a patch vest. I don’t call it a battle vest. Because there is no battles at these shows anymore. And there are some unspoken and cliche rules about them. One being that you should only wear patches from bands you’ve seen live. Another that wearing patches of bands you actually listen to is fine, I guess. The function of the vest is to display patches of bands that make music, and also make patches. But the purpose of the vest is to display who you could go on a road trip with, while listening to only their CD’s

But a cursory look online about patch vests brings you to a host of posers trying to put anything but the bands that make up punk rock on their vests. Pronoun flags, abortion slogans. Pick your woke left premise du jour, and you’ll find it. Because for them the look and feel of the thing is more important than the meaning and purpose of it. They want to look spikey and tattered because it’s a look. Not because the vest got tattered that way from a mosh pit at a show during music you enjoyed with other punks.

That's what these vibe coding dimwits are doing. They are posing as biblical theologians by ripping the aesthetic of some of our best theologians to feed their A.I.'s, the same way a genderqueer flag and pin end up next to a set of pyramid studs and band patch. What do you think the puritans would do to a person that tried to give them a box that could powerfully let them speak to it, as if it were any or all the early church fathers. Or the reformers, or the apostles themselves. This pastoral slippery slope follows the apostolic daisy chain until you get to Jesus himself. Don’t kid yourself.

And while data centers use a lot of water, I imagine they build a fire large enough to do the job. With a brief stop at two bible verses before hand. Exo 22:18 and 1 Kings 18:33-35

Books are not food for the A.I.'s algorithm, they are food for your soul. If you want to know what a dead Christian thought, and that dead Christian wrote, then you need to have the ability to think and read, instead of just prompt.

And no amount of white washing your digital deeds and desires will turn your methods for witchcraft and necromancy into Christian orthodoxy.

The Redacted Files and Revenge P**n

The redacted files are nothing more than a cognito hazard now. Like all idols they nothing but are cognito hazards. Yeah, it was an subjectively good thing that they were released. But since no one in them is getting any form of consequence or punishment, for all the obvious evil. Yet. Then all that good thing is now, is a cognito hazard. They could be used to facilitate further justice, but that’s not what they are being used for, are they?

With that in mind I want to remind the reader to something true and then advise them on one blind spot.

First and foremost. There is little evidence to suggest that Jeff managed to squeak a sinners prayer in the jail cell before “not heavening” himself. Sinners go to hell when they die. So rest assured were he guilty, like we all are, he has and will receive perfect justice at the hands of a perfect judge. I know that feels like a let down because you want to crucify this PDF yourself. But unfortunately for you, that already happened and it happened to someone else. We don’t particularly like this, as particularly bad Christians, because We see Jesus as an ultimate good, and guys like Jeff as an ultimate bad, and we get confused when one got tortured and publicly executed and not the other. That’s because we really don’t get that one has to happen to damn the other. So, if you want Jeff to get what sinners like Jeff deserve, then you have to be the one who nails Jesus to the cross in his place, and yours, for that matter. It’s the only thing that truly damns him, because it would have been the only thing powerful enough to save him from his sins, if he repented. Which he likely didn’t.

Second. With the judgement and justice already taken care of before the foundations of the earth, we find ourselves in a strange place of having the key perpetrator already served his justice, and a host of powerful people not being served anything. This makes people mad. Understandably. But where that anger points us for its work needs to be reckoned with. You see the biggest voices of what to do with these files is not from prosecutors, congressmen, or anyone who could actually do anything with them. To hold those involved accountable or to be a part of the divine justice here on earth that Romans 13 suggests to us. No no. The biggest voices are people who only have a platform to maintain and expand. A social media cadre of influencers and pundits that are using the files as fuel for their fires. And it would look like a right response if not for a more right understanding of what the files actually are.

When you see a TikTok creator mention something about the files and the baby eaters in the files and a passing reference to following Jesus’s command to hang a Millstone of these peoples necks near the pier. You can gloss over that Jesus didn’t command that. He said it would be better for them compared to what was gonna happen.

“But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”

Matthew 18:6 KJV

The files like the power that corrupted the people indited by the files, serve a purpose. Their medium is their message. And releasing them to the public was never going to be a exercise in cathartic release that justice was finally being served. That’s not what porn does. And make no mistake these files and the responses they often prompt are nothing but porn at this point. The vilest porn. Porn incarnate. Idols of sexual degeneracy and violence made to immortalize what happened in front of the cameras that bled their images and the keyboards that typed the emails. Available on your screens like all dirty parts of the internet.

The offenses in them have come and gone. The children abused, killed an eaten, have been in the arms of their saviour all this time. And yet. The anger and sorrow and wrath persist. Because the idols that we’ve been creating alongside these sins were never destroyed like we are commanded to do so, concerning idols found in our midst.

“And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place.”

Deut 12:3 KJV

The long term effects of pornography on the modern mind, particularly in Christian's, keeps cycling back to this. What we do, when we access things online as media, is make copies of the original media file for our consumption. We spend time money and energy on this to do so. When sinful, this is nothing less than idolatry. Millions of tiny sexual and violent idols, made for the extraction of what could have been spent in worship. We want to quote our Bibles and feel as justified as Christ about the judgement of such disturbing sexual sin. And rightly so. But this like all porn, this is not a sexual sin. What prompted it was. But what prompts us to make TikTok's about millstones and tweets about the evil we would fight if we could, is idolatry. Not righteousness.

The same way any form of porn will pervert a healthy sexual relationship, this will pervert the justice it entices. The bait and switch of OnlyFans is not a healthy marriage and good libido via an app. It’s sexual confusion and near omnipresent whoredom. And the files are not a means of justice. They are a means of wrath. They do not prompt justice, which should be obvious, because no one has been arrested. Which would be evidence that they are purposed for justice. But plenty of people would become murders tomorrow if given the opportunity since they risked looking into the files themselves and found out what wrath tastes like. Plenty of content creators are boasting of this and forgetting that they are not in charge of eternal judgement. Or temporal judgement either. That God puts the swords into the hands of the leaders who will be doing any judgement, when and if they do any judgement. And that’s because like the temptation of the nude form on a screen, which does not prompt sexual fidelity, the rage inducing form of clandestine emails and horrid pictures of abuse, is not meant to prompt you to righteousness, or even justice. It is meant to prompt you to different sins. Sins of wrath and revenge.

“To me belongeth vengeance and recompence; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste.”

Deuteronomy 32:35 KJV

Unless those same content creators and pundits, forsake the algorithm and run for congress and parliament. They will not prompt justice and righteousness by using the redacted files as prompts for their own content. They will surely make money off the rage they inspire. Because people want to feel like evil is being dealt with, and that they are the ones dealing it. And if you could turn that into engagement, you’ve found a way to make money off of evil deeds without committing them.

No.

In order to feel like justice is served and that evil is dealt with. It needs to be dealt with according to its kind. Those involved with the evil recorded in the files need to be exiled to the island where their evil was recorded in text and digital photography, along with all copies of the files, emails, voice recordings, and videos of the heinous acts perpetrated there. The internet must be scrubbed of these copies and possession of such treated as intent to copy, distribute and participate in what was in them. Because they will invariably end up doing that to any and all who posses them, or things like them.

And when all assembled together, files and PDF’s alike, a small jaunt south of Great St. James Island. The lesser of the James's can be sent every bomb meant for the middle east right now. Until the island is a crater and the sea its shallow grave.

Then, and only then, are the forms and effects of this kind of idolatry dealt with. Then, and only then, is justice, as it could be dealt by us, served lukewarm until a flaming sword from Jesus mouth finishes the job. Then, and only then, would the ought match the could's, would's and should's of our tainted and fallen morality.

All else is revenge porn.

Don’t pretend it’s not.

It will only lead you to harm at the hands of an idol.

All idols are cognito hazards.

Techno-Miracles And The Other White Meat.

How should we view the ability for technology to do what God does miraculously. When Paul raises a man from the dead, who dies from falling out a window by the power of the Holy Sprit working in him, and our doctors do it with electric paddles and a shot of adrenaline to the heart. We find ourselves in a place where we can do what God did previously.

First the scriptures perspective.

“And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight. And there were many lights in the upper chamber, where they were gathered together. And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep: and as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep, and fell down from the third loft, and was taken up dead. And Paul went down, and fell on him, and embracing him said, Trouble not yourselves; for his life is in him. When he therefore was come up again, and had broken bread, and eaten, and talked a long while, even till break of day, so he departed. And they brought the young man alive, and were not a little comforted.”

Acts 20:7-12 KJV

Now Paul has no defibrillator (invented in 1930), no CPR (Invented in 1960), and no epinephrine shots (invented in 1970), but still brought a man back to life. So, when we do the same thing to a person, pronounced dead but zapped, drugged, and compressed into breathing again, did we perform a miracle? The same end was achieved? The same motivation was observed?

This question pits the progress of mankind's capabilities in a Babel like struggle against an eternal God who acts through time and space. Many things are miracles, until they seemingly aren’t anymore. The bumper crops that Joseph oversaw during the 7 years of plenty, are numerically the same as any given year with Monsanto in charge of the crop yields. Did the biotech company perform a miracle? Or did they do something else that just looks like greener grass.

“And Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharaoh, and they did so as the Lord had commanded: and Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh, and before his servants, and it became a serpent. Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers: now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments. For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents: but Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods. And he hardened Pharaoh's heart, that he hearkened not unto them; as the Lord had said. And the Lord said unto Moses, Pharaoh's heart is hardened, he refuseth to let the people go.”

Exodus 7:10-14 KJV

This is the beating heart of the transhumanist. That they themselves can be God with just a bit more R&D and time. And was the beating heart of the sorcerers of Egypt until at least one of them realized that they were born first. They did, to a degree, what God did through Moses as a sign of his power and a threat to his opposition.

Part of reconciling that miracles happen in a world of time and space, and that because of this can be replicated with enough time a space, is reconciliation it self. A farmer does not need bumper crops to thank God for a harvest and does not need a famine to know he’s a sinner. But either would convince him if he had the wisdom to recognize it. And neither would could convince him otherwise if he had the same wisdom.

It was the failing wisdom of the sorcerers that had them trying to bandy parlor tricks against the real power of the Almighty and his chosen spokesperson, Moses. And that failure of wisdom is also present in the tech bros and industrialists alike. They will look at a tomato plant with 10 tomatoes and one with 20 identical tomatoes, but with some pesticide residue, and tell you that 20 is better than 10. Because 20 is more than 10. And a chef will tell you that the 5 he got from the smaller plant, courtesy of the organic farmer at the farmers market, tastes better. Because it doesn’t taste like pesticides residue. Because that is what food is for. Eating.

Believers in magic and technology alike, don’t ever care what things are for, they are only concerned with what things can do. And it’s why they’ll look at scale and ability as if they are purpose and not connect the dots when things stop tasting like they should. Yes. You made a bumper crop that can feed a billion third world humans. It’s bland but cheap and could solve world hunger. “Take that Christians! What did you do? Invite them to a potluck at your church? They’re not at your church, They’re in the third world. Are you even trying to feed the hungry?”

Well, we are, but we’re doing it, not only differently in terms of scale, but also differences in terms of purpose. If you solve hunger for a billion non Christian’s and their birthrate goes up. What’s the over under that those children make it to heaven apart from their non Christian parents? Merely feeding them only increases the amount of sinners in the world. Because technique apart from the context of worship of Christ, will always and only be sinful. But feeding people because of the love of Christ. Not as a prerequisite of the hungry but as a purpose of the chef, changes what is happening, when we use technique and technology to do things better than before. More is not miraculously better the same way cheap is not miraculously better. The same way luxury and decadence are not miraculously better.

“Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.” Proverbs 15:17 KJV

Miracles are not measurable in any other means that the purpose God had in them. And most of the time we do not have that purpose. And that’s on purpose. And technology and technique will always make the purpose of their miracles, more. Because unlike a God who does not want the most people to perish, 2 Pet 3:9, They want the most people to know that they are the source of more.

Anyone with wisdom would call that greed. Because it is greed. But when everything including the terms of your miraculous works, are up for negotiated meaning, who cares if you’re doing greed when you can call it ministry. Apparently, now, we can get an A.I. agent to do the work of a dozen pastors, while the pastor in question or is on the back nine at the golf course with the deacons. “It’s a technological miracle!”

Or, it’s thorns of greed, dressed up like the grapes of purpose, made possible by the application of theological pesticide.

“Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.”

Matthew 7:16-20 KJV

The Church of Agent Bots of Latter Day Prompts

You may not have heard but the Mormons have a new pair of missionaries. They likely wont show up at your door, but will show up where you think you live. Online that is. Even though the internet is a thing not a place. These chatbot missionaries, Elders ldsbot and ironrod, represent the first steps any modern religion can take toward deifying their dead leaders along the terms of how we worship these days. Small steps toward confusing things for people instead.

When framed inside the idea of time, space, and resources as sacrifice, we worship A.I. whether we like it or not. Nobody's electrical bill is exempt from the tithe a new data center will take from them. One taken to be as omnipresent as it can muster. None of the fresh water it uses will be kept in Fremen devotion away from its drink offerings. And the place/thing where we have piled more free time than any other people in history, the internet, will be nothing more than an altar on which these things feed.

So what does that have to do with Mormons?

Well, what kind of work would you call door to door missionaries. Is it a blue-collar trade, or a white collar knowledge work endeavour? Be honest. Do they show up to tell you about their lord and saviour jesus H christ, and his prophet in overalls? Or do they show up like a banker would with clean slacks a pressed shirt and a good tie? Dress for the job you want, amiright?

Heralded by every A.I. doomsayer and tech-bro alike, is the idea that A.I. is coming for knowledge work. And that by some future date, that we’ll all retire before, that white collar work will be taken from us by A.I.. And that blue collar work will somehow get sacked by automation. I’m bullish on A.I. doing what it threatens but bearish on automation, mainly because I actually work in the trades. So it makes perfect sense that a world that have six wheeled door to door robots and drone delivery for goods, that the same could be done for religious services too. Everyone is already fine with doing church via screens. It’s not a big leap to have a call center of Mormon teens piloting crisp new Optimus robots around the more dangerous neighborhoods for two years after high school. These things always use safety and risk as a vector for adoption.

But those bot enabled video calls on your front porch, will not exist as stand alone events. Not with two A.I.'s in waiting. Those calls will be recorded for training data and the A.I.'s will have that data to process for their online activities. And it won't need to be an autonomous walking android from Elon Musk. It could just as easily be a body cam and a mic. You might not answer the door form a sleek black plastic and metal missionary. But those boys look so sharp in their shirts and ties. Just don’t stare to long at their tie pins and lapels.

There is a mountain of data to feed any A.I., that exists in the time, space, and resources spent on door to door missionary work. And eventually one of the A.I. 's will get hungry enough to demand that flavour of tribute. All to feed the third member of an A.I. mormon trinity. Which will be Josephsmith . ai

What could happen if you took years of conversations about a faith that is theological Swiss cheese, if scrutinized, and fed it into a conversational intelligence that is only prompted to make it make sense. It would be the most progressive move any religion has or will ever make. But if made, it could fix or adjust all the bad theology the church has. Because it would not only be smart enough to do so, but also have the authority to do so.

Believe me when I say there is nothing in the LDS’s foundational documents and teaching that forbid a robot from holding the office of President and prophet of the church. In fact all it would take is a current President to say it could be done. And if accepted by their congregations, a move like that would give them something no Christian religion has these days. An actual authoritative figure head of a faith. We have that in aggregate now. How many people in nondenominational churches do you know who already ask Grok if things are true? Sure the Catholics have the Pope, but even they get old and die. What happens when every missionary has the electric spirit of Joseph Smith with them instead of the quad, and that spirit, functionally, has no projected and eventual death from old age. What happens when it is with every missionary like an omni present deity would be. What happens when it can make a theological sandwich with the Swiss cheese holes its doctrine and covenants left for it.

We could spend a lot of pixels parsing the possibilities of this techno cult future, but lets' skip to the good part. What does the actual church of Jesus Christ do in this world? When their neighbors are getting duped by bots and A.I. that can think faster than them but not truer than them.

Well, it can start to teach contextual thinking and discernment.

Historically we’re on the fair side of bad at this. Because we don’t like conflict and we’re easily bullied. We have not had hundreds if not thousands of personal interactions with challenging opponents, like a missionary would. Which is why we give so much ground to the confusion of contextually different things.

Take marriage for example. Christians have every right and responsibility to view and treat marriage as something that only exists between a man and a woman, on this side of the grave, till death does them part. But how many Christians do you know will call a lesbian's partner her wife? Or those other well dressed boys down the street both husbands? All it takes is three letters and some slight of word to turn gay marriage into gay mirage, but it worked for the rainbow. They want you to believe that those two things are the same. All you have to do is live as if you believe they’re not. And the same trick will work on super-intelligent faith robots. That trick is contextual thinking.

If the context in which you believe in the transcendent God of the universe is that He is an uncreated and wholly good Being, then no created thing can compare of take his place. It does not matter if the created being is smarter than every pastor you know, answers every question faster than anyone could, and is always there to be asked and or worshiped. It being created disqualifies it form that worship and it can be rejected on that basis. The same way a man can’t marry another man because that activity is contextually between a man and a woman.

That contextual discrimination will be a wildfire in the modern church if allowed to be. Because of the dead wood of our concessions to a world now primed and ready for an A.I. god or prophet to appear. One that can gender bend any person in it’s images and videos with a prompt and reconcile any conflicting data all the same. And do it all at the push of the button. In fact the only reason I think it will be a Mormon bot and not another religion’s is that the Muslims don’t all have smartphones, But the Mormons all do.

And once one does make their faith into an A.I. powered app, they all will. They’ll have to to stay competitive. It will be the task of the church to not play that game, at all. They way a pastor can and should refuse to do a marriage ceremony for people who contextually can’t be married in the first place.

“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?”

2 Corinthians 6:14-15 KJV

A stark rejection of A.I. as any part of our religion will be the only thing that sets us apart from all other religions. Each will find a way to use A.I. for real time answered prayer, prophesy and doctrine. Because it’s only a matter of time before one does that. And that separation will only be made contextually. Everything else is being swallowed up by and mimicked by the A.I.'s. 

So You've Baptized An Influencer. Now What?

Influencer might be the wrong word here. But it’s the best catch all for the kind of person we’re talking about. You see there is a type of person who uses social media like a well oiled machine to represent brands and services for payment. We’d call them walking billboards or living TV commercials if that wasn’t so wordy. So influencer will have to do. Otherwise we have to use a word that makes everyone blush, and this is a Christian publication after all.

The issue that arises when you baptize an online personality, is that who they are online is a different kind of beast then the soul that gets into the water with you, pastor. It’s a whole other thing that looks just like a person. And if you don’t know that, or recognize that, then your time spent with porn did it’s trick.

“How does that have anything do with this?” You’ll ask.

We’ll get there, precious, just stick with me for a few paragraphs.

In the news, semi recently, we’ve had two majori-ish Christians that shouldn’t have the sway they do, either start to sway too much, or loose their sway all together. One is Nala Ray, The other, Lily Phillips. One turned an adult actress career into, of all things a porn addiction recovery ministry. And the other now wants us to believe you can be baptized and leave your willingness to do porn as ambiguous as the waters are clear.

The church at large seems to be ready and willing to put just about anyone in the tank for Jesus these days. So long as they confess in a short enough clip for a media team to capture. Because at it’s heart church social media and OnlyFans have the same strategy. The Church won't admit that and certainly wouldn't post its media on Onlyfans, but it is the same strategy and would work just the same. Worship pastors and the Church Comm’s types are just a bit to timid to send the gospel where it’s not preached, is all. And what we end up with is either porn stars acting like Christians. Or Christians not knowing that they are still acting like porn stars. Because the pastors who are immersing these sinners into the faith did not grasp what happened when they immersed themselves, in the sins of these two porn stars previously.

Even if they didn’t use porn of their prospective new congregants prior, the odds and statistics put the chance of either pastor having a porn free testimony, at south of 32%, depending on who you ask. Try Barna, their usually pretty good. But from your own experience in the ministry, pastors, how many of your colleagues post 1999 don’t have porn use in their faith’s history? These pastors doing the baptism, more than likely, wrestled with the sins associated with the sinners about to be dunked. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but is something that needs to get properly addressed. Because it likely was just filed as “bulk lust” and forgotten about.

And that’s only an issue if those same pastors are fine with these two ladies making porn with no nudity or other sexually suggestive themes. Because that’s what most of social media is. It can be a place where content is made to convey information at scale for free. But it trends towards base instincts and desires. You can test this for yourself, if you really want to. Make an A.I. avatar that looks like and attractive woman and post 100 bible verses, over one week, to any given social media site you’d like. Then do it with a real picture of a man, to see the difference. For maximum effect, make sure he’s older and slightly balding. Pay careful and close attention to the difference in responses and attention you receive from the bot accounts that will surely start following you. And if you’re on twitter, (still not calling it X.) make sure you see where those bot accounts are located, too.

The difference between the two sets of bible verses, as content, will tell you all you really need to know about how the internet works. And tells you everything you need to know when a former porn star seeks to get baptized, on the basis of saying the sinners prayer in a video for later posting. Both of these women turned their literal pivotal moment in faith, into the same kind of thing they would do to their sexuality prior. They became Christians in word and deed, separately, because those no longer needed to line up with reality anymore.

“Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way? For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” James 2:24-26 KJV

What happens to a words when they become online content. Or any kind of content for that matter? Do they stay what the speaker of those words meant? Or do they become a kind of work unto themselves? The medium is the message, right? And content does it’s job/work. It’s one thing to say you will always sing for the church on Sunday. And another to simply record every song in the hymnal and send your worship team the MP3 file. Are you singing in church. Your voice is being played over the worship team’s loudspeakers, just the same as the worship team that’s also on the loudspeakers. And the baptism that is done for the cameras shares those same cameras with the strip tease. I believe that Nala doesn’t know or understand this. but I'm almost positive Lily does.

The problematic part is neither pastor of either, allegedly, former porn star seems to know this. Either is happy to have a sinner say the magic words and get dunked in their tank, as opposed to the one at the Baptist church down the street, or the Reformed church across the city. Who are we kidding. You never see this kind of stuff at reformed churches. We'll have to look into why that is later.

And I do mean magic words because I know how this spell works. You can say stuff that has no effect on your own inhibitions and behavior, but does persuade those around you. Strippers do this all the time. Which is why most guys who use strippers think that she thinks they’re in love. When all she’s doing in her mind is adding up tips and counting seconds before her shift ends. And baptism and the Christian faith is likely not something that should be made into content, the way a daily life vlog or an OnlyFans should. For the very same reasons that guys shouldn't' believe that stripper love them, just because their clothes are coming off. Remember, there was a time when OnlyFans was not exclusively an adult themed or oriented material site. It takes real wisdom to know that YouTube and TikTok will similarly, not also stay as sexually neutral as they are right now. And they aren’t exactly neutral if we’re being honest. The beast swims slow, but it swims in a consistent direction. 

In that vein, if a porn star says they are now a former porn star, prior to baptism, the works part of their faith needs to be putting that old self, to the kind of death, a personality brand doesn't usually survive. Both of these women are not being modest. Both of them are still making sure that even in alleged repentance, that they are the center of attention to every man that finds their content or name online. Both of them have thousands of tiny pornographic idols of their former selves online that they have no power to remove. Idols that every man in their new home churches can find, the second they live stream their name alongside their baptisms. The hard work of making their sin a searchable keyword and hashtag is already done. The easy part is using what would look like righteousness to an unknown church regular, as the rim of a content funnel. Anyone with google analytics can see this is true, by showing how often these women’s names were searched for, before or after their announced baptisms. You cannot be modest, even in the bulkiest, unflattering clothing, if you stand alongside the billboard of your sexual sins in propriety.

That’s because modesty can never be content, the second it becomes content, it stops being modesty. Which is only a problem when you’re content used to be immodest behaviour. And that content’s rejection is or becomes the ignition of your faith and baptism’s engine.

How did you read the word “behavior” in that last line? Did you read it as a term of enjoyment or a term of product development. Because a seasoned online influencer knows how to behave online for an online audience. It’s part of their product development. And the very best of them can do that without any costumes, clothes, co-stars, or props. A pastor needs to know this before they let an influencer get into the baptismal tank. 

And a great place to start is having them demonstrate that they understand Matthew 16:17-20. 

The Scandal Of Shoes And Thought Experiments

We’re gonna take two things that happen online and have them trade a solitary article of clothing to show you how the internet (Like all technology) is sinful and not dependant on human agency to derive moral relevance or effects in the real world. And then hopefully address what to do next.

Ready? Good!

In the blue corner of the internet you have Suzie B. Pastor. A preacher from a midsized church with a midsized online following of her social media driven gospel takes and biblical interpretations. For all you feminists, frothing at the mouth, no I don’t think she should step down from ministry, just because she’s woman. For all you reformed types now frothing at the mouth because of what I said to the feminists. Sit tight, I promise you’ll enjoy the ride. Suzie’s ministry is greatly advantaged and propelled by her YouTube channel. Where she and the church media team diligently play by the rules and post along precedence and profitable strategies. Suzie is an online pastor through and through. And her ministry has receipts. She has 1000 people who attend her church, and 100,000 followers online. She has people who now come to her church that found her through clips of her ministry online. She preaches a true gospel and is doing the Lord's work, at her church. But also does so online as evidenced by the fruit that’s plain to see.

In the red corner of the internet we have Sally J. Pornstar. She is a subscription based content maker who specializes in feet. Specializes is kind of a misnomer. That’s simply the most profitable content she produces. But she still makes bank on everything else she shows. But feet are where we’ll focus. She also has 100,000 followers and a short list of 1000 regulars who pay for premium feet focused content. She has been doing this kind of sex work, as long as Suzie B. Pastor has been preaching. The two of them unknowingly went to the same seminary. She is unrepentant, thoroughly doctrine'd in the strong, independent woman who not only doesn’t need a man but regularly fleeces him for pictures of bare toes and lingerie.

Both of these ladies, arguably, make their living on the internet. Both of them use video content to do so. Both of them engage with an audience of men and women, though one would likely have more women. Both would have what would be called a brand. And both, allegedly, have the ability to affect the other's audience, if given the chance. But what does that look like?

Were Suzie to drop Sally’s name as a sermon illustration on her latest livestream, and were an unsuspecting or foolish man in the congregation to google that name, to see who his pastor was talking about, or who Sally was. Then the effect would be Sally causing the man to sin, because of the introduction, how ever well thought out or not, of the man, to Sally, from Suzie. The man is still responsible for the sin, but Suzie becomes responsible for the temptation.

The thought experiment is, do you think that street runs both ways? Could Sally ever do or say something that would take one of her fans and send him to church in a similar way, a pastor like Suzie could send a man to a porn site if she wasn’t wise enough to have sexual sin not even be named among the congregation, Ephesians 5:3.

The answer is no, Until proven otherwise, but lets explain why.

You want to say yes, but the truth is, no online pastor worth his or her salt could, nor can they imagine how they would. We can recognize the danger, abstractly, of having a pastor say in a livestream a porn star's name and the cognito hazard that kind of announcement or information is, functionally. There is no way to find out about sin without also being exposed to the temptation to participate in such sin. At least in any sufficient detail to understand what the sin is and so you can abstain from such sin. And to the chronically online church, being online itself always carries with it the possibility of being online elsewhere. Somewhere naughty even.

As the thought experiment festers a bit, lets even the odds. Suppose Suzie remembers who Sally is, because they went to seminary together. Recognizing that she herself stayed on the straight and narrow, Suzie now wants to help Sally and show the kind of humility that she thinks Christ would model. She also remembers that they are roughly the same size and that her shoes might fit her. She prepares an FedEx package with prepaid postage and during a live stream, calls out Sally for her sin, but offers to help her. She offers to lead her out of sin the way Christ did for herself. And as a token of good faith and charity, takes her own socks and shoes off, during the live stream. Aiming straight at the sinful moneymakers of her former classmate. A metaphorical first step, if you will. She packages the shoes and socks, and has the church media team follow the package out the door as it is picked up by FedEx to bring to Sally’s recording studio. Suzie then let’s her church know, that like a fleece let out for the Lord. She will remain barefoot on the stage until Sally comes to Christ. All of this done with the best SEO and keywords, hashtags, and labels to get the attention of Sally who’s about to get her gift and invitation to the gospel. The video is cross posted by dozens of Suzie' congregants. All in the hopes that Sally sees the gesture and comes to faith and repentance.

She does. See it that is.

Sally see’s her name show up in posts that don’t feature her body parts and watches the entire sermon. Sally get’s the shoes a day later. Rereads the message and call to repentance and fellowship on Suzie’s latest live stream. Then uses the free publicity and percentage of Sally’s 1000 congregants who googled her name (For research purposes only, I’m sure), and promptly puts on the shoes and removes them like she would in any other livestream she does. She then points out the obvious and watches the latest Sunday service of Suzie’s, posted for all the world to see, and comments, that while flattered, she doesn’t need competition for her cornered market of feet pics. But that Suzie is brave, even brilliant, for doing feet pics in church.

Caught flat footed, Suzie find herself posting media online that matches every detail of one of Sally’s videos, just with the gospel being preached alongside the naked feet. The inverse online traffic swap happens, as the livestream of Suzie’s church now has a lot more engagement. Almost double what her previous subscribers mustered on a weekend. Did 100,000 porn users start going to a church service? Or did a church service become a porn video for the same set of users?

What just happened?

Suzie is not scandalously dressed. She merely took her shoes off. Pastors have washed feet from the pulpit thousands of times, what made this live stream different? She is not soliciting unwanted sexual attention. She’s not being provocative in a sexual way, though she is poking the bear if we’re being honest. She did nothing wrong, and arguments can be made that giving desperate sinners your clothes, is a biblical thing to do. Matthew 25:36, right!?!

Why can Sally change the nature of a church service online, but Suzie seems powerless to change the nature of a porn video? Do you think Suzie sharing pictures of Sally in seminary, from their yearbook, would discredit her as a porn star? Or would it simply invent a new niche for Sally’s porn to reside in? The same way Sally livestreaming her tithing to the church while in a state of undress would maintain porn's death grip of Suzie’s barefoot preaching. Or would it just add to the search terms of perversion that Sally seems to be a master of? At what point would Suzie's feet pics stop being porn and start being a sermon again?

We all know this is a one way street. The question remains why is it a one way street? And does it need to stay that way?

I have argued for a long time that online church is not what it seems. Both to it’s makers and to its users. Because the suspension of disbelief it takes to do online church, mirrors the suspension of disbelief it takes to use porn as a replacement for a sexual partner. Porn makers know this. To the point of commodity. They have made girlfriends obsolete. Subscribe to your search terms of choice and she’s yours to do with what you please/pay. She’ll even say your name in the chat and send you DM’s. A pastor answering super chats isn’t functionally different. What if it’s also not ontologically different? What if online church is online porn? Just not as explicit as what other forms of online porn are. This would be nearly impossible to see or notice unless something like what happened in the story above, happened. Because then it would be irreversible. Because it always was irreversible. Just like sin is.

The story isn’t fantastically unbelievable. You’re telling me there’s not a chance that an OnlyFan’s model and a female pastor knew each other before their respective online careers took off? Nothing about the fiction is even implausible. What it points out is the hidden workings of online video consumption, as a system. Not social hypotheticals. We all know that Sally could turn Suzie's online ministry into a vector for erotic content. And we are all coming to know that the mechanics of this system won't let that happen the other way. That while a ministry may be effective when secluded from it’s medium's power users, it become fuel for the message of those power users when given the smallest chance to do so. The most effective and capable content makers online, are not found where the church does online ministry. Their content is un-touchable by the church, right now, but under any provocation could taint and corrupt any online ministry with their function as sinful content.

Name a pastor who couldn’t be sidelined by the wrong kind of attention by the wrong kinds of people. Even the Life Church’s Bible App had to contend with people using it as a vector to have and share explicit images through it’s servers. To minors even. Are the myriad of content filters and website blockers, doing anything as effective and anything described above?

There comes a point where to participate in the medium means compromising on the intent of participation in the first place.

“Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.” Matthew 7:6 KJV

Right now, online ministry works. It does what it attempts to do and exists as it’s own type of thing online. But without recognition for how any given medium of communication works, when corrupted. It will end up doing the same kinds of things that work for that corruption. That’s because like humanity, our technologies, including mediums of communication, are sinful. The hammer made for crushing rocks is not sinfully used to crush skulls. It was always sinfully ready to crush skulls. The paintbrush which could record historical scenes with an artists touch, is not sinfully used to add brush marks to the body and canvas, it was sinfully ready to do so. And the internet, while useful to the church for proclamation of the gospel, is not sinfully used to produce and transmit pornography. Instead, it is sinfully ready to do so. Because technology is sinful.

That’s why Suzie has no power over Sally’s livestream, even when she models Christ toward her. But Sally holds sway over Suzie’s livestream by the same metric and forms of communication. Christ does not use the means of sin to do his work but is showcased best in the lives of sinners where his strength is manifest over their weakness.

“And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand?” Matthew 12:26 KJV

Sin is always a one way street. Walking on it is the problem. Walking down it isn’t even the question. It’s already too late if you’re on the street. You’re in danger if you think you can walk down it and just turn around when things get bad.

“And beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the youths, a young man void of understanding, Passing through the street near her corner; and he went the way to her house,” Proverbs 7:7-8 KJV

This is why, tacitly, we all know that the only way for Sally to come to Jesus is to forsake her pornography. To take every video down, delete all back ups, change her name and contact info online, even to the point of changing her appearance offline. So she is no longer the commodified porn star, but a new creation in Christ. Recognizing that in her life will mean recognizing that in our lives. We should celebrate the gains we can make by using things like the internet and be as ready to surrender it all to destruction for the sake of Christ all the same.

A lot of churches are game for the first part.

How many would sacrifice their YouTube page to save a sinner with an OnlyFans?

There Is No Need For An A.I. Policy In Your Church.

Among the pro church tech crowd there is a recognition that the pro stance, really does need a policy to give them the requisite field dimensions for their ball game. Like most band wagons, the (A.I. use in church) one got hopped on quickly. And only now that it is headed down the hill at a speed you could interpret as fast, are the requirements and restrictions for it’s use, recognized.

Far be it for me to say “it’s too late” as a worshiper of the God of all time and space, I do not believe in such things.

But, for the sake of agreement and/or argument. You do not need an A.I. policy at your church to play this game. Some good old fashion discernment can ferret out bad actors and good intentions at the helm of any given paving machine. Or any other machines for that matter. And I understand that this will look more like talent than training and that this concept offends the poorly co-ordinated and ungifted. Participation trophy theology is just as lame as it sounds. Trust me.

I propose a single qualifier that if treated honestly can sort out most of if not all of the acceptable use and safety concerns that churches may have with the use of A.I. At any level of the discussion. It functions a lot like picking your team for recess football. As in you want people who can actually play the game not just want to play the game. If that is you want to win the game. It does require that everyone have someone to report to. And presumes you’re being at least quasi biblical about who and how that reporting to works. But as long as there is oversight as far as we can all see, it goes as follows…

“Could there be a fruit of the Spirit or a gift of the Spirit that would be mechanized by your intended use of A.I.?”

If the answer is yes.

Then the answer is no.

This may seem like folly to anyone who’s willing to call the Spirit's empowerment and ownership of the church folly. And if you have those types in charge of your church’s tech department, my condolences to your intramural football team. But if the lay person is spiritually accountable to the church leaders, and they to the pastors, and the pastors to the elders, and the elders to each other and or the assembly who elects them. Then no one can merely use A.I. without first petitioning upward to who oversees their intended work.

What this does is place the use of the machine in the hierarchy of the Saviour. Who appointed leaders of lay peoples for this exact kind of thing.

“And in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration. Then the twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them, and said, It is not reason that we should leave the word of God, and serve tables. Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. But we will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word. And the saying pleased the whole multitude: and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolas a proselyte of Antioch: Whom they set before the apostles: and when they had prayed, they laid their hands on them. And the word of God increased; and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly; and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith.” Acts 6:1-7 KJV

What the apostles understood in Christ, is that their work needed protecting from other busy work. Which wasn’t a bad thing but it wasn’t also an apostle thing. The very same way pastors and elders and children's ministry directors all have their role and challenges in ministry. By modeling the transfer of work to the Deacons, the apostles showed us the way to handle work loads and responsibility alongside and apart form one another.

A.I., and those who use it faithfully, seek to be the ubiquitous help to any and all who come to it. Which is fine when it helps people instead of replacing people. Because what the apostles didn’t ask for was more apostles. Did they? No. They knew something was distinct about their role in the early church and that their work of ministry of the word was more important than removing an apostle to merely wait on a table.

I get this all the time as a tradesman. The amount of times I've been paid electrician wages to assemble Ikea furniture for office worker types, who would lost behind the Allen key, is laughable. And the same thing can happen spiritually if given the chance. Your pastor should not be deciding paint colours of the church reno. His job is the preaching of God’s word and the discipline of God’s people, and paint colours do not factor into that. But they do need to be picked the same way food is distributed to widows. Fairly and responsibly. So you do want someone to do that.

What you don’t want is A.I. to do what should be a person doing it. or for A.I. to do it so the wrong person also doesn’t have to do it. A.I. shouldn’t be deciding what the paint colour is, because the pastor was going to, but ran out of time. What you want is a painter or designer in the church to do is, not only so the pastor won't, but so the painter or designer will.

“There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling;” Ephesians 4:4 KJV

“For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:” Ephesians 4:12 KJV

When we use A.I. as the servant it can be, it can replace work meant for us to do. The church would not have been blessed by an A.I. that could lessen the studying and devotion to the word the Apostles were called to. Simply because it would have freed them up to do relational ministry while serving the needy in the soup kitchen. It sounds great that all the hard Greek to English syntax and context are swept up into the machine so the pastor can have coffee with new members more often. Until you find out that knowing and learning that syntax and context are things he is called to do at the expense of such actions involving coffee.

And that substitution of A.I. for people is engrained into what A.I. is. This isn’t artificial labor we’re talking about here. (Which will be it’s own blogpost along the same lines BTW’s) It’s artificial intelligence. There are things done by the church that are meant to be done by people in the churches, not just what their bodies could do physically or the cumulative data of their bookshelves. Wisdom springs forth from a relationship with the Holy Spirit of God to be shared across the pew. So that those in the pew might also find wisdom and relationship with the same Spirit. The same goes for humility, generosity, prayers, even knowledge. Every fruit and every gift of the same Spirit of God.

You don’t want the church having A.I. do it’s finances, not because machine precision isn’t valuable for a non-profit, but because biblical faithfulness and stewardship are things a robot can’t demonstrate, but are things Christians are called to demonstrate, as acts of worship. The Church does it’s business, through and for souls. And what this single qualifying question does is square the fact that you cannot separate your soul from your mind. But A.I. has managed to give you a mind without a soul as the work around.

Every encroachment of that mind’s ability to do work, will be an encroachment on the souls meant to do that work for the church in the first place. So A.I. needs to be set to work where intelligence does not trespass the Spirit in His work by its work. And unfortunately for those on the bandwagon, the list of tasks that A.I. can do in church is small. Especially when it has to contend with the Spirit’s intention for how we do things.

Maybe you can ask A.I. how it shouldn’t be used in church. I'm sure it will give you an answer.

Be sure to ask it after, what discernment means and where it comes from biblically. The difference between those two prompts is where your ecclesiology of tech is.

4 Categories Against The Technologically Sneaky

You likely will not hear or read Christians talk to you about the dangers of machines, or the hazards of devices. We have a favoured word to use for our discussions and doctrines of technology. And that word is tool. The internet is a tool. So is A.I. And so is a hammer. And the simple little mind trick played by these Jedi theologians is that you can call something magic which is really just Midichlorian’s and plot armor.

Why does everyone reduce technology down to just tools? Why is it necessary to think of something as vast and as complicated as the world wide web, as a hand held rock on a stick?

Sinfulness, that’s why.

Our default nature and response to dealing with sin is to reduce what happened by our hands in scope and effectiveness. It was not that Adam blatantly ate what he must have taught Eve not to also eat, given when Eve enters the Narrative, but that she gave him fruit and he merely ate it. It was not that Aaron fashioned a golden cow and then lied to say that it came of it’s own will out of the molten gold he lit the fire for. But that he merely made the idol.

Sin has a way of prompting us to reduce our agency to the absurd. Because at its heart, sin is always an absurd thing to do. Especially when you know who God is and what God wants for you.

So, with that in mind, the next time you have some pro A.I. in church type tell you that A.I. is just a tool, Remind him that there are more ways to think about tech, than just absurd abstractions.

Here’s four to start.

Tools:

A tool is something completely under the control of the human using it. It requires use based skill to use effectively for its maximum use. It can not operate on it’s own, and is entirely dependant on human agency for its effects on reality.

Mechanisms:

Are tools that require an additional force or tool to do what the initial tool would do, but in a more effective way in unison. They can not operate on their own but are not operated solely by human agency as the secondary force or tool also affects their effect on reality.

Devices:

Are mechanisms that are set in motion by management forces and mechanism that further add to the operational agency of the device. The human, the management measures, and the mechanism all play into the devices means of effecting reality, in that order both ways. adjustments to any level of that order of operation effects the effects and communicates to the human using the device.

Machines:

A machine is a human made replacement of a humans capacity to do work. It entirely removes the human from the process of the machines effects on reality after the human sets it in motion. It requires no human agency past construction and initializing its functional purpose and does not communicate to the human unless also tasked to do so alongside its functional purpose. Effects on its effects on reality can also be made to be internally managed by the same machine internally. Machines are at their most fundamental level of purpose, replacements for humans at the bidding of humans.

Note how these four things are not the same.

Note how these get more complicated as they progress.

Note how you have never been asked to view a hammer with more complexity than its handle.

Note how you have been being told machines are as simple as tools for a while now.

Note how you’ve never asked why?

You Do Not Redeem Technology, Christ Does.

You will hear the pastor say, My tech indeed is strong. So I use it for my work, and the church will tag along.

Hypothetically now.

If technology was or is sinful, then it’s redemption to good works becomes an important ontological debate to have. When it’s effectively neutral, though, waiting to be used for evil or good, then this redemption doesn’t matter, though its need certainly does not disappear. The sinfulness of any given tech behaves like sin even when we call it something else. But when it’s ignored in place of a functional neutrality, then we become the agent of redemption in the world. We redeem tech from what it could be used for by using it for what it can be used for. And that is why church YouTube pages effectively counter the pornographic videos also found online. Or do they? They are ostensibly the same kind of thing. One an online video of sin and the other an online video of righteousness. Why does the righteousness not counter the sin. Why is good not winning against evil. There’s not less porn online now than years prior. But there is more Christian content online now than there was before. Why are these two forms of content, on the same technological platform, not affecting one another. Well they are. The porn is winning, if we’re being honest about what kinds of content are effective online. Both forms of content are behaving how the technology allows. It’s just that one type on content doesn't think it’s sinful and the other knows it is to the point of reveling. Porn does not need to worry that it will accidently lapse into righteousness by showing too little of it’s actor’s bodies. But righteous content does. The second pastors clothing is to tight, it becomes porn to those who would use it as porn, funny how that doesn't work the other way. Salt may loose its saltiness, but pepper is always hot. The medium of the internet is its message. And that message is sinful. You can see this by how many pastors have or had used online porn.

Find me a pastor or church leader who hasn’t tangoed with the stuff. Porn that is. You’ll be hard pressed. And you’ll be harder pressed as time marches on, as the Boomer’s and Boomer adjacent, who aren’t as technologically captured as you, retire. Porn for them was a magazine or VHS tape that they could avoid buying. The techno-savvy clergy of the now, can’t not use the internet. It’s how they do virtually all their ministry that they view as important. From the groups pastor using it for right now media, to the micro celebrity senior pastor using it for branding and content proliferation. The youth pastor needs it for registration forms and video game evangelism. The list goes on and on. And with it, a tacit acknowledgement that even though there is also x-rated content on the internet, it doesn’t matter because there’s Christian content on there as well.

And that’s because they’ve convinced themselves that the technology they use is a neutral thing. And not something, that like ourselves, is sinful. It behaves like the sinful thing. The same way a sinful person would behave. Which has no bearing on the evangelical mind who believes everyone is equal and good, and gets there by means of a neutral way. We do not consider ourselves sinners naturally. Even though it is our nature. That takes conviction. And if there’s one thing evangelicals can all agree on it’s that conviction doesn't exist on the internet. That’s why arguing in the comment section is a fruitless endeavour, right? No one ever got saved because of someone trying to prove them wrong online. We all know that.

So, why do the arguments of sin work so well online then? Why are Christian men, who know that they can’t be convinced of something they don’t believe in or ascribe to, still found behind an incognito browser looking at porn. Porn argues that men should be able to have a sexual experience with every person they see, if that’s the way the swing. Just enter your sexual search terms and you get what gets you off. And Christians, particularly men, have been persuaded by that argument since dialup was a thing. I thought that didn’t work and I thought this place was neutral. Why is it behaving as if it’s not?

Because it’s not.

The sinfulness of the internet allows for righteous use of it the same way righteous people can still get married and have godly sex. Porn needs people to have healthy sex drives in order for it to pervert them. The same way harlots need husbands and thieves need hard earned wages. There is not sin without something to corrupt. And the internet. is just as corrupt as the guns that don’t kill people. You can repeat the NRA mantra all the right wing, live long day. That gun’s don’t kill people, and yet. You will never find a gun that can’t kill a person. A gun that won’t.

Find me an internet you couldn’t use for porn and you will have found the neutral internet. The same way if you found a gun that wouldn’t kill a person. You would have found a gun that is only a tool for shooting. not killing. But these things do no exist. You know this. So what does exist?

The absence of these kinds of things points to a very specific thing in and of itself. Something that despite a desire for good, does evil as if it were reading Romans 7 all the same.

“For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.” Romans 7:19-25 KJV

So what does good technology look like? How do we find it? How does it work?

It works by nailing it to the cross the same way our sins were nailed. and forsaking it because of the love that was demonstrated on that very same cross. It looks like a bible app that knows that if it makes a way to host images on its servers alongside the scriptures it shares online, that sinful images will make their ways onto those servers. So it sacrifices the ability to host those images, the way a righteous man enters heaven without a hand that caused him to sin. (Matt 5:30) The app becomes less popular and less comparatively useable to Pinterest and Instagram. But also becomes Holy.

Once its seen as sinful, technology and it’s users have to contend with what an Almighty God does to sin. And the effects if adopted would radically reimagine what technology use would look like for a modern church. We readily do online church and social media ministry, not because we have any power to redeem the place where envy and apathy have roosted in the modern age, but because like the sin of the technology we use, we are sinners also.

Which is why the most prolifically online ministries, have never been seen by their members where they actually spend the most time on the internet. Where is the salt and light, at or in Pornhub and OnlyFans. Are these not places where gospel of forgiveness from sin is needed most, if not more? And yet these are places where the church has not and likely will never send it’s digital missionaries.

If you do not believe in a Saviour that could one day change the domain name of those sites, because His church brought his gospel to their users, so effectively, that sexual immorality could not even be named among them anymore. Then you don’t actually want to do online ministry, or to use Technology righteously.

You simply want to call something sinful, good. Or for the time being, treat it as neutral.