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 Present Need For Theology Punks

I've been vocal about my loss of faith in theological academia. But I wanted to straighten out a misconception before it happens. What I'm not advocating for is anti theological academia. But rather unauthoritative theological academia. Which is a big set of words for a post about punk rock, but stick with me, this mosh pit is fun, I swear.

The new superman flic, which I likely won’t see because I don’t want to be in the target market of that kind of thing, wants you to believe that being kind to people is punk rock. And a chorus of hot-topic posers made Iggy Pop relevant again for his last ditch for 15 minutes via every and any social media content available.

Here’s the thing though, kindness isn’t punk. Opposition to authority is. If you want to get as specific as a named 4th Nirvana song, it’s opposition to invalidated or corrupt authority. The kind that would shut down a skateboarder, not because he’s damaging the stairs he’s jumping down, but because he might hurt himself. We’ll yeah. That’s the point. Phil 1:21. You think we skateboard to be safe? Punks don’t hate cops because they arrest criminals. They hate cops when they don’t arrest criminals. They hate authority when it give a technical hall pass for certain wrongs at the expense of other wrongs. So, it usually adopts those wrongs in protest. And just like that movie and that staircase, the world is need for a smattering of actual theological punks. Not posers in the fashion or capes actively marketing to them. But real, opposition theology for a world turned lame.

When almost every pastor started doing the Eucharist online a few years back. It was ecclesiologically punk rock to give the theological middle finger to “The Man” and get arrested for your faith. It never had anything to do with what virus you might catch. The newly minted online church clutched their pearls like so many Fox news watchers as a handful of pastors got arrested, and at least in my home town/province, got acquitted too. Turns out you can ride your skateboard here. And bastards like acting as if all cops are like that.

Before that, a smattering of churches sought to bring gender equality to the theological skate park. And would have got away with it, if they didn’t actually want gender to stop existing. Under the bland guise of egalitarian betterment, they let women try the pulpit out only to then take every part of what made them women in the first place away from them. Because it’s cool and arguably punk rock when a girl drops into the half pipe, dressed like a girl, makeup’d like a girl and for all intents and purposes acting like a girl. But when when Phoebe, Pricilla, and Junia began showing up in baggy men's clothes, low taper fades and faux hawks, to “skateboard” because their latest fashion accessory had two trucks and four wheels. This didn’t make them Punk, though they looked the part. Because looking punk is easy. Anyone can order band patches and vintage denim online. And nothing is a greater tell of a theological poser than the collection of similar letters, sewn onto the vest of an M.Div. You think you’re books and certificates impress us, or give you the belonging you demand. Do something challenging with your board. A kickflip maybe. Turn things upside down and backwards. Look cool doing it. Preach about the sins a woman could commit. The guys who have low taper fades, baggy clothes and a commentary set or two, would. Right after they point out the sinful posering of their peers. Do you want to actually do ministry or is walking around with the church board enough for your appetites?

And long before all of this, A guy named Marty was willing to take the flack for posting harsh words on a wall. He did it with hammer and nails but I'm guessing spray paint was hard to find in Wittenberg. He didn’t care if he would get in trouble for the words. He cared that they were true. Not just like the E-celeb pastors in his heritage that would end up wearing sneakers for the sneaker heads, and not how they gripped a board during an ollie. No. He tagged the catholic church with red letters that made their dogmatic jaws drop and Bansky’d a reformation out of a church that was indulging itself a bit too much.

In all these things something is happening under the radar of the culture that is trying to get to truth at the cost of the almost true. Calling out those trying to claim authority they don’t or can’t have and those who stole it and should have it removed from their possession and public ascent. Something that recognizes that people can make laws that make no sense, but someone can make laws that can’t be argued with. A no skateboarding sign over perfectly architecture’d concrete, is damn near criminal. But gravity and the laws around it was penned by someone who had real authority. You can vote on one, and only play with the other.

“Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever.”

Psalm 104:5 KJV

Somewhere, somehow, the world of theology stopped dealing with gravity and started dealing with the myriad of signs posted to stop punks from enjoying its limits. It saw that people enjoyed the facts that a desire to fly could be snuffed out mid 360 and still land in a place that makes the skater look cool. Anyone with a healthy marriage and a few kids can show you this kind of trick, what it looks like when you land it, and how comparatively lame egalitarian theory can be. It sure holds that board and wears those clothes as if it were meant to. But like all posers it’s missing the requisite landing. One that respects the gravity that restricts but enjoys it all the same.

The need for a theological punk, exists because of how soft the poser can get while stealing punk’s clout. That’s why no one has more effects pedals and nicer guitars then the modern worship pastor. One who has about as much edge as the circular plexiglass cage around his brush wielding drummer. Or a preacher with more books than reasonable time to read them, or be educated by them. Having Sproul and Spurgeon on your shelf only feeds your sheep if you read them. Or better yet, stay calm when your congregation reads them more than you. It’s expensive wallpaper other wise. A credibility bookcase as valid as a second hand patch vest or perfectly clean skateboard. You can tell a skater, skates, by the damage his board shows. And a preacher by the cracks in his library’s spines.

There’s no skin in this game anymore. And as such, no ability to do what skin does. Touch and feel. Modern theology is out of touch with the realities of a sinful world and convinced that what it feels, by itself, is as valid and real as what concrete could make them feel if they drop into the bowl for once. And the punk, knows what the bottom of the bowl feels like. In falling and in the momentum of coming back out of it. What the push and pull of a mosh pit is, and why blocking people you disagree with Christian twitter (Still not calling it X), but will be heavenly roommates with is foolishness. And generally ruins the fun of it.

In all of this, we have tried the theological mainstream.

We have seen the theological poser.

But the desperate and satisfying need of this generations will be the return of the theological punk. To stick it to the man, and his sin, so he might be reconciled to God like a reunion tour of his favourite band. Not the same as it was before, but bettered by the memory of it. It will look like danger and risk to anyone not willing to risk danger. But it will also look like orthodoxy. Moreso than popular culture is capable of mirroring. 

Leave Hymn Alone Already

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hymnals are the functional opposite.

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

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

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

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