Reformed Pastor and Theologian Dr. John Piper recently spoke before attendees at a conservative Christian conference in Indiana. Addressing the hype over all things AI, he told the audience that he had asked Chat GPT to write a prayer for him, giving it some basic guidelines to follow.
He then read the AI generated content of that prayer to his delighted audience. The text generated by the language model included a lot of familiar words and phrases one might expect to encounter in the prayers offered up any number of Christian worship services. The words exalted the name of God, even evoked a sense of awe and wonder at who God is, and they refrained from any blatant theological error.
Then Piper posed a question to his audience, “Is this worship?”
Many laughed into the pause that followed, perhaps at the novelty or efficiency of what Piper’s query had produced from the AI. Or, perhaps it was nervous laughter; the kind produced when one isn’t sure where the conversation is heading. Whatever the reason, there was a distinct lack of silence in the room to indicate deep consideration of the important question at hand: if the words are factually correct and coherent, are free from glaring theological error, and can evoke an emotional or impassioned response, are they worshipful?
The room only fell silent, when Piper answered his own question with a booming “No!”.
Taking Innovation Seriously in the Church
We are living in a digital age in which the natural assumption of many people, including many Christians, is that there must be a technological solution to almost any problem humanity faces. One natural conclusion that arises from coupling this assumption with the cultural obsession with productivity and efficiency is a sort of “Do It Yourself” spirituality.
This isn’t just fear mongering, either. The Church has long been in discussion about topics such as online Eucharist, which was suddenly thrust into the spotlight during Covid lockdowns. Virtual worship and small group gatherings, once unheard of, have become mainstream. Christians have argued both for and against each of these practices. The arguments themselves often pit orthodox theology and practice against progressivism and pragmatism.
My point is not to act as a digital curmudgeon, yelling “get off my lawn” to technical innovation. Online worship, for example, was a game-changer during lockdowns, and continues to offer hope for those on the fringes of the church. But just because something can result in positive outcomes does not mean churches should adopt the thing without careful prayer and consideration.
I am willing to argue online Communion is not only theologically heterodox, but also damaging to both the worshipping community and the individual Christian. Its practice undermines the very purpose of the Sacrament and makes a mockery of Christ’s sacrifice for the sins of humanity.
To a much lesser degree, online worship also engenders or promotes the postmodern idea that religion and spirituality are distinctly personal and can be fully pursued in isolation outside the context of the faith community.
My point is that Christians must take care and pause to consider the full ramifications of using emerging technology in the context of Christian worship, discipleship, and evangelism before jumping on the latest trend. The stakes are simply too high to be ignored, and lack of careful consideration belies a spiritual immaturity and superficiality that is infecting and harming the Church and our mission.
Perhaps a few cases will lend some weight to my point.
The Rise of Generative AI, PrayAI, and ChatGPT Cults
Within days of the first public release of ChatGPT and the introduction of generative AI to the masses, clergy colleagues were already talking about using AI generated sermons. Some of this chatter was, of course, tongue-in-cheek. But not all.
The temptation has always been there for pastors to take shortcuts and forgo the difficult, but important and formative, work of dwelling in the Spirit’s presence and searching the scriptures to ensure that through the “foolishness of preaching” (1 Cor. 1:21) God’s people might continue to hear his voice and respond to his call in faith. Even before the Internet offered an easy means of downloading ready-made sermons for the busy pastor, it was not unheard of for one pastor to use another’s sermon in a pinch.
To be clear, this is not always a net negative. The worldwide Church has long used printed homilies from books of common prayer in the context of worship. The difference being that these have been affirmed collectively by the Church. They carry a greater weight and affirmation, because what they contain has been vetted by the worshipping community.
Again, through prayer and thoughtful consideration pastoral leaders can discern what is right and good. Reading a homily from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer is not the same as downloading a script from sermons.com as a substitute for doing the hard work of writing a sermon.
It isn’t just church leaders, who are taking shortcuts with technology. Christians are now even looking to generative AI to voice their prayers, as John Piper’s talk highlighted. Last week I learned of a tech startup called PrayAI, which promises to “generate prayers for any situation you’re dealing with.” Are we so disconnected from the God who created us that we have lost the ability to even speak our own minds to him in prayer?
There is, of course, a great precedent for using written prayers for worship and personal devotion. A Christian need look no farther than the Psalms for prayers that express every human thought and emotion to the God who loves us. And, once again, prayer books have been used by various Christian traditions for centuries.
But using these sources for daily prayer, when our own words fail us, is not the same as using a chat bot to generate a custom prayer just for us. It shouldn’t be necessary to point out the difference, but let’s do so. The former are prayers written by human beings, created in God’s image, and offered to God in faith. The latter is just the output of a predictive algorithm that has analyzed human speech and is able to determine the words that are statistically most likely to appear together in a sequence, in answer to a prompt.
Even more disturbing is an emerging trend of AI deification and cults. Humans were created to worship, and when we do not worship the God of the universe, our souls long to worship something. In the never-ceasing search for gods of our own making, some people are even turning their worship towards generative AI. I encourage you to watch the video below for more about this new trend. It is both disturbing and heartbreaking.
Conclusion
Now, more than ever, Christians must become discerners of truth. Not gatekeepers, not gnostics, not Pharisaical rule-makers, but wise and spiritually mature followers of Jesus, who are working out our faith with fear and trembling. Who seek to be led by the Spirit of truth, and who push back against the conveniences that promise easier spirituality, without the true cost of real discipleship.