AI: A Dangerous Shortcut for Pastors, Writers
By Elizabeth Prata
SYNOPSIS
I share Ken Ham’s insights on the implications of artificial intelligence (AI) for pastoral work. Ham argues that using AI diminishes pastors’ theological study and reliance on God’s wisdom. The piece emphasizes the importance of genuine engagement with Scripture rather than easy technological shortcuts in ministry, as well as warnings about technology’s advance and potential for supplanting proper worship of the true Creator.
I respect Ken Ham. I’ve been following his ministry for a long time. I finally got to hear him at a G3 conference. His commitment to creation exposition, to Genesis 1-11 as the foundational belief for our faith, and his persevering and unwavering dedication that built the Creation museum and the Ark Experience is to be praised. He recently wrote a short-ish essay on Facebook about AI becoming a digital god.
I’ve been watching the rise of technology since the 1980s when a lot of things were invented, such as personal computers with graphical user interface (I took a computer elective in 1978 to try and learn coding language FORTRAN…), CDs, VCRs, video games and so much more. My father bought Pong when it first came out in 1972. Our family has always enjoyed the earliest and most advanced tech inventions.
In this era of the 2000s, the rise of sophisticated AI is a concern not only over potential plagiarism issues, laziness issues, or how easily technology controls us (cell phones, anyone?), or how the recent discovery of ‘kill switches’ in Chinese technology sold to the US could wipe us out with one click (Business Today), but because of prophecy.
Revelation 13 discusses how in the future one man and his cronies institute a global world economy and that all who wish to participate in this economy must accept the Mark (of the Beast). From my vantage point of having observed the economy since 1965, I have seen how this prophecy is becoming easier and easier to implement when it arrives on the scene.
In Ken Ham’s recent essay he asked the question, “Should pastors be using AI to write their sermons?”. I am re-posting the essay below in case the link in this paragraph doesn’t work for you, or if you are not on Facebook. He raises some good questions and makes some exhortations to pastors and others who should be wrestling with the scriptures instead of asking an impersonal digital presence to give them instant content.
Answers in Genesis, being a science ministry, also has other great essays pointing to the issues with AI and tech in general. For example, in this essay we read that ,
Google Co-founder Wants to Build AI as a “Digital God”
It’s an interesting notion, how easily we transfer worship to anything other than the only One who should receive it. We’ve seen it over and over in the Bible, and over and over in our own lives. I’ve written before about how prescient EM Forster was in his 1909 novella The Machine Stops, which a 116 years ago predicted this exact moment in technological time. It’s eerie how Forster predicted the loss of original thought, dependence then worship of a machine, and the lack of human contact. Friends and family are on screens only, not real life. You can read Forster’s novella online here.
AiG’s scientist Patricia Engler is an expert in AI, transhumanism, and other technological ethical issues. She recently spoke at the AiG for women conference in April on the issue of transhumanism. Others term the issue “human enhancement”. Engler explains in this 2023 article Thinking Biblically About Transhumanist Technologies at AiG,
The term “human enhancement” can mean anything from moderately improving someone’s natural abilities to radically modifying humankind.
I remember the splash the television show The Six Million Dollar Man made in 1973 when it debuted. He was an “enhanced human.” Wikipedia has a summary, which I excerpt- “a former astronaut, USAF Colonel Steve Austin, portrayed by Lee Majors… After being seriously injured in a NASA test flight crash, Austin is rebuilt (at considerable expense, hence the title of the series) with bionic implants. His right arm, both legs and left eye are replaced with “bionic” implants that enhance his strength, speed and vision far above human norms.”
Viewers including me, marveled at the thought that robotic implants could enhance human capabilities. Of course, 50 years later we are used to hip replacements, knee replacements, organ transplants, hearing aids for the deaf, and the like. We are also used to terms like cyborg, droids, clones, bot, algorithm…
Personally, it is my opinion we have passed a threshold with technology where its grip is on humankind is so tight we can never escape until we are called home. I hear of issues in colleges, high schools, and even younger of plagiarism in using ChatGPT, video games consuming minds for double digit hours on end, parents who prefer their phones to their children, critical thinking abandoned by the wayside in using Grok. Ask Google a question and at least it will yield links that the questioner must sort through and decide for herself if they are credible or not. Grok just tells you. I view AI-generated art as plain creepy. I hate to see it all, I just hate it. I pray the Lord comes for us soon.
As for Grok, the artificial intelligence Elon Musk has built, the name comes from Robert Heinlein’s 1961 science fiction novel, “Stranger in a Strange Land“. I read that book in the 1990s when a hippie friend gushed about its supposed deep truths and wise philosophy. I found it unintelligible. Though the title is taken from Exodus 2:22 KJV, the religion the book espoused is far from anything reasonable. But by secular standards, it seems wise and deep.
We must always remember that God is Creator. Our bodies are a machine on a level that no human creator could ever imagine when building a robot or an artificial intelligence. The sturdy delicacy of our bodies’ systems is amazing to behold. The brain is still a mystery. The Creator is worthy of praise for this and for all living things He has created.
Here is Ken Ham’s essay on AI (artificial intelligence). Though it’s aimed at pastors, anyone who studies, researches, writes on theological topics should be convicted by it. The link to his Facebook page where the essay originated is above.
Should pastors be using AI to write their sermons? I recently saw a website for a company that advertises itself as “Your AI-Powered Sermon Assistant” designed to help pastors “create better sermons in less time” using artificial intelligence.
A video on the website claims you can just type a word (like “forgiveness”) into the sermon builder tool and “instantly have a sermon ready to preach” and if you like the sermon “copy it, paste it, you’re ready to preach.” In other words, as a pastor you don’t even need to go to the Bible yourself to prep for your sermon—AI will do it all for you.
There are many good uses for AI—this is certainly not one of them! Yes, perhaps AI could be useful in pulling some cross-references, finding related passages, or pulling quotes to consider from church fathers (although resources to do all of these things already exist). But using AI to write sermons strips away a pastor’s wrestling with and studying of God’s Word. When a member of such a pastor’s flock comes to him for wisdom, counsel, and shepherding, he won’t know God’s Word to apply it properly!
And pastors surely should be praying (as any teaching pastor should do) for God’s guidance and wisdom as they build sermons. Be assured, AI doesn’t pray for any wisdom from God!
Contrast “copy, paste, preach” with these commands to pastors from God’s Word:
“Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. (1 Timothy 5:17)
Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. (2 Timothy 4:2)
He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it. (Titus 1:9)
Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. (2 Timothy 2:15)”
The work of pastoring isn’t meant to be easy—it’s laboring; it’s having patience; it’s training to be ready. It’s a hard calling, but a worthy one for those who are willing to be trained by the Word of God.
If you’re a pastor, don’t take the easy way out. Labor in your preaching and teaching as God has commanded you to. Don’t outsource one of the most important aspects of your job—opening the Word for your flock—to a robot!
— Ken Ham
FURTHER READING
Owen Strachan had some thoughts about digital media, here on Facebook
Tony Reinke wrote the book called God, Technology, and the Christian Life, you can download a 32 page sample here
