ChatGPT, an A.I.-based chatbot that was released in November 2022, may be the biggest technological breakthrough to affect the church since the invention of the printing press.
What does it do?
It answers questions and writes essays. It also writes sermons, lessons, prayers, lyrics, dissertations, movie scenes, blog posts, poems, recipes, computer code – you name it.
ChatGPT may be bad news for school teachers but it’s terrific news for busy preachers, bloggers, and worship leaders. At least that’s according to pastor and leadership guru Carey Nieuwhof. In a recent article entitled, “5 Future Technologies the Church Isn’t Prepared For,” Nieuwhof writes:
Let’s be honest: Will you really be able to tell the difference between an A.I.-composed worship song and one mass-produced by the Christian music industry? Would it matter? If your pastor got up on Sunday morning and delivered an A.I.-written sermon to the congregation, would you notice if they didn’t tell you beforehand? What about an A.I.-generated prayer or homily?
There is no doubt that ChatGPT has the power to make creative people more productive. It’s also handy for personal Bible study. Consider how ChatGPT answered my question: What is the gospel of grace?
The gospel of grace is the message that salvation and forgiveness of sins is available to all people through faith in Jesus Christ, without the need for works or human effort. It teaches that this grace is a free gift from God, and cannot be earned or deserved. This doctrine is a central tenet of Christianity, and is based on the teachings of the New Testament.
That’s a great explanation of grace, and it was written by an algorithm. A machine!
So you can understand why social media has lately been buzzing as people have been quizzing ChatGPT about all sorts of grace-related topics. What is the new covenant? What is righteousness by faith? Are we under law or grace? To these sorts of questions, the A.I. behind ChatGPT typically generates grace-based answers.
Which means I may be able to quit writing about grace.
Or maybe not.
Be careful what you ask for
If you ask ChatGPT a grace-based question (e.g., are we under law or grace?), you will get a grace-based answer (e.g., we are under grace, not law). But ask it a more generic question, such as, should Christians live by the Ten Commandments?, and you will get an answer that mixes grace with works:
Christians believe that the Ten Commandments are still applicable today as they provide a moral foundation for the believer’s life… The Ten Commandments serve as a guide for believers to live according to God’s will and to understand what is right and wrong, and to understand the nature of sin…
Jesus said the Holy Spirit would guide us into all truth (John 16:13), but the greatest artificial intelligence ever created says we need the law to guide us. To be fair, ChatGPT clarified that we are saved by faith (that’s grace). But then it insisted that “the Ten Commandments still have a place in the believer’s life” (that’s mixture).
I challenged ChatGPT to write a movie about two people discussing hypergrace. (Yes, ChatGPT can write dialogue!) I asked this question a few different ways and got different scripts each time.
In one version Jessica and Mike were in a coffee shop discussing the dangers of hypergrace. They both thought hypergrace was a bad teaching and it sounded like the sort of thing Michael Brown might write. But in another version, Jessica was trying to convince Jason that hypergrace was not the evil doctrine he had been led to believe.
Out of curiosity (or job insecurity) I peppered ChatGPT with questions such as: Are all my sins forgiven? What does God require of me? Will Jesus blot out my name from the Book of Life? Do Christians have a duty to serve the Lord? Should Christians tithe? Does God teach us with sickness? If I give will God bless me?
The answers generated by ChatGPT were all over the place. Some had bits of grace; some had no grace at all. It was a mess.
(The full list of questions and answers along with a couple of hypergrace scripts generated by ChatGPT can be found in the bonus materials on Patreon that accompany this article.)
Sermons by Skynet
To sum up, ChatGPT is a neat tool, but like any tool its usefulness depends on who is using it and how it is being used.
If you want answers to questions that are longer than what Google will give you, ChatGPT is helpful. It’s just like talking to another person, someone who is well-read and concise.
But can you trust ChatGPT to write a sermon, article, or lesson about the gospel of grace? Definitely not. Sure, it’ll throw up some quotable nuggets, but it will also mix in a little law while calling for dead works. Do not be fooled. If you drink from the well of artificial intelligence you will be imbibing a toxic cocktail of grace plus works.
Which means my job is safe – at least until they release the next version of ChatGPT later this year.
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