AI and the Sermon Revisited

About two years ago I wrote a piece on the use of Artificial Intelligence in sermons by preachers.  It was published in the Huron Church News, our diocesan publication, under the title, AI and the Preacher: A stranger in the strange land.  It can be found at https://diohuron.org/news/ai-and-the-preacher-a-stranger-in-the-strange-land.

A few days ago, I was contacted by Matthew Puddister, the editor of the Anglican Journal, the national publication of the Anglican Church of Canada.  He is researching an article on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to write sermons and wanted to interview me for the article.  As a result, I reread the piece that I wrote and reflected on my thoughts and feelings about this issue. 

Two years is a long time in the world of the internet and particularly the world of AI.  At the time of writing the article, I had just started to experiment with AI, using ChatGPT, so it was a brave new world which I was just beginning to explore.  The bottom line for me in my piece was that AI was opening many possibilities for preachers which had great potential to be used and misused.  It provides a too easy way for a busy or even a lazy preacher to turn to for a sermon.  As I noted in the article, “Perhaps if Jesus was to be tempted by Satan today, this would be one of the temptations.” 

Well, what is the situation now two years later – an eternity in AI terms?  It is worming its way into many if not most aspects of our lives.  It is beginning to be used for many occupations and used for many of the tasks which It can do much more efficiently and effectively than humans.  The impact on education is far reaching and an immense challenge to educators.  It is leading to a new industrial revolution at speeds even the most imaginative science fiction writer would have had difficulty imagining. 

With all that, what is happening in the area of preaching and sermon preparation?  Well, I have no doubt it has taken up the place as an integral part of the toolbox of many preachers.  It is something which is too good to be ignored by many preachers.  With that said, how and to what extent should it be used in this sacred endeavor?  Reflecting on this after the incentive of the interview with Matthew Puddister, I am confirmed in my belief that it needs to be used in an ethical manner as would any resource which a preacher might use.  Resources such as biblical commentaries, concordances, dictionaries of biblical terms, which are now available on-line have been and are common resources in sermon preparation.  Publications of sermons by famous or infamous theologians have been available before the development of the printing press.  AI is just another tool which can be used.  However, it needs to be used with caution as AI is apparently known for creating facts and sources.  When such source material is used, it needs to be cited as the source as part of the sermon material. 

Are there any circumstances in which a preacher should use AI to write a sermon?  I won’t say never – rather perhaps hardly ever in my opinion.  There may be circumstances where a preacher has been overwhelmed by other duties – of which a parish priest or minister has many – and there has been literally no time to prepare a sermon.  If AI is used to write the sermon, this should be acknowledged by the preacher.  One downside to this is if this happens too frequently, the preacher runs the risk  of the congregation preferring the AI sermon to the sermons of the preacher (only partially joking). 

The temptation is that AI is so easy to use that it can become the fall-back position and an easy out if the preacher is not feeling particularly creative or inspired and thinks, well, what is the harm as I need to have something inspiring to say to the people in the pews (if the church still uses pews).  However, the sermon needs to be considered a sacred privilege and opportunity to proclaim the word.  The preacher has the responsibility to share his or her understanding of what the scripture is saying with those who hear it.  Using AI may short circuit this and not allow the Word of Holy Scripture to inspire the preacher and to be proclaimed.  The sermon is a sacred opportunity to do just that.  It is too easy for it to be something which is assembled and manufactured. 

In effect, as with many things, we have a spectrum of possibilities.  At one end of that spectrum, we have the, no AI ever position.  Matthew Puddister, in our conversation, mentioned the pledge that is being offered to preachers, The Saint Dunstan Pledge, in which the signatory pledges not to use AI in any way in sermon prep.  I had not heard of this and was able to find the details of it very easily with an AI Google search (score one for AI).  Here is the St. Dunstan Pledge according to AI:

"At no point in the brainstorming, planning, drafting, or writing of my sermons will I use ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Gemini, or any other generative AI of any type available to me. I will use my own words. I will quote words written or spoken by other people, not produced by generative AI.”

The other extreme would be to use AI without limitation and without citation.  I believe that in the good Anglican tradition most of us will come down somewhere along that spectrum probably tending to be somewhere in the less  well defined middle.  We can always meet to discuss it as Anglicans are well known for doing.    

It is my hope and prayer that preachers and all Anglicans can seek to be open to the Holy Spirit and be inspired when attempting to discern where the Holy Spirit is leading us today and in the challenging days ahead.  The article is planned to be available in the November edition of the Anglican Journal.  I look forward with anticipation to reading it. 

Whither Anglicanism

The current edition of the Anglican Journal – the newspaper of the Anglican Church of Canada – reported on the work of a Commission “tasked with finding solutions to the church’s structural challenges.”  The official title of the commission was Reimagining the Church: Proclaiming the Gospel in the 21st Century, Structures & Resources.  It was established by General Synod (CoGS) in March 2023.

The Commission made seven statements which are meant to generate discussion rather than recommendations to be implemented.  These statements include what could be considered rather radical approaches to the current structure of the Anglican Church e.g. eliminate funding for the very publication in which the results of the Commission’s work were reported. 

This is the latest effort to address the current circumstances facing the Anglican Church where membership has been declining for many decades – since 1960 as reported in the article.  One member of the Commission states “Every strategic plan has included steps intended to arrest this decline. None has had any demonstrable impact,”

In some respects, this report by the commission amounts to basically moving deck chairs on the Titanic.  It is commendable that this report responds to the National Church which is facing the structural challenges of an organization which cannot sustain itself due to continued and continuous decline in membership.  However, I believe what must be faced and addressed is what it means to be an Anglican in the world today.  As the old generation of Anglicans – the one I am part of - dies and few members of generation x, y and z and beyond are apparently not interested in being part of a church – what is the future of the Anglican Church and what will that church look like?

In effect, the Anglican Church does not seem to be offering to many Canadians today what they are looking for to answer the questions they may have regarding what life means beyond the material world.   Asked another way, are Canadians born after the 1960’s looking for something beyond what culture is offering through social media, with its influencers and followers, TikTok, Instagram, and God knows what else, including instant easy answers to any question that pops into their heads. 

The Anglican Church has traditionally offered a way of helping people more fully form the questions that are lying beneath their conscious awareness.  It has also provided a way to respond to the questions, and in the process develop more questions, which in turn will challenge them to live that they are intended to live.  The Anglican Church does not, at present, seem able to do this anymore.  The Anglican Church has not been able to do this in a way which will connect with those people who have no interest or intention of passing through the doors of the church building on Sunday morning at 11:00 – or whatever time Anglicans gather for worship or any other time. 

Anglicans may try to copy the apparent success of other churches but if we do that, do we stop being Anglican?  In effect, do we become simply another version of what is being offered by other denominations and probably not doing it as well as they do.  What, then, is an Anglican and can the essence of what makes us Anglican be offered to people to enable them to explore and discover who they are.  We have to know what it is that makes us Anglican in essence before we can do it.  Or perhaps we can more fully discover who we are in the process of making that effort itself. Perhaps changing the structure of the organization is a necessary step but it is not a sufficient one.

In thinking about what it means to be Anglican, I can draw on my experience of what first attracted me to the Anglican Church.  It was the liturgy and music of the worship service.  I can from an experience of worship that was not strong in these areas.  I am attracted to the traditional liturgy and music of the Anglican Church but there are also aspects of the more modern liturgy and music which are also meaningful for me.  Bottom line is that I am seeking to have an experience of worship that will give me an experience of the divine.  During the time of the COVID pandemic I saw numerous attempts to make worship available via social media.  Many were, in my view, unsuccessful.  How do we connect with people in a meaningful way that will give them an experience that I have defined as the divine but also be understood as something beyond themselves - something that will give them answers to some of the questions they have not even fully formed in their minds or bodies or souls?  In addition, how can we provide an opportunity to gather in community?  Can this be done via social media, or does it need to be in person?  That is the challenge that is facing the Anglican Church and Anglicans today. 

This is probably where I should stop for this edition.  I will pick up where I have left off next time.  May you be blessed today and until we connect again.

In Sure and Certain Hope

Recently, I received an email which brought to the recipients' attention that a veteran had been offered the option of medically assistance in dying when he reached out to Veterans Affairs Canada for assistance.  The email expressed shock and condemnation that such action would be offered in place of “LIFE-affirming care that everyone deserves.”  The email implied that this was government policy which promoted this option rather than other options.  After reading the CBC report that raised the issue, apparently this was a one-time circumstance that was a result of lack of training on the part of the person responding to the request.  However, there is also a concern regarding insufficient mental health care being provided to families of veterans.

I certainly share the concern expressed in the email that veterans and their families should receive the Life-affirming care that they especially deserve given their service and sacrifice to the country.  And I sincerely hope that this was indeed a one-time occurrence based on insufficient training which can happen in the best run organizations and not an unofficial policy to address limited resources which does happen in government departments at times.  This raised the issue for me of what the position was of the Anglican Church of Canada on medically assistance in dying.  Well, as it happened, the September edition of the Anglican Journal had an article on the issue and linked to a paper issued by the Anglican Church in 2016, In Sure and Certain Hope which is intended as a, “Resources to Assist Pastoral and Theological Approaches to Physician Assisted Dying.”  This report is a review of a report, Care in Dying, which was commissioned by the Anglican Church in 1998.  Sorry for the somewhat convoluted introduction but as they say, “The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine.”   

Next week, I will attempt to summarize the document In Sure and Certain Hope which provides, I believe, a good perspective on this very complex and vexing issue for Christians.

Blessings this day on your journey. 

 

I acknowledge that we are on Turtle Island, the original homelands of the many Indigenous Nations who have lived since time immemorial in Canada or as many First and other Indigenous Nations
All of the lands in Canada are the subject of up to one hundred Treaties signed by the Crown in the right of Canada with these Nations.  I will only mention a few of the Nations: the Cree, Ojibway, Blackfoot, Blood, Dakota, Mig M'ag, Huron, Inuit and these lands are also home to the Metis people.

 

 

 

Spiritual Formation or Spiritual Unformation?

Are you spirituality formed or unformed?  Perhaps I could also ask if you are spiritually uninformed.

I believe that the Anglican Church―at least the part I am familiar with―has been left behind in encouraging and assisting our members in spiritual formation.

An article in the current edition of the Anglican Journal by Bishop Mark MacDonald hit the nail of the head when addressing this situation; the article was entitled A Return to Spiritual Formation.

In the article, Bishop Mark notes that the Anglican Church has never completely given up on Spiritual Formation focusing on the preparation for baptism and confirmation.  There have been elements of it in the Proclamation of the Word in services especially in the preaching.  I would also add that it has always been a part of Christian Education; however, that has been to a great extent restricted to Sunday School for our children (where our congregations still have children). 

Bishop Mark notes that Anglicans have taken this rather laissez faire approach to Spiritual Formation because Christianity was to a great extent the foundation of our culture:

We leave much of the formation of attitude, spirituality and daily practice to our participation in the larger culture. It is not hard to understand why this is so. Our contemporary church is only a short time away from a period when the broader culture was much more influenced by Christian thought and practice. During those years, formation happened through regular and common participation in a number of different societal organizations and institutions. It was possible to approach spiritual formation in the church as a kind of finishing school, affirming much that was already there in the culture and adding a distinctive, often denominational, flavour to the whole.  Bishop Mark MacDonald February 5, 2018

As a result of our relationship to culture, in which we did not need to take a proactive approach to Spiritual Formation or evangelization, our church finds itself in in the position we are in today with dwindling, aging congregations which are closing in shocking numbers.  Our Diocesan announcement seem to have a notice about the deconsecrating of a church building most weeks. 

There are, of course, many reasons why this is happening beyond the lack of Spiritual Formation.  The forces of modernity and secularization are driving much of the change.  We Anglicans, as well as other mainline denominations, have not responded to these forces quickly and adequately enough.

As a Spiritual Director what I do is to offer companionship and guidance to my Directees in their spiritual journey in which their spiritual life will develop more fully and their relationship with God (however, they understand God) will become richer, deeper, and stronger. 

I believe that is the journey in which God invites each person to take regardless of their tradition or lack of tradition.  It is a journey which we are all intended to take.

Blessings on your journey.