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JONSHERWOOD

A Jesus-Centered Approach to Technology: Why This Article Was Not Written With AI

Jan 136 min read

Let me start with several qualifiers; AI is not going anywhere. I use AI constantly. I use it even though I don't know I'm using it. I use Siri. You use Alexa. I used AI to create the feature image for this article.


Using what we call "AI" is almost unavoidable.

But what exactly do we define as "artificial intelligence"? Where do we draw the line? Is AI unequivocally good? Is it inherently evil and to be avoided at all costs? Will it lead the Terminator apocalypse some of us grew up fearing? (I still can't shake the T1000 in my nightmares).



T1000 from Terminator 2 movie, circa 1991 as it relates to AI and technology use.
T1000 from Terminator 2 Movie, 1991

AI is everywhere now, and this is only going to continue. On our phones, in our cars, in our appliances, everywhere on the internet. Every app seems to have implemented some form of AI. I just added Apple Intelligence to my laptop. I use the AI DJ on Spotify.


Even the platform I use to write this blog now offers to create not only post topics based on the content that I create (I can't lie, many of them are interesting), but also the entire post for me. I recently heard an interesting podcast around tech where the guest who was a lawyer said they planned to let AI write their next 12 newsletters for the year simply because it was more efficient and he could spend his time doing something else. The host quipped, "why not have it write 562 newsletters for you this year?"


Of course this 'efficiency' is often very tempting, and sometimes has very little to no observable consequences. I would love to let an AI language model do the 'heavy lifting' for me and write 90% of this article so I don't have to spend the time that it takes for me to write 100% of it - trust me it takes longer than you think, and often longer than I want. AI could help me produce more content and therefore grow my audience, engagement, likes, and follows. But at what cost?


Preachers and pastors use AI such as ChatGPT to write their sermons for them. Some think there is no problem with this, even heralding and championing the use of AI in our bible study and worship practices. I think there is a big difference between using a search program to find a scripture (which I do all the time), and having a AI program interpret Scripture to and for me.


This moves into the realm of consciously wanting ourselves to be formed spiritually by AI. However, this is very dangerous as my friend and colleague Dr. John Boyles has written in his article "Misreading the Scripture with Artificial Eyes":


"This experience with ChatGPT [asking it to interpret Jesus' Sermon on the Mount] therefore cautions us to consider the value of any interpretive tendencies it exposes. Will we treat the Bible as a statistical game of tokens? As words and ideas to be bandied about in disembodied dialogue? Or will we take up the challenge of Jesus to be wise, to hear his teachings, and to do them (Matt. 7:24) in community with one another?" (1)


"Perhaps ChatGPT writes a 'better' sermon than you do, a sermon with better grammar or nicer turns of phrase. What of it? You aren’t called to be a 'good' preacher, not in that sense. You’re called to be a faithful preacher. God wants you to preach his Word as the person you are, not to serve as a mouthpiece for a proprietary algorithm." (2)


And the church said ... Amen.

My biggest reservation in all of this is the rapidity of change and that so few people seem to be discerning when it comes to implementing new tech into our lives, our hearts, minds, and souls. The tech that we use to shape the world around us; the micro waves that warms our food quickly ... the cars and highway systems that rapidly transport us across long distances ... the keyboards that punch out these words faster than writing by hand ... or the integration of Google's quantum computers into our world ... also shape us.



 

For many, tech is often simply 'adopted' without critically thinking through the ramifications and implications as seen through a Christian worldview. This is perhaps most especially true for our children.

 

This isn't to say that all technology is inherently evil, but that isn't the same as saying technology is 'neutral' either. The idea that technology is neutral and is only determined by the user is a myth. Andy Crouch argues that technology offers us an 'easy button everywhere', and that comes at a great cost to being formed into the likeness of Christ:


"In countless ways our lives are easier than our grandparents'. But is what really matters - for example, wisdom and courage - it seems very hard to argue that our lives are overall better. ... Technology is a brilliant, praiseworthy expression of human creativity and cultivation of the world. But it is at best neutral in actually forming human beings who can create and cultivate as we were meant to. Technology is good at serving human beings. It even - as in medical or communication technology - saves human lives. It does almost nothing to actually form human being in the things that make them worth serving and saving." (3)


Sure having an AI generated synopsis of an article, video, or podcast may be helpful for us to process information more quickly (a newer, slicker version of SparkNotes - or CliffsNotes in my day). But what is the cost of easy everywhere?


Yes reviewing the SparkNotes may have helped me prepare to pass a test with less effort when I didn't want to take the time to read the entire book ... but is that helping me to be shaped into a more loving person (Mat 22:36-40) that is more able to persevere under trial (Jam 1:12) and to endure hardship (Heb 12:7)?


The question we need to ask ourselves before using some tech isn't whether it is going to make my life easier, more comfortable, or more fun and entertaining - the answer is almost always YES! The questions that we should be asking need to be more along the lines of;


  • Is this helping me to be transformed more into the likeness of Christ, or is this making my life easier in some way while mis-forming me less into Christ?

  • Is this helping me to love my neighbor better, an actual embodied image bearer of God?

  • Does it rob or diminish some part of my embodied humanity that God has called 'good'?


Most of us are not going to be the engineers that create the software or the politicians or CEO's that have greater influence on its cultural adoption (but I pray that some under the lordship of Jesus will be in those spaces). Most of us are simply users and consumers of this kind of tech.


This means that it is an uphill climb for us at this point in human history. Most of us have already adopted many of these technologies wholesale, and been significantly transformed by them in the process. Often without knowing it. We are now beginning to see more clearly that just because we can, doesn't mean we should. We are now starting to experience the psychological damage of living a phone-based life, and especially the mental illness increase it creates in children.


But it need not be all doom and gloom. It needs to simply be a time, like all others before it, where the followers of Jesus consider what it looks like to be salt on the earth in their cultural context. To offer a way forward, a way of love, perseverance, and meaningful purpose. To offer this to a world hellbent on trying to avoid suffering, boredom, loneliness, and death by finding salvation in the promise of technology; an easy button everywhere.



 

"When God lets himself be born and become [a human being], this is not idle caprice, some fancy he hits upon just to be doing something, perhaps to put an end to the boredom that has brashly been said must be involved in being God - it is not in order to have an adventure. No, when God does this, then this fact is the earnestness of existence.

Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death


 



Recommend Reading:





 

Footnotes:

  1. John Boyles, "Misreading Scripture with Artificial Eyes" (Christianity Today, 2023), accessed Jan 12, 2025.

  2. Brad East, "AI Has No Place in the Pulpit" (Christianity Today, 2023), accessed Jan 12, 2025.

  3. Andy Crouch, The Tech Wise Family (Grand Rapids; Baker Books), 65-66.





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