This summer, Mark Andrew Jefferson, who was leading a teaching workshop at Princeton Theological Seminary, prompted ChatGPT to write down a homily based on the Gospel of Luke’s parable of the nice Samaritan. For good measure, he ordered the bogus intelligence engine to mimic the type of the late, legendary evangelist Billy Graham.
When Jefferson showed the outcomes to the scholars in his workshop, they were split on the probabilities of AI-generated sermons. Some were enthusiastic, others ambivalent but curious. Yet others were concerned about what it would spell for his or her future livelihood as preachers: As do many individuals in any variety of vocations, they feared that AI will render humans dispensable.
“Students were excited because we helped them to do among the work crucial, but additionally a few of them were dismayed because a few of them felt like technology was going to do their job for them,” said Jefferson, who teaches homiletics — the art of preaching — at Howard University’s School of Divinity and is CEO of a preaching and leadership consultancy called Maleko Global.
Across the United States, seminaries are contending with the probabilities of AI for clergy and churches. Many, similar to United Lutheran Seminary in Philadelphia and Howard’s School of Divinity, are to start with stages of discussing how AI will factor into their curricula and crafting policies for his or her students’ educations. From divinity school hallways to organized seminars to governing bodies similar to the Association of Theological Schools and the Academy of Homiletics, professors are chatting about what AI means their students.
AI’s success in religious contexts to this point has been mixed. In April of this 12 months, Catholic Answers, an advocacy group, launched “Father Justin,” an AI-driven chatbot designed to clarify church doctrine to curious users. The bot has since been “defrocked” after suggesting that babies may very well be baptized in Gatorade, amongst other gaffes. AskCathy, created by the Episcopal Church in partnership with TryTank Research Institute, sticks to basic questions on that denomination and helps users find digital resources.
But most seminary professors acknowledge that their students’ toolboxes will inevitably include AI. The Rev. Shauna Hannan, a professor on the graduate school of California Lutheran University, dismisses “the fear is that technology will type of take over the necessity for humans,” stating that there are numerous duties of clergy that cannot be replicated by AI. “I do not think, in a form of relationship-centered vocation like ministry, that technology will replace the human-to-human interaction,” she said.
Hannan looks at AI as “a tool, in the way in which that you just might mention Gutenberg printing press within the sixteenth century that Martin Luther used.” In that spirit, she said, “I’d love to listen to from my students ways in which they would really like to make use of ChatGPT to assist that creative process as a form of collaborative one.”
At the Academy for Jewish Religion, in Yonkers, New York, rabbinical students taking a required Jewish law and science course will discuss AI and other latest technologies, based on Rabbi Matthew Goldstone. However, Goldstone said, “While the productive use of AI for sermon writing (and) locating answers to Jewish questions can enhance what students are capable of achieve, the fundamentally personal nature of translating the teachings for those communities remains to be really essential,” said Goldstone.
When it involves sitting down to write down a sermon, said the Rev. Karyn Wiseman, who’s on the education and technology committee at United Lutheran Seminary, generative AI could be a brainstorming partner, but beyond that, the nuances get tricky. Since the source of AI’s output is the work of other authors, she noted, plagiarism is a serious concern.
“Do I cut and paste? Is it an inspiration? It all gets so fuzzy,” Wiseman said. “How do we are saying that the integrity of your work is your individual? It’s a tremendous resource, but it will probably’t be the majority of your work.”
Students of Frederick Ware, at Howard’s School of Divinity, will likely be reading a textbook this semester that can help them think through the capabilities of AI from a theological perspective. Then, Ware said, they are going to experiment with AI for themselves. “What does it produce? What are its capabilities?” said Ware.
Other professors also appear to think the most effective route is to offer students experience with AI programs, together with guidance on how it will probably be helpful and the way it will probably get facts unsuitable.
Tisa Wenger, a professor of American religious history at Yale Divinity School, had her students prompt ChatGPT to write down a sermon within the language of Joranna Lee, a Nineteenth-century preacher within the AME Church, then critique the output. Wenger found the exercise was good for teaching the constraints of ChatGPT greater than its advantages, and for testing the scholars’ knowledge of the fabric for all the small print ChatGPT didn’t include or got unsuitable.
“Students really loved that exercise, they usually really did an excellent job of unpacking them. In fact, we felt like their resulting papers were more creative,” said Wenger. “We’ve now done that for 3 years in a row.”
In many traditions, clergy are already considered to have a writing partner within the Holy Spirit. If AI helps out, is there still space for the Spirit to maneuver the preacher because it pleases?
Yes, said several homiletics professors. “I feel the Spirit can move through the sermon crafting process. If AI is one conversation partner amongst many (and never used simply to spit out a sermon), I think the Spirit can move through preachers who’re engaging the tool,” said Hannan. Whether the Spirit can encourage AI directly, she said, is questionable.
Jefferson believes that while the Spirit may move through AI, preachers must consider the biases of AI’s source material as they engage with it. “The literature around AI and race, gender and the criminal justice system attests that these tools will not be neutral. So I like to recommend the preacher examine themselves as they engage these tools.”
As AI makes its way into all corners of society, including the church, “I feel we would like to be cautious,” said Hannan. “But I do not fear using whatever is on the market for good, so long as it’s for good, and it isn’t for a small group of individuals. But how is it good for all living beings?”
© Religion News Service
