andrewwalton.com.au

Category: Philosophy of Religion

  • The Weekly Sermon

    Whether artificial intelligence can write a better sermon than a person is now a closed argument, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve seen it! The answer is an unequivocal ‘yes!’ Furthermore, people who know how to use AI well can write better sermons with AI than without it. Somewhere beyond the soulless slop AI can sometimes produce, and the stretched resources of the time-poor minister, lies an obviously better option: small groups of subject-matter experts augmenting their biblical and theological expertise with AI to produce weekly sermons for broad Sunday congregational engagement. Such an approach could release those in frontline ministry to reclaim hours every week for more worthwhile investment. Few ministers could rival such groups in creating sermons of theological rigour, depth, clarity, spiritual nuance, contextual discipleship, etc. Those who could would likely be grateful to not have to. 

    Some may argue that it has been a long time since a good argument could be made for having every minister write their own sermon each week from scratch. Perhaps the meteoric rise of AI, and the unrelenting demands of contemporary life and ministry, will create an inflection point in ministry that is too hard to dismiss: why do we keep doing this to ourselves? The time-consuming nature of preparing sermons, combined with the relatively limited fruit such highly customised creations produce, finds the whole approach wanting. Requiring every minister to learn the art and science of crafting sermons, and then expecting them to consistently produce high-quality sermons every week is a lot to ask. Sermon prep. must be among the most labour intensive, resource-hungry, and entirely unnecessary efforts the contemporary church engages in. (Many will be unaware that some ministers put up to a full day each week aside for this). Exactly why we are so committed to having every minister recreate the homiletic wheel every week at the cost of leaving so much else undone, I do not know. Picture it: every congregational minister writing their very own customised sermon to for their congregation every… single… week. All-too-often these sermons are not very good, and do not reflect well the effort that has gone into writing them. To put it bluntly, weekly sermon writing for each and every minister is a redundant task. The sooner the church can adapt to this new paradigm, the more effective (and potentially inspiring) it can become.

    My question to the church is this: In a world of such need and suffering, is to do otherwise poor stewardship of our collective time and resources?

  • Locating Belief

    Have you ever read something that changed everything for you?!

    Over a decade ago I read the quote below, unlocking something so paradigm-shifting for me that the world, all of a sudden, made a lot more sense. 

    Philosopher of religion, John Hick, notes:

    Whilst theologians have been very good at taking account of all sorts of abstruse or obscure data they have sometimes failed to notice quite obvious facts, which are evident to ordinary people. And one of the things that are obvious to ordinary people, and yet sometimes not regarded by the theologians, is this: that in the great majority of cases – say, 98 or 99% of cases – the religion in which a person believes and to which he or she adheres depends upon where that person was born.

    John Hick, “The Second Christianity” (1983), p.78.

    This sparked, for me, a deconstructive process of questioning some tightly-held beliefs. It was as if I could, for the first time, see the fibres that made up things such as faith; religion and culture.

    How had I not seen this before? Or had I?

    For some time, I had felt that everything didn’t quite add up, but couldn’t see what it was, or why. 

    Looking from the inside out, I was only able see the world I knew reflected back at me. Hick’s words transported me out of that mirrored world, forever bursting the intellectual bubble that had entrapped me.

    Looking from the outside in, I could see the relative value of belief-systems, including and beyond my own. What would this all mean for how I saw… well, everything?!

    Over a decade on I can say the experience has been akin to an Australian bushfire, destroying dead matter and creating the possibility for new growth. Of course, in those early months and years, there wasn’t a lot of regeneration – mostly just roaring flames. It was quite unsettling to be honest. But even then I had a sense that it all needed to go up in smoke, if the conditions to create further growth were to be.

    Anyway, to cut a long story short, this line of thinking has led me to explore related ideas about belief and God, hopefully leading to a PhD thesis which I’m planning to start next year. 

    For those who are interested, the closest I’ve come to formulating this succinctly (with some much-appreciated help from Associate Professor Glen O’Brien) is this:

    I am studying the differing ways people construct a belief in God, because I want to help people live peaceably with a diversity of beliefs.

    I will do this through the lens of Social Constructionism, using Spiral Dynamics as a tool to build a healthy framework for the formation and maintenance of theological and philosophical belief.

    I suspect the underlying issues this topic addresses represent key drivers of conflict which tear apart families, communities and nations. It would be good to discover some helpful ways forward.

    I’m really looking forward to exploring this and related ideas over the coming years. Let me invite you to join me in the conversation. Feel free to post your replies here or contact me directly.