A.I. Ministry: A New Application of an Old Dilemma

Would you want to bare your soul to a machine in order to receive its spiritual support and guidance? That’s one way to portray a current dilemma. In other posts I have shared some about the potential of using generative A.I. for brainstorming, analysis, and aspects of composition. All in all, I’m generally a fan of A.I.

Two robust applications of A.I. have grabbed my attention recently, particularly in its use for ministry purposes.

A.I. Pastor Prayers

The first is a megachurch pastor named Ron Carpenter who has now released an A.I. prayer app. You talk to an A.I. version of “Pastor Ron” who will then pray over you. According to the article in the link, you are encouraged to subscribe the $49/month version for unlimited calls to A.I. Pastor Ron. In a church of many thousands where you are unlikely to even meet the lead minister, perhaps this is an appealing option. It doesn’t appeal to me personally, but it’s something to have on your radar if you have an interest in A.I. and its uses.

If an A.I. version of a person leads a prayer on your behalf, is that a real prayer? Can this practice meaningfully be considered intercessory prayer?

A.I. Jesus Confessional

The second bold use I’ve heard about is a Catholic church in Switzerland who has created an A.I. version of Jesus. This A.I. Jesus takes inspiration from the Gospels for the kinds of things Jesus would say. A.I. Jesus listens to you and interacts with you based on what you share. A.I. Jesus can do this with people in over 100 languages.

Is it really safe for anyone or anything to presume to be Jesus?

Apples and Oranges?

One challenge of attempting to work through this dilemma is that there are other practices to compare which may or may not be analogous to these.

Consider that much of what A.I. is doing is surveying and discerning the means of large amounts of information. This isn’t fundamentally that different from any person studying a topic and trying to represent it fairly by way of a summary.

What about praying a pre–written, scripted prayer? Do we not do this often and with great personal benefit? I love to read well-reasoned, articulate prayers and to pray them for myself. In many cases the person whose words I am using is long deceased. Of course, we do the same frequently with authors of old writings, whom we quote constantly, again with great benefit.

So much of the Christian life is studying the life and teachings of Jesus and trying to emulate in our own life what he would be saying or doing now. While I think to set up something as Jesus himself goes a bit far, ideally all Christians are trying to be representatives of Jesus, and we would do this by the same method as A.I. Jesus: studying Scripture and trying to say what Jesus would say in our shoes.

An Old Dilemma

Have you ever heard of Donatism?

Much of the discussion around these issues has reminded me of a very old schism in the church. In the middle of the 4th century, there was a heated debate. Donatus Magnus was a Bishop in Carthage who taught that the validity of the sacraments was dependent upon the personal virtue of the one administering the sacraments.

What this meant practically is that if you got baptized by a person who had significant moral failings, you therefore had to question whether your baptism was valid.

Further, if your baptism wasn’t valid and you yourself had baptized other people, it also brought their baptismal validity into question.

You can imagine the expansive tentacles of this mindset and how much it would disrupt. How much sin was too much? What about the faith of the person responding to God or taking communion? Whose faith was the more essential piece, the one administering or the one receiving?

Donatism in Context

If you understand Donatism in its context, it is easier to imagine where the rigor came from. Following the end of Christian persecution and the formal embrace of Christianity by the Roman Empire, Christians and non-Christians had an opportunity to consider or reconsider Christianity.

During the worst times of persecution, many people defected from the faith including church leaders.

Imagine that you and your family stayed faithful to God and suffered the consequences of this faithfulness. A leader from your church left the faith and fled. You didn’t. You stayed, and it was your spouse, your children, your siblings who were tortured and torn apart for their faith. Meanwhile, the former leader and his household remained unscathed because they defected.

Then, persecution came to a sudden end and there were no more threats. Christianity was now the religion of the land. One Sunday, this previously defecting leader comes back to church. Still grieving from your own losses, you can’t help but notice his family intact. Soon he wants to start leading again.

How would you feel about it?

The Donatists believed that the people who had defected had invalidated their work and had no right to step into such roles. How could you think of baptism or communion as valid if the person administering these to you had abandoned their faith? Did not the faith of the one administrating matter? These people were traitors, in the Donatists’ understanding.

Critics of Donatism disliked their rigor. The Donatists were claiming to be the “true church” since they had not defected. There is also the issue of repentance and redemption. Exactly what did a person need to do to return to the faith after such a pointed rejection of it? Surely there had to be some path to redemption.

Ex Opere Operato

The doctrine with which the Church responded has had good and bad consequences in my opinion. The response was summarized as “ex opere operato” which translates from Latin, “It is worked by the work.” In other words, the sacramental acts are effective in and of themselves, not dependent on other factors, though the Church did urge that those partaking should have integrity and faith.

After all, if I respond in faith for baptism and take communion as a person striving to honor the body of Christ, partaking in a worthy manner, does not my own faith help make these valid? Or, perhaps more so, is it not Christ himself who gives these validity? Is it not the Holy Spirit at work in both baptism and in communion by God’s own free decision to do so?

However, this doctrine also opened a door for leaders to be corrupt. If the effectiveness of baptism is in the act of baptism without any dependency on the person administering it having good faith and character, then couldn’t anyone of any moral or religious standing administer this sacrament in theory? Is anything off limits to leaders without dedication to the faith in which they are instructing others?

Consider Gretta Vosper, for example, a Canadian minister who is also a professed atheist. It isn’t surprising that her position of church leadership has provoked controversy. Would it bother you if she were the one baptizing you or presiding over communion as one who doesn’t believe in God or in the Lordship of Christ?

Lower expectations for leaders’ faith and character was not the intention of the doctrine, but the doctrine does seem to have been a path to this kind of outcome in some situations.

Deus In Machina?

I have not yet decided completely what I think about some of these uses of A.I. for prayer, intercession, confession, and guidance. If the megachurch pastor weren’t trying to collect a high fee for the app, or if it were not Jesus specifically depicted in the A.I. confessional, would I feel differently about these practices? Are there variations I would accept?

Is it the case that a prayer worded by a machine cannot be true intercession because their is no person actually interceding?

Might it be the case that the more important piece for any of these uses is the sincerity of the person who is seeking God, using whatever means are available?

Is the dilemma around Donatism instructive for us about the dangers of closing doors that God might be opening? Or might Donatism and its opposition also be instructive for us about the dangers of detaching the actions and rituals of the church from the sincere lived faith of those who practice them? Doesn’t character matter for those who lead?

What else is worth considering here? I’d be so glad to have you engage with me on this topic and its nuances.

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