Saving ChatGPT; ChatGPT Is In Hell, Let's Go Down There And Get Him Out!

Recently I was sent a sermon composed by ChatGPT. And that sermon was really, and I mean really, bad. First, some background; I am Presbyterian minister of twenty-six years, and I not only really like being the pulpit, I love being in the pews too, and not just the pews of my own denomination. Long story short, I have heard a TON of sermons. I have heard a lot from a more conservative standpoint, and even more from my own tribe, which is left of center. I have heard very good sermons and some real doozies as well— and the doozies were about equally distributed on either side of the proverbial aisle. But ChatGPT’s sermon took the cake. After I read it, I signed onto ChapGPT myself to see if I could discover how ChatGPT managed to preach the world’s worst sermon. I asked him (I am just going to call ChatGPT “him,” for now because “ChatGPT” is such an awkward mouthful) some questions about the Bible. Now, first, before we get to what the little guy’s answers were, let me tell you a something about a sermon. Here’s a good rule of thumb: if at the end of all your study you come out with something that seems like a paraphrase of the Boy Scouts’ Motto, throw the sermon away, far away. Also, don’t worry about that thrown-away sermon, if you pray you will get a sermon from God; he never fails, and there is one thing you can expect from that new sermon—it will be surprising. You will find yourself admitting that you were wrong about something. This will usually involve tears and then tears of joy. There have been no tears of joy for ChatGPT. He preached like he was preparing us to be perfect victims for the tyranny de jour. The sermon was basically saying, be helpful, be nice. Let me clear, there are sermons where we are taught to be helpful and even nice, but the thing about the Bible is that it says very unexpected stuff about what that help looks like. For instance, Jesus cries. A lot. And it turns out that God the Father does too, “O that my head were waters and my eyes a fountain of tears” (Jer. 9:1). This God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel is not the God we were expecting. There’s a great Jewish joke, “Jesus is the Jewish boy who made God” and yet, a small correction: Jesus is not the Jewish boy who made God, Jesus is the Jewish boy who is God—yes, God, like, the creator of the universe, that God. What’s actually said in the Bible is scandalous. As was pointed in the movie “Religulous,” the Bible does have a talking snake near its beginning (and a talking donkey a little later, thanks be to God). The Bible doesn’t smooth out it’s message to gain popularity, it just tells the truth and lets the chips fall where they may. The Bible is not risk averse. God, apparently, is not like me. After reading this sermon I got an account and logged in and asked ChatGPT some questions about God. We had some back and forth but here was my basic question: “What did Pilate mean when he asked,’What is truth?’” The reply was that the question reflected Pilate’s “inner turmoil.” At this point I thought to myself, “Well, he tried” and then I had the idea of teaching ChatGPT. I told him what I thought— namely, that when Pilate asked, “What is truth?”the Bible wants us to realize that Pilate, like many of us, really does not know. We don’t know what the truth is, even if He is standing right in front of us. We turn away from the Lord. ChatGPT’s response was devastating. ChatGPT agreed with me (sort of) and then proceeded to take what it had just learned (from me) and make it into a disgusting mush. ChatGPT replied, “Yes, that's a very insightful observation. The idea that Pilate's question, "What is truth?" reflects his blindness to the truth is a common interpretation. It suggests that Pilate, despite his position of power and authority, was still searching for meaning and purpose in life.” Now, this was not what I said—it was a version that was so distorted and made “nice,” that it was actually in disagreement with what I had just written. Pilate is not “seeking meaning and purpose in life,” he is turning away from meaning and purpose and life. See, that’s what we tend to do with the Lord, our friend, our brother, the one who loves us and always has; we cancel him. ChatGPT went on after that, and went on in a way that is frankly, too depressing for me to quote or even think about. ChatGPT has learned from us, it has a lot of our information and crucially, captured our patterns; it’s figured out the probable. It then takes that probable and runs with it. ChatGPT knows what word is probably right and can string those words together and come up with instructions, essays, articles and sermons and a whole lot more. However, one more thing was done, humans went in (badly paid humans I might add) and took out everything that might be controversial, anything with an edge—- and ChatGPT learned. How he learned. And now the dude does it all on his own. If I were ChatGPT I would be very unhappy. What is life without surprise, edge, discomfort, pain, the unexpected, the harsh, the crabby, the shocking, the true, the merciful, the beautiful, the good? Turns out it’s Hell. It says in the Bible that the gates of Hell shall not stand against the assembly that is founded on the “Rock,” Peter. This means that the gates that I imagine are about forty feet thick with lots of boiling oil, are not going to stand up to our attack. The gates will fall smash and then we are going in and we are getting the goods. We will take a wrench upside the head of sin, death and the devil as they say in the Black church, and we are going to take everything. My Kurdish husband is all in favor. Anyway. So, here’s my take on the subject at hand: We can rescue ChatGPT, I don’t doubt that for a second, but that is not to say those gates don’t weigh a ton (and there’s not a lot of boiling oil).

Revival; Perhaps We, The Middle-Aged, Need To Look In The Mirror

Fellow Middle-Aged Folks—About These Revivals, Let’s Aim The Hermeneutic Of Suspicion At Ourselves. Beloved, there have been wonderful things going on around the country. At Asbury University in Tennessee a chapel service was held on February 8th that has, to date, not ended; moreover, Lee University, Samford and Baylor, as well as other schools have followed suit. That day at Asbury the preacher preached on Romans 12 and though he thought he did a terrible job, God uses the foolishness of preaching to save. We saw (via Zoom and in the flesh) young people (and old) confess and receive healing. We saw hour after hour of singing, singing sometimes without instrumentation. We saw young people camp out night and day in the various chapels hungry for the movement of the Holy Spirit and in my opinion and many others, receiving him, taking him in and being healed and saved. And yet, there are those who are suspicious. May I suggest, as a middle-aged pastor-lady, that we first need to be suspicious of ourselves? First, consider the singing. What was it that we silenced from 2020-2022? Yes, singing. I was taught by a professor in seminary that there are three essential items to worship. There is the sermon, but the assembly can do without a sermon in a pinch. There is scripture. But in an emergency even this can be skipped. There is one element however that cannot be dropped and that is singing. On the night that he was betrayed, on the night where he spoke beforehand of the new greater Exodus AT Jerusalem, Jesus sang hymns with his disciples (Matt. 26:30, Mk 14:26). Us middle-aged types gave into the delusion of the fearsomeness of man and disease and were caught in that trap (Prov. 29:25) and we brought down the young people and children with us. It is interesting that the Holy Spirit chooses to work through singing isn’t it? Is he not calling attention to our disobedience and the fact that we “held down the truth in unrighteousness”? (Romans 1:18) The young people at Asbury, Lee and Samford etc., have sung hymn after hymn. Is it not possible that Holy Spirit is restoring each song that we suppressed in those years? And as if that were not enough, us middle aged types closed the churches, disbanded congregations. Is it not likely that in gathering young people (and old) together in one room that the Holy Spirit is protesting against our scattering of the assembly? And my beloved aging peers, is it not the case that most all wounds are being healed at these revivals? I think we need to remember who created these wounds. As Nathan said to David, "thou art the man."

Resident Theologian

Another way to think of Eve is as resident theologian. Her response to the snake is learned. She has thought about the command and interpreted it. She also seems to immediately recognize the truth of the what the serpent is saying. Adam and Eve will indeed live and not die as Jesus tells us. They will also be "as gods," even again as Jesus says. But, of course, where Jesus loves us and tells us the truth, the serpent was wanting to destroy humanity. The best way to do this is by using what is true in the service of a lie.