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Category: Theology of Technology

Theology of technology reflects on the purpose of technical means. It is also interested in understanding how it is shaping human communities. This is done with the hopes of bending technical development towards the flourishing of life on the planet.

God is NOT like Algorithms: Negating AI’s Absolute Power

In my previous blog, I discussed the totalitarianism and determinism already created by today’s AI, concluding my argument with a distinction between a positive and a negative theology of AI. I also made, without any elaboration, an appeal for the latter. The terminology of this distinction may lead to some confusion. The name “artificial intelligence” is usually applied to computer-based, state-of-the-art algorithms that display behavior or skills of which it has formerly been thought only human beings are capable. Notwithstanding, an AI algorithm, and especially the whole array of AI algorithms that are active online, may exhibit behavior or create an environment whose qualities go beyond the level or capacity of the human mind and, even more than that, appear to be “God-like” or are treated so.

Here enters theological reflection with two of its forms: positive and negative theology, of which the second is less common and more sophisticated than the first. Positive theology describes and discusses God by means of names and positive statements like – to give a few simple examples – “God is spirit”, “God is Lord”, “God is love”, and so on. But, according to negative theology, it is equally true that, by reason of God’s radical otherness and difference from anything in the created world, God can only be spoken of through negative statements: “God is not” or “is unlike” a “spirit” or a “lord” or “love”. Accordingly, these two distinct ways of approaching God can translate into the two following statements: “God is AI” or “God is not AI.”

Taken from unsplash.com

Defining a Positive Theology of AI

Scandalous as it may seem, a positive theology of AI is hardly avoidable, and its subject should be less the miraculous accomplishments of future AI and all the hopes attached to it than the everyday online spectacles of the present. True, the worship of today’s AI scarcely pours out into a profession of its divinity in the manner of the Apostle Thomas when confronted with the risen Christ (“My Lord and my God!” John 20:28), but spending with it the most beatific hours of the day including the first and last waking moments (before going to pee in the morning and after doing so in the evening) certainly qualifies as a life of prayer.

In a sense, the worship of AI does more than prayer to the Christian God could ever do in this life as AI provides light and nurture in seamless services tailored to every user’s interests, quirks, and wishes. Indeed, it casts a spell of bedazzlement on you in powerful alliance with the glamour, sleekness, and even sexiness of design. So it comes to pass that you end up in a city whose sky is created by AI, or, rather, whose sky is AI itself – a sky where your highest aspirations turn to. Could this city and sky possibly be those prophesied by John the Seer in the Apocalypse? “And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it…” (Revelations 21:23).

Image by anncapictures from Pixabay

Valiant Resistance or Fruitless Nostalgia?  

But, let’s suppose, there arises an urge in you to resist the city and sky of AI, recognizing that they are not God’s city and God’s sky, that AI is not God, and God is unlike AI – in other words, you negate AI as God. Of course, this is more than an act of logic and goes beyond the scope of a theoretical decision. The moment you realize you have treated AI as God, and you have been wrong, you change your attitude and orientation, and start searching for God elsewhere, outside the realm of AI.

You repent.

This metanoia of sorts leads you to trade your smartphone for nature, opting to live under the real sky. There, you experience real love and friendship outside social media platforms. You may even discard Google Maps and seek to get lost in real cities and find your bearings with the help of old paper maps.

Such actions, however, are not the best negative theology of AI. Do they not exhibit a nostalgia for the past, growing wistful about the sky, the love, the city, and the God of old? Is God nostalgic? Would God set up God’s tent outside the city of AI into which the whole of creation is moving? Have you, searching for God outside the realm of AI, not engaged in an unserious, even dull form of negation?

There must be another way.

In fact, the divine realm empowered by AI carries in itself its own theological negation, moments when its bedazzlement loosens its grip and its divine face undergoes an eclipse – moments that are empty, dull, boring, meaningless, or even full of frustration or anxiety. Such moments are specific to this realm and not just the usual downside of human life. It was, if you are willing to realize, the proliferation of such moments that have made you repudiate the divinity of AI and go searching outside its realm, and not just a sudden thought that occurred to you.

Image by strikers from Pixabay

A Balanced Negative Theology of AI

As a matter of fact, it was not only you; such moments in the midst of all the bedazzlement, now and then, happen to all devotees. Does the ubiquitousness of such moments mean that all citizens of the city of AI participate in its theological self-negation, and, therefore, living in it necessarily includes the act of negating it? In a sense, yes but this is just a ubiquitous and unintended, almost automatic negation, and not the right one. As a rule, the citizens of the city live in the moment and for the moment; they naively live its bedazzlement to the full and suffer its moments of meaninglessness to the full. In doing so, however, they are unfree.

Instead, you are better off living in the city of AI accompanied by a moderate and reserved, yet constant negation. In this balanced and overall experience, you always keep the harrowing moments of emptiness and meaninglessness in mind with a view to them no longer quite coming to harrow you and, above all, with a view to AI’s bedazzlement no longer gaining the upper hand.

As a consequence of your moderate and sustained negation of AI as God (a negative theology of AI), you create a certain distance between you and AI which is nevertheless also a space of curiosity and playfulness. Precisely because you negate it in a theological sense, you can curiously turn towards AI, witness the details of its behavior and also enjoy its responsiveness to your actions. And it is precisely in this dynamic and undecided area of free play with AI, opened up by your negation, that God, defined as to what God is not (not AI) and undefined as to what God is, can be offered a space to enter.  

Gábor L. Ambrus holds a post-doctoral research position in the Theology and Contemporary Culture Research Group at The Charles University, Prague. He is also a part-time research fellow at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, Rome. He is currently working on a book on theology, social media, and information technology. His research primarily aims at a dialogue between the Judaeo-Christian tradition and contemporary techno-scientific civilization.

Egalitarian Human Futures in the Wake of AI, Part II

In this article, I’m going to use the idea of image-bearing and social synecdoche to help us discuss the relationship between AI, theology and egalitarian governance. The first article here provides background for this discussion.

Image-bearing, priesthood, and social synecdoche

In the Ancient Near East, to say that someone was the image of a god was to say that they had a governance function, as priest or king. At the core of the priestly function is mediation between divine and human realms, as a part who represents the whole group. The priest manifests social synecdoche before the divine. In a Christian context, we also understand a priest as a mediator between the group and the divine Word or Logos, the ordering principle that brings rational coherence to Creation.

In this network of ideas, we can hold together the experiences of scientific learning and true communication, along with the experience of human agency in governance. After all, scientists stand-in for all of us as mediators of the Word spoken in Creation, within their area of specialization. They bring back to the group what they have been shown: realities that they don’t invent, but which their reconciling work helps us all access. Similarly, political representatives stand-in for the group as their representative agent, embodying its decision-making capacity. Both scientific and governing roles properly involve experiences of meditation through social synecdoche. Both roles involve a priestly element.

Now let’s focus our attention on the experience of mediation. What does it feel like when you represent a group, bridging the gap between us and a powerful reality beyond us? Along with inevitable frustrations, we might also experience the joy of discovery, the delight of shared understanding, and the satisfaction of reaching an agreement that is good for us all. The instrumental goods that come from this kind of mediation are substantial. But beyond this, the shared experience itself is of profound value. Priestly image-bearing isn’t just about what is achieved externally through representative mediation. It necessarily involves the human experience of that process.

Expanding human priesthood

To say that humans bear the image of God is to say that we all have a special vocation to foster experiences of mediation, within various domains at various scales. If humans really are image-bears of God, that means the experience of bringing a greater wholeness into being is an irreducible aspect of what we are for. Whether it is in our garden, our home, our workplace, or in some larger domain of responsibility, this is the miracle that we all are.

Imagine science or politics proceeding without authentic experiences of mediation. Maybe we can build a zombie world where research and agreement seem to be happening, but where the AI agents conducting this work have no experience, and so no appreciation of the syntheses achieved. Or we might have an authoritarian politics in which people are threatened (or blindly herded by algorithms) into group conformity, but they are out of conformity with any kind of larger reality. Both scenarios, I hope, sound profoundly and transparently dystopian. Against these possibilities, I would encourage us to envision a society (even an AI-human society) that focuses on fostering the universal priestly function of humanity. It would be a spiritually egalitarian and deeply discursive society.

Franciscan spirituality and egalitarianism

In appealing to spiritual egalitarianism, we can advocate for the kind of elevating egalitarianism I have described above. However, egalitarianism can easily collapse into a universal denigration, rather than elevation, of image-bearers. Although laudably egalitarian, this other approach can reproduce patterns of domination and abuse, when a liberatory elevation is more important than ever. At the core of this issue are different ways of appropriating Franciscan spirituality.

By Christian Buehner taken from unsplash.com

Consider: Pope Francis styled himself after Brother Francis of Assisi. Far more than a whim, this is a powerful and enduring signal of his egalitarian vision for the church. But there is a radical tension here. The Pope has long been styled as the Pontifex Maximus, an office inherited from Roman high priests and then Emperor-priests. During the life of Jesus, this office was held by Emperor Tiberius. A common meaning associated with “pontifex” (both then and now) is “bridge builder.” The term reflects the mediating role of the priest.

The irony of a Pope taking the name Francis is extremely sharp: Saint Francis of Assisi rather pointedly never became an official priest. He remained Brother Francis, never Father Francis. What does it really mean for the Pontifex Maximus, the Father of Fathers and the Head of the College of Cardinals, to style himself after Brother Francis? It might be a gesture toward general elevation. But it also might indicate a denigrating abdication of responsibility. What, exactly, is happening in this moment of clerical anti-clericalism?

Anti-Clericalism and Lay Authoritarianism

Pope Francis genuinely reflects a Franciscan vocation in many ways. For example, he has recently made some important post-clerical accommodations in the church, allowing non-priests to lead Catholic orders. Fittingly, Franciscans like Daniel Horan, OFM, have celebrated this decision as an anti-clerical victory.

However, this particular form of egalitarianism can easily foster unaccountability and authoritarian populism. Consider: the primary opponent of Pope Francis for the hearts and minds of Catholics in the US today is the EWTN media network. Slate’s history of the network describes the development of this lay-led media empire as it has become the Catholic Fox News.

The Pope does not approve of EWTN. He has even referred to it as “the work of the devil,” as Slate documents. But can he exorcise EWTN? No. The network, founded by a Franciscan nun, is led by the laity. That makes it relatively unaccountable to anyone but its funders. Institutionally, the Catholic Church doesn’t have a comparable media network, so it can’t interact discursively at relevant social scale. The Pope is left to inveigh ineffectively against its aggressive authoritarian populism, because it mediates the Pope to US Catholics.

So lay leadership is already being tried. EWTN’s broadcasters are the lay media priests that Pope Francis is not. It hasn’t yielded the discursively democratic fruit we might hope it would.

We can easily imagine AI leadership that simply amplifies these problems. What if EWTN next pursues the attention-harvesting of the Youtube algorithm, but on steroids? It could govern us by creating even more intense propaganda rabbit holes. Humans would be even further divorced from their shared vocation as true mediators, because of the absence of truth criteria that connect the project to a broader Creational and social whole. Instead, they would become objects in an increasingly sophisticated epistemic capture system.

Universal image-bearing as a powerful alternative vision

What can we do? To start, we should clarify what is of first importance in this brave new world. A primary goal of society at all scales must be to honor the universal priestly vocation of humans, as image-bearers. We need to embrace our callings to represent bodies at different times and in different contexts. That includes our own physical bodies, as well as layered networks of group agents at all social scales. Representation matters. This is true in media, but it pertains even more to the many groups we belong to.

By Michal Mation taken from Unsplash.com

The egalitarianism of Pope Francis is to be commended, but it is flawed. We don’t need to remove priests from governance. Instead, we need to help all people discern and accountably live out their priestly roles, as mediators and representatives. It isn’t that we should let brothers govern Fathers, but that we must see all the ways that we already govern each other as sibling priests, as experiencing mediators.

Fortunately, we have a precedent for this in Christian tradition. Catholic and otherwise, we all view Jesus as our high priest. But even He didn’t call Himself Father. Rather, he fulfills his priestly function as our equal, as our sibling, and as the Son. Matthew 23:9 specifically articulates this egalitarian vision of priesthood when Jesus warns, in an especially dire passage of Scripture:

“And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father, the one in heaven.”

Here at the dawn of AI governance, we urgently need to hear and heed our brother and high priest.

Daniel Heck is a Pastor at Central Vineyard Church in Columbus, OH. His work focuses on immigrant and refugee support, spiritual direction, and training people of all ages how to follow the teachings of Jesus. He is the author of According to Folly, founder of Tattered Books, and writes regularly on Medium: https://medium.com/@danheck

Creators, Stewards and the Telos of Technology

This is the fourth and final part of our excellent discussion from the January Advisory Board meeting, where we explored the question of whether we live in a technological age. In Part 1 we addressed the idea of a technological age, and in Part 2 we discussed the telos of technology and the value of work. In Part 3 we explored the value of play. In Part 4, we continue the conversation by asking how our role as creators and stewards shapes the telos of technology.

Wen: My personal theology of technology is grounded in us being creators. We are made in God’s image, and God is a creator. So we are all mini creators. That kind of echoes what Micah said. I also think we’re commanded to steward our resources. So going back to the original question that you raise – what is the telos of technology – I see us as creators and stewards. That’s one way to frame a telos of technology. 

Love of God and Love of Neighbor

Another way to frame it is very idealistic. If you look at the Bible, Jesus actually tells us the greatest commandment. Love of God and love of neighbor (Matthew 22:37-40). So is there a way we could run all types of technology, product, visions, and development, through that filter? Does a certain technology help us to love and serve our neighbor? And does this technology honor God?

I know that’s idealistic. I’m not expecting all of US capitalism, all companies, to adopt that framework. But from a biblical perspective, we can ask about the telos of technology and the human telos. Do all of our actions for creating and stewarding serve our neighbor or honor God?

Connecting Creators and Stewards to Smaller Goals

Maggie: As you described earlier, Elias, I also spent a lot of time wondering, “What am I doing?” I worked for a bank. I worked for Wall Street. I’m working for a management and consulting company now. But one of the things that I do in each job is really focusing on bringing a better world, a better life to my end-user.

A lot of times that comes into some pretty granular metrics. For instance, it used to take you two weeks to have this horrible conversation, because you had to pull data from six different places. Now, it will take you an hour to put the data together, and then whatever time it takes you to have the meeting. That is good stewardship! There is a concrete improvement in time saved.

So yes, there is a certain sense in which a broad biblical goal based on love of God and love of neighbor is idealistic. But people can make it more realistic within their context if they connect it to a smaller goal. If I can make one person’s life better, that does express love of neighbor.

Is Ethical Play Possible?

Elias: I want to raise another question, going back to what Micah said about play and what Wen said about our role as creators and stewards. Can we be both playful and good stewards? In other words, is ethical play possible? Can those things happen together? Usually, they do not go together. Often, playing means not worrying about what will happen. And part of being a good steward is almost like being the adult with a child who’s trying to play. “Think about your actions, stop doing that, don’t be so wasteful.” Is there a place there to engage in ethical play? In other words, can play actually help others?

Ben: I think the answer is “yes”. Going back to what Wen said, part of the great commandment is to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. That contains a foundational construct, which is that we love ourselves. If we draw these things together, we can think of it in terms of stewarding ourselves. By stewarding ourselves, we’re increasing our capacity to love ourselves and therefore raising our capacity to love God and neighbor. And I would argue that we increase our capacity by allowing ourselves to play. 

Stewardship, Play, and the Church

We can apply this to the life of the church. I rail against cultural co-opting. That is, with every new technology, every new movement, the church asks how we can make it ours. That is really a dishonest conversation because we don’t really care about human flourishing so much as we care about butts in pews and dollars in plates. There’s a lot of focus on the institution of the church. So instead of increasing human flourishing, and increasing the stewardship of ourselves and others, we spend a lot of time trying to make sure that there’s institutional survival.

That’s the capitalist mindset. How do we maximize profit for our investors? In doing that, we iterate for the good of the institution, rather than the good of humanity.

To get away from that mindset, the church must ask: is this about human flourishing or about institutional flourishing? And that’s where I think the value of play is critical because it cuts across institutions. Organizations don’t play. People do. So if we can maintain the vignette of human flourishing through play, then it’s sort of a safeguard. Play helps us focus on human flourishing rather than on institutional survival.

Technology and the Modern Individual

Elias: Isabelle, do you have anything to add? We’d love to hear from you.

Isabelle: Well, from my perspective, as a humanities student, I’m studying a lot about the modern world and how the model modern individual is portrayed inside this world. You could say that the value of play is missing. The individual constantly needs to be efficient, constantly needs to be kind of like a machine. The individual can’t get it wrong. When he feels wrong, he can’t express it. And when he expresses, he’s shut down. And it’s really interesting to see how modernity is embedded in this discussion about technology. 

Elias: Thank you, that’s great. I love when you bring something in because your perspective is so unique, and we need that in these conversations. That’s what I love about this group, so many different perspectives coming together.

Unfortunately, our time is up. This does feel like play to me, and I’m going to have to end our ability to play right now, which makes me sad. But thanks, everybody for being here. I look forward to next time.

Do We Live in a Technological Age?

Are we living in a technological age? A brief answer is that we have always lived in a technological age.

The danger we see is that technology is a product from ourselves. This brings fear and hope, both. We fear ourselves and have hope in ourselves.

At our January meeting, the AI Theology Advisory Board discussed the idea that we are living in a technological age. Understanding our time and context is an important step for our discussions and everything we do in AI Theology. Our exploration of AI and theology will be most fruitful if they are connected to the time in which we live.

We began with a presentation that reviewed the three perspectives outlined in previous blogs: Teilhard, Ellul, and Arthur. Here is a summary of our discussion:

Elias: I want to start with two questions.

1) Are we living in a technological age, and if so, why?

2) If we are living in a technological age, what is the danger of not acknowledging or discussing it? What happens when we take it for granted? In other words, if we are living it, what is the danger of not naming it?

The Nature of Technology

Maggie: Technology is such a part of life. The danger is that, if we omit reflection on it, we are suppressing a part of our own lives. If you spend your whole day interacting with the digital world, 40 hours a week, that is going to impact who you are and what the world means to you. 

Wen: I see technology not as a part of ourselves, but as something we interact with, either consciously or unconsciously. The third concept, from Arthur, reminded me of “stewardship of resources.” At a broad level, it’s how we steward our natural resources. How do we use our natural resources and make things out of them? I’m thinking here not only of digital technology but various types of technologies that impact the way we use resources.  

Elias: This subtle distinction can change how we interact with and discuss technology. One view is that technology is, in some ways, “the other.” We use and interact with it. The other view is that technology is a part of who we are. I’m not saying that either way is right or wrong. But this subtle distinction can change the way we approach technology.

There is fear and hope because technology is on the edge of the transcendental.

Frantisek Stech

Every Age Is Technological

Frantisek: Are we living in a technological age? A brief answer is that we have always lived in a technological age. When human beings started to reflect on themselves, they started organizing their environment–that is using technology. Even language can be considered technology in a sense. We can discuss building a nest as a kind of technology for animals. Since we are able to reflect on our skills, craftsmanship, or any kind of ability, this is technology. It’s the Greek word Téchne, the knowledge of “how to”. 

white egg on nest
Photo by nastia on Pexels.com

The danger we see is that technology is a product from ourselves. This brings fear and hope, both. We fear ourselves and have hope in ourselves. It is a clash between a Promethean approach to life and a transcendental approach to life. Between our own powers, and transcendental powers. Technology is something you can control. When you try to control the transcendental, it’s called magic. There is fear and hope because technology is on the edge of the transcendental. Everything is assembled like the Jewish story of golem, a creature made to serve the master. Technology has the potential to either serve or destroy the master, and the community it is inserted into.  

The larger issue of digital technology today is, it is a kind of development of the ecosystem. We are living in a digital landscape as well as the physical world. We fear that it will destroy us if we use it too much.

Technology and Culture

Frantisek: If we think about theology and AI, then it presupposes theology of technology, and before that, a theology of culture (for context).

Elias: We’ve always had technology, but is there something about the time we are living that makes it the dominant force? And this is where we can agree or disagree. We can say that technology is a reflection of other forces, or that technology itself influences everything. I have the idea that technology is the dominant force, and when we don’t talk about it, it becomes even more powerful. 

On the other hand, some people can think differently. 

Wen:  Technology today is built for automation and speed. So technologies of the past, like a windmill or a hammer, couldn’t do very much in a short time. This technology required more human effort to “make things happen.” A hammer couldn’t do much on its own, but today if you press a single button, many things can happen.

Elias: That’s an interesting point, Wen. Let me build on that a bit. Given the compounding of technologies in our time, not only is technology self-perpetuating but it is doing so with impressive speed. In other words, there is a different level of self-perpetuation that we may no longer be in control of. It is almost as if technology has taken a life of its own.

Religion and Technology

Ben: I think we’ve always lived in a technological age. As it relates to the theological construct, I think religion is technology. It’s meant to codify and systematize entropy and suffering, and explain it in a consistent worldview. That is a technological movement. It is also an attempt to systematize and control.

Is technology a co-creator, or is technology existential? This conversation has roots in incarnation. What does it mean to be enfleshed, a human? The question I come up with is, technology is about automation and efficiency. But for what? For what end, and what is the cost of this efficiency? I wonder if technology is unable to address incarnational needs such as love, truth, beauty, and we hope to automate those things so we can seek the intangibles. So there are now studies to classify the intangible human needs. Technology is becoming part of the intangible of life as well. 

burning candles in old palace with arched ceiling
Photo by Julia Volk on Pexels.com

Elias: What you are saying connects with what Maggie was talking about, the idea of technique as a way of control. The totality of technique–trying to find the best technique. Trying to find the best way to love or communicate. 

Purpose and Reflection

Maggie: One view of technology is that, “now we have more time to be fully human.” I don’t know if that actually happens. We spend more time thinking about what makes a human good than we do spending time with things we enjoy. The iterative nature of technology contains a reductionist assumption that everything that is good can be reduced to a test. There isn’t a lot of stepping back to ask about the larger purpose. For instance, “I’m working to reduce retail prices,” but do the retailers want help setting prices? Is that what is going to save them time? Does this technology improve something, reduce something? Is this really going to help people save time? 

Wen: The phone being replaced every two years, I see it more as capitalist behavior than as tech getting better. I think the underlying social context is consumption. This frames how the tech manifests itself. If we changed the cultural context of the world we live in, we would see a very different manifestation of technology. The products would be different. In a world where capitalism wasn’t the center, we would see a different line of technology, both in its tools and its uses. 

Technology is trying to be the Tower of Babel or the fountain of youth. I don’t mean just apps, but the broad range of technology and industries strive toward these ends

Wen Dombrowski

The Tower of Babel

Ben: I agree with what you said. Is there a longing aspect? Are we trying to create and advance ourselves to enlightenment? And if it’s true, the kingdom on earth concept becomes more concrete. Or are we iterating because we don’t know what else to do with the opportunity, cost, and time we have lost? Where does this get us any closer to enlightenment? 

Wen: Technology is trying to be the Tower of Babel or the fountain of youth. I don’t mean just apps, but the broad range of technology and industries strive toward these ends.

Ben: To illustrate this, I’m going to use myself as a negative example. One thing I learned with a neuroscientist is about the correlation of quality of sleep and cognitive issues (like dementia and Alzheimer’s). So I became obsessed with the technology of sleep, looking for technology to help me sleep. And when I lay down, I would get anxious about the fact I wasn’t sleeping. So when technology was supposed to help me sleep better and prevent these diseases, I was actually anxious about the tech. The existential crisis is that technology creates more opportunity for existential non-incarnational presence as we rely on “external transcendent divine,” rather than on our own ability, to track and examine data.

Reshaping Christian Ministry in a Post-Covid World

It’s no secret that the church is changing in the post-Covid world. Ask any church leader and they are likely to tell you the same thing: It’s easy to draw a dividing line between the pre-pandemic world and the one we live in now. Patterns of church attendance and giving are different, as is the nature of Christian spiritual formation, the way we gather with others to learn, fellowship, and pray. As 2020 turned to 2021 and now 2022, it’s become clear that what started as a temporary suspension of life, as usual, has become a drastic shift of the status quo. “Normal” in 2022 means something different than it did in 2019.

It’s also no secret that technology is a major driver of these changes. A slew of platforms facilitate virtual small group meetings, and it’s never been easier to stream and record worship services with devices and software already on hand. The technologies that enable many people to work from home also enable us to “church from home.” Whether that’s a positive or negative shift, we can debate. What’s not debatable is the reality of it. For better or worse, technology is reshaping Christian ministry in the post-Covid world we live in.

Shifting Worship Practices

Shifts in worship and discipleship, two of the most central arenas of Christian ministry, illustrate the increasing influence of technology. Before the onset of the pandemic, in the United States, many churches offered online worship, and the number of churches doing so was increasing steadily each year. But generally, it was reserved for larger churches, usually offered through their own church website, and attendance online was sporadic. In mid-March of 2020, the Barna research group reported that 2 percent of practicing Christians attended a church with a live-streamed or other video sermons, saying “the data suggest these services are still a novelty.” Even in early 2020, streaming your worship service was a luxury for forward-thinking congregations who could afford it. Attending worship online was what you did when you were out of town and couldn’t worship in person, or a way for college students and those who had recently moved away to remain connected to the church.

Photo by Chris Montgomery on Unsplash

This all changed in the spring of 2020 when the coronavirus pandemic forced congregations to suspend in-person gatherings. Almost overnight, nearly every pastor and church leader faced a choice: find a way for the congregation to worship online, or forgo worship altogether. Most chose to establish online worship, and it became a vital link between the congregation and its people when the usual links had been severed. By June of 2020, Barna found that 96 percent of pastors reported they had begun streaming their worship services. The change happened swiftly, and even when a return to in-person worship became possible, churches continued to offer it online as well. They had taken the step, invested in the necessary resources, and seen the expected and unexpected benefits. Today, more congregations than ever offer worship online, many of them using one or more established tools such as Youtube or Facebook live.

Many of the questions regarding online worship have shifted as well, from “whether” to “how.” Before the pandemic, a congregation may have asked about viability and value. “Should we offer online worship? What will it cost, in money, time, and energy, and will it be worth the investment? Will people attend less often if they have the option?” Now that so many churches have taken the step, the sense appears to be that there is no going back. Questions now are geared toward best practices. “How can we offer online worship in the best possible way? What is the right time and format? Where should our cameras be placed? What streaming service(s) should we use to reach the most people?” And perhaps most importantly, “How can we follow up with those who encounter us online?”

Discipleship and Formation

Similar changes are taking place in the realm of discipleship and Christian formation, with the emergence of virtual or hybrid small groups alongside those that meet in person. In my congregation, several adult Sunday school and small groups classes began meeting weekly or bi-weekly by Zoom during the pandemic. A number of new groups began online during this time, with some continuing to gather virtually.

When gathering in person became possible once again, we maintained a way for people to connect virtually. And at least one of our Sunday school classes meets in person but uses Facebook’s Portal to allow people to attend virtually as well. Typically they have 4-8 people participating from home alongside the 20 or more in the classroom each week. Last fall, one Wednesday night class met in person with a computer in the room for people to participate via Zoom. I taught a different class that met in our chapel, but we also streamed it through Facebook Live and allowed people to interact via the comments.

Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash

Conversations with leaders and congregants in other churches paint a similar picture elsewhere. There’s a mixture of gathering online and in person. It’s messy, inconsistent from one place to the next as leaders experiment, adapt, and do what’s right in their context. But the big picture is that gathering online has emerged as a viable way to connect with fellow Christians for Bible study and fellowship, and it’s not going away.

A Glimpse of the future

It’s difficult to say much that is specific about the long-term effects of these changes. It’s still relatively new, and churches and their leaders are still finding their way through them. And of course, my experience and observations are limited. I’m speaking primarily about congregations in the United States, while technology is driving other sorts of change in other parts of the world. Even so, I can point to three early patterns that may be trends.

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

The first is a geographical shift. It’s easier than ever before to connect with a church in another city or state, because much of what they do is online now. People who move away can remain involved in the congregation by worshiping online and participating in virtual small groups. If my family member or friend across the country tells me about a positive church experience, I can see it for myself by connecting with that church online. If my favorite Christian author is a pastor, I can begin to attend their church even if I live hundreds of miles away. In this emerging reality, the quality of online worship and small group offerings becomes important, and following up effectively with those who connect online is even more important.

The second is a temporal shift. Streamed worship remains a live event, but if it’s recorded for later viewing, then “attendance” suddenly diffuses over several days instead of a single hour on Sunday. The same is true for some classes and small groups. Last fall I taught an in-person class that was streamed through Facebook Live. During the class, we had a handful of online participants, maybe 4 or 5. But when I went back a week later, I discovered Facebook had recorded more than a hundred views. Now, views alone is an unreliable metric—it may be that someone just paused on it for a few seconds as they scrolled through their feed. But even so, the class was being encountered, even in a small way, for several days after I taught it.

The third is increased recognition among church leaders of the importance and potential of digital connections. More pastors and church leaders are not only paying attention to online offerings but developing the skillsets to use them well. Church staffs and volunteer teams are beginning to include roles specifically focused on digital ministry, especially at larger churches. And forward-thinking church leaders and writers are beginning to look farther ahead, asking what implications things like cryptocurrency and the Metaverse might have for the future of Christian ministry, and what steps congregations need to take today in order to prepare for them. 

Emerging technology is reshaping Christian ministry, just as it’s reshaping many aspects of our lives. It is more important than ever for us to pay attention to technology, both the systems and devices that are already well-entrenched and the emerging technology that is going to shape the world tomorrow. As the pandemic made all too clear, the distance between the present and the future is incredibly small. The present is not a static set of circumstances but a constantly evolving, dynamic landscape in which emerging tech is a major driver of change. Looking to the future, and technology’s role within it, is a faithful act in the present.

Brian Sigmon is an acquisitions editor at The United Methodist Publishing House, where he edits books, Bible studies, and official resources for The United Methodist Church. He has a Ph.D. in biblical studies from Marquette University, and has published a number of academic and popular articles on the Bible and Christian theology. Brian loves to teach and to help people of all backgrounds deepen their understanding of Scripture. When he isn’t editing, teaching, or writing about faith and technology, Brian enjoys woodworking and writing science fiction. He lives in Kingston Springs, Tennessee with his wife and their three children.

What Will Online Religion Look Like In The Metaverse?

The Internet is not to be understood merely as a tool. It is a specific extension of a complex environment instead. Contemporaries live on (or in) the Internet as well as in the physical landscapes of this world. Besides, such a mode of living in the world continues to intensify. Always more human activities are being moved into the online environment which changes them a lot. Just think of how rapidly the activity of shopping has changed during, let’s say, the last decade. Three decades ago, shopping was a completely different experience than it is nowadays, as the Internet became an everyday reality.

Regardless of these considerations, it would be a mistake to see the Internet only as a kind of parallel reality. As a complex phenomenon, the Internet touches all spheres of human life, including the sphere of religion – the religious life. At this place, a crucial question might be asked: What is the relation between religion and the key technical medium of the internet?

In general, we may consider 3 dimensions of such a relationship. It is (1) religion online, (2) online religion, and (3) online religious experience. The first two dimensions were studied and well defined by Canadian sociologist and anthropologist of religion, Christopher Helland. The third was added a few years ago by new media and media theory experts from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Menahem Blondheim, and Hananel Rosenberg. The concept they suggested raises serious questions, but at the same time, it touches on the limits of what is presently possible. In any case, all phases (if we look at the problem from the perspective of development as Christopher Helland), or dimensions (if we consider the fact that the first two categories often exist in parallel or in different combinations) might be described as follows.

taken from Pixabay.com

The Initial Stages of Internet Religion

Religion online describes a static presence of religion on the internet. Typically, good examples of this are the websites containing information about different religious communities and their activities. In the Christian religious tradition, we can point out websites of parishes or church communities. According to Helland, this relationship between religion and the internet belongs to the past, which was characteristic of slow internet connection and technically undeveloped, static, access devices (e.g., heavy personal computers), which some of us may remember from the 1990s. At that time, the internet was understood by religious communities merely as a tool for their presentations. With time, websites, as well as social networks with religious content, became an integral part of life for a great number of religious communities. They will likely continue to serve, as such, even in times when the internet offers new possibilities.

In online religion, the Internet has become a tool for developing religious practice online with the improvement of the connection speed and improved access technologies. Online prayer groups, religious rituals, or services set and performed in an online environment might be mentioned as examples. This form of interaction between religions and the internet encountered its unprecedented boom during the last two years in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. With governmental restrictions and lockdowns, religious life in its traditional communitarian form stopped practically overnight and religions were forced to move a large part of their activities to the online environment. The internet was naturally used as a tool to handle this change. Soon, however, it was understood that it is not only a tool but also a new environment for religious practice from now on.

This is of course not without theological problems. Perhaps, one of the crucial questions refers to the online religious experience. Is it possible to speak about online religious experience at the level of online religion? Is online religious experience real or rather “just” virtual (and thus not real)? Blondheim and Rosenberg open this question and argue for a new dimension of the relationship between religion and the internet because, in their opinion, it is possible to encounter authentic religious experiences in cyberspace.

Photo by ThisisEngineering RAEng on Unsplash

The Next Frontier

It is disputable if online religious experiences are already present phenomena or if they are an uncertain matter of the future. In the latter form, they would only be considered at a level of a vision for the future. Some suggest that something like an online religious experience is principally not possible at all. However, theoretically speaking, the increasing speed of connection and response of largely personalized and omnipresent access devices (e.g., smartphones), quickly advancing the datafication of human lives, virtual reality development, and interaction with artificial intelligence, bring serious questions into the realm of religion.

The internet is becoming a true environment; something that becomes more transparent like a borderline between cyberspace and real space in which our bodies dwell. It slowly fades away. Consequently, cyberspace should neither be labeled as a “consensual hallucination” as it once was by its conceiver William Gibson, nor as a kind of utopia, or place “nowhere-somewhere” (Kevin Robins). Contemporary people live in digital landscapes as they do in physical ones. These two traditionally separated spaces manifest themselves, today, as one hybrid space.

The age of the internet of things is slowly coming to its end, and the era of the internet of everything is setting in. Quickly advancing mobile technologies are playing a key role in the hybrid space interface. Thanks to them, people are practically connected to the internet non-stop. They can create digital-physical landscapes and perceive how they become digital-physical hybrid entities as they live in hybrid (real-virtual) spaces they create for themselves. To put it bluntly, what is happening on the world wide web, is happening in the real world, and vice versa. Everything might be online, and to a large extent, it already is.

Photo by Diana Vargas on Unsplash.com

Religion in the Metaverse

Let’s assume that in such an environment (such as the metaverse) it is possible to have an authentic religious experience. In other words, let’s presume that from this perspective, the encounter with the Sacred in cyberspace has the same characteristics and qualities as in the physical landscapes of this world. An imaginary wall between real and virtual is still perceivable. However, with the emergence of the metaverse, it is becoming more transparent and more permeable. Yet, if it ever will disappear remains a question. In each case, we can already speak of religious experience in cyberspace concerning some computer games as World of Warcraft, for instance (Geraci, Gálik, Gáliková).

Recent research on Neo-Paganism suggests that a relatively high number of its adherents consider their online religious activity equivalent to that in the physical world. Some of them even stated that their religious activity in cyberspace is on a higher level than that in real life. We may also speak of online religious experiences concerning the phenomena of virtual pilgrimages (cyber-pilgrimages or e-pilgrimages). Further, platforms like the one with the meaningful name Second Life make it possible to live a religious life in a completely online environment.

Blondheim and Rosenberg believe that online religious experience in the digital world is “emerging from the breakdown and collapse of all entrenched conventions and narratives in the digital world, and the opening of a chaotic abyss can (…) serve as a prelude to a fresh new theological start.” Unfortunately, they do not say anything about how this new theological start they propose should look. But, right now, it is not that important because it may stimulate our imagination and thoughts on the transformations of faith in the digital age.

What would be your reflection on this matter?

An earlier version of this text originally appeared in the Christnet online magazine in Czech (https://www.christnet.eu/clanky/6592/nabozenstvi_on_line_on_line_nabozenstvi_a_on_line_nabozenska_zkusenost.url); published 22nd September 2021. English translation published with the permission of the Christnet magazine. Translated by the author.

František Štěch is a research fellow at the Protestant Theological Faculty of Charles University. He serves as coordinator of the “Theology & Contemporary Culture” research group. Previously he worked at the Catholic Theological Faculty of Charles University as a research fellow and project PI. His professional interests include Fundamental theology; Ecclesiology; Youth theology; Religious, and Christian identity; Intercultural

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How can Machine Learning Empower Human Flourishing?

As a practicing Software Product Manager who is currently working on the 3rd integration of a Machine Learning (ML) enabled product my understanding and interaction with models is much more quotidian, and at times, downright boring. But it is precisely this form of ML that needs more attention because ML is the primary building block to Artificial Intelligence (AI). In other words, in order to get AI right, we need to first focus on how to get ML right. To do so, we need to take a step back and reflect on the question: how can machine learning work for human flourishing?

First, we’ll take some cues from liberation theology to properly orient ourselves. Second, we need to understand how ML models are already impacting our lives. Last, I will provide a pragmatic list of questions for those of us in the technology field that can help move us towards better ML models, which will hopefully lead to better AI in the future. 

Gloria Dei, Vivens Homo

Let’s consider Elizabeth Johnson’s recap of Latin American liberation theology. To the stock standard elements of Latin American liberation theology–preferential option for the poor, the Exodus narrative, and the sermon on the Mt –she raises a consideration from St. Irenaeus’s phrase Gloria Dei, vivens homo. Translated as “the glory of God is the human being fully alive,” this means that human flourishing is God’s glory manifesting in the common good. One can think of the common good not simply as an economic factor. Instead, it is an intentional move towards the good of others by seeking to dismantle the structural issues that prevent flourishing.

Now, let’s dig into this a bit deeper –what prevents human flourishing?  Johnson points to two things: 1) inflicting violence or 2) neglecting their good. Both of these translate “into an insult to the Holy One” (82). Not only do we need to not inflict violence on others (which we can all agree is important), but we also need to be attentive to their good. Now, let’s turn to the current state of ML.

Big Tech and Machine Learning

We’ll look at two recent works to understand the current impact of ML models and hold them to the test. Do they inflict violence? Do they neglect the good? The 2020 investigative documentary entitled (with a side of narrative drama) The Social Dilemma (Netflix) and Cathy O’Neil’s Weapons of Math Destruction are both popular and accessible introductions to how actual ML models touch our daily lives. 

Screen capture of Social Dilemma

The Social Dilemma takes us into the fast-paced world of the largest tech companies (Google, Facebook, Instagram, etc.) that touch our daily lives. The primary use cases for machine learning in these companies is to drive engagement, by scientifically focusing on methods of persuasion. More clicks, more likes, more interactions, more is better. Except, of course, when it isn’t.

The film sheds light on how a desire to increase activity and to monetize their products has led to social media addiction, manipulation, and even provides data on the increased rates of sucide amongst pre-teen girls.  Going even further, the movie points out, for these big tech companies, the applications themselves are not the product, but instead, it’s humans. That is, the gradual but imperceptible change in behavior itself is the product.

These gradual changes are fueled and intensified by hundreds of daily small randomized tests that A/B change minor variables to influence behavior. For example, do more people click on this button when it’s purple or green? With copious amounts of data flowing into the system, the models become increasingly more accurate so the model knows (more than humans) who is going to click on a particular ad or react to a post.

This is how they generate revenue. They target ads at people who are extremely likely to click on them. These small manipulations and nudges to elicit behavior have become such a part of our daily lives we no longer are aware of their pervasiveness. Hence, humans become commodities that need to be continuously persuaded. Liberation theology would look to this documentary as a way to show concrete ways in which ML is currently inflicting violence and neglecting the good. 

from Pixabay.com

Machine Learning Outside the Valley

Perhaps ‘normal’ companies fare better? Non-tech companies are getting in on the ML game as well. Unlike tech companies that focus on influencing user behavior for ad revenue, these companies focus on ML as a means to reduce the workload of individual workers or reduce headcount and make more profitable decisions. Here are a few types of questions they would ask: “Need to order stock and determine which store it goes to? Use Machine Learning. Need to find a way to match candidates to jobs for your staffing agency? Use ML. Need to find a way to flag customers that are going to close their accounts? ML.” And the list goes on. 

Cathy O’Neil’s work helps us to get insight into this technocratic world by sharing examples from credit card companies, predictions of recidivism, for-profit colleges, and even challenges the US News & World Report College Rankings. O’Neil coins the term “WMD”, Weapons of Math Destruction for models that inflict violence and neglect the good. The three criteria of WMD’s are models that lack transparency, grow exponentially, and cause a pernicious feedback loop, it’s the third that needs the most unpacking.

The pernicious feedback loop is fed by biases of selectivity in the original data set–the example that she gives in chapter 5 is PredPol, a big data startup in order to predict crime used by police departments. This model learns from historical data in order to predict where crime is likely to happen, using geography as its key input. The difficulty here is that when police departments choose to include nuisance data in the model (panhandling, jaywalking, etc), the model will be more likely to predict new crime will happen in that location, which in turn will prompt the police department to send more patrols to that area. More patrols mean a greater likelihood of seeing and ticketing minor crimes, which in turn, feeds more data into the model. In other words, the models become a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

A Starting Point for Improvement

As we can see based on these two works, we are far from the topic of human flourishing. Both point to many instances where ML Models are currently not only neglecting the good of others, they are also inflicting violence. Before we can reach the ideal of Gloria Dei, vivens homo we need to make a Liberationist move within our technology to dismantle the structural issues that prevent flourishing. This starts at the design phase of these ML models. At that point, we can ask key questions to address egregious issues from the start. This would be a first for making ML models (and later AI) work for human flourishing and God’s glory. 

Here are a few questions that will start us on that journey:

  1. Is this data indicative of anything else (can it be used to prove another line of thought)? 
  2. If everything went perfectly (everyone took this recommendation, took this action), then what? Is this a desirable state? Are there any downsides to this? 
  3. How much proxy data am I using? In general proxy data or data that ‘stands-in’ for other data.
  4. Is the data balanced (age, gender, socio-economic)? What does this data tell us about our customers? 
  5. What does this data say about our assumptions? This is a slightly different cut from above, this is more aimed at the presuppositions of who is selecting the data set. 
  6. Last but not least: zip codes. As zip codes are often a proxy for race, use zip codes with caution. Perhaps using state level data or three digit zip code levels average out the results and monitor results by testing for bias. 

Maggie Bender is a Senior Product Manager at Bain & Company within their software solutions division. She has a M.A. in Theology from Marquette University with a specialization in biblical studies where her thesis explored the implications of historical narratives on group cohesion. She lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, enjoys gardening, dog walking, and horseback riding.

Sources:

Johnson, Elizabeth A. Quest for the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God (New York: Continuum, 2008), 82-83.

O’Neil, Cathy. Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy (New York: Broadway Books, 2017), 85-87.

Orlowski, Jeff. The Social Dilemma (Netflix, 2020) 1hr 57, https://www.netflix.com/title/81254224.

What would a Theology of AI Look Like?

The influence of secular thinking in our global society is powerful enough to make a project like a “theology of Artificial Intelligence” appear to be a doomed enterprise or a contradiction in terms at best, and sheer nonsense at worst. Is there a theology of the microchip? The integrated circuit? The Boolean gates?  And even if one happened to think that God is closer to software than hardware – is there a theology of AI or machine learning?

Put so plainly and abruptly, these questions can easily lead to the conclusion that such a theology is impossible to make sense of. Just as a secular opinion (surreptitiously powerful even among adherents of religions) often hastens to declare that “religion and science simply cannot go together”, the same would be assumed about theology and modern technology – it is like yoking a turtle and a jaguar together.

Moreover, if one approached the incongruence between “theology” and “artificial intelligence” by transposing it to the field of anthropology, one would again face the same problem on another plane. What does a human being practicing religion – a homo religiosus – have to do with a human being – perhaps the very same human being – as a user of artificial intelligence? Is it not the case that historical progress has by our days left behind not only the relevance of religion but also the very humanism that used to enshrine the same human being in question as sacred? Is secular humanism in our day not giving way to things like the “transhuman” and the “posthuman”? 

YouTube Liturgies

But this secular-historical argument is not difficult to turn upside down. When it comes to human history, it is the nature of the things of the past that they are still with us and, what is more, religious forms of consciousness that many would deem atavistic today not only stay present but can also come across with new vigor in the contemporary digital environment. They might strike many as hybrid forms of consciousness, in which the day before yesterday stages an intense and perplexing comeback.

Photo by Pixabay.com

Take the example of Christian devotion in an online environment like YouTube. Assisted, surrounded, and finally motivated by the artificial intelligence of YouTube, a Christian believer will soon find herself in the intensifying bubble of her own religious fervor. Her worship of Jesus Christ in watching devotional videos is quickly and easily perceived by YouTube’s algorithms which will soon offer her historical documentaries, testimonies, Christian talk shows, subscriptions to Christian channels, and the like. In the wake of this spiraling movement, her religious consciousness will be very different and, in a sense, more intense than that of a premodern devotee of Christ – a consciousness steeped in a medium orchestrated by artificial intelligence.  

It follows from the pervasive presence of artificial intelligence in today’s society in general and in what we call “new media” in particular that, the same way as any other kind of content, any positive religious content may also invite an inquiry into the nature of AI. But a note of caution is in order here. The terms “religious” and “religion” in this context must include much more than the semantics of mainstream religious traditions like Christianity.

An online religious attitude includes much more than any cult of personality and may extend to the whole of online existence.

For instance, the above example of artificial intelligence orchestrating Christian experience, after all, is perfectly applicable to any online cult of personality. A teenager worshipping Billie Eilish will experience something very similar to Christian worship on YouTube whose algorithms do not make any methodical distinction between a pop singer and a Messiah. 

Online Worship and Techno-Totalitarianism

In a theology of AI what really matters online is not positive religious content but a certain religious attitude intensified and eventually motivated by Artificial Intelligence. An online religious attitude includes much more than any cult of personality and may extend to the whole of online existence. As researchers of contemporary cultural anthropology and sociology of religion have pointed out, many users of digital technology find a “higher life” and a “more authentic self” online, at the same time as experiencing a mystical fusion with the entirety of the global digital cloud.[1] The relocation of the sacred and the godlike in the realm of the digital is as obvious here as the influence of a technological version of New Age spirituality which is often called “New Edge” by researchers and devotees alike.

From Pixabay.com

This “techno-religion” is fully subservient to what can be termed techno-totalitarianism. The digital technology and environment of our times perfectly fit the definition of totalitarianism: it pervades and knits tightly together all aspects of society while enabling the full subjugation of the individual to a ubiquitous and anonymous power. The totalitarian and curiously religious presence of the secular, “neutral” and functional algorithms of artificial intelligence evokes both a religious past and a religious future.

Algorithmic Determinism

This is another example of the historical dialectic between religion and secularisation. The secular probability theory underpinning these secular algorithms (and predicting the online behavior of users) has roots in the Early Modern statistical theory of prediction modeled on the idea of God’s predestination.[2] Ironically, the idea of divine predestination is making a gruesome return in contemporary times as the increasing bulk of big data at the disposal of AI algorithms means more and more certainty about user behavior and, as a consequence, increasingly precise prediction for and automation of the human future. It is, therefore, safe to say that there can indeed be such a thing as a theology of AI and machine learning.

The division between those who are elected and those who are not, increasingly defines various sectors of contemporary information society such as the financial market. The simple truth of a formula like “the rich get richer, the poor poorer” has deep roots in the reality of inscrutably complex AI algorithms running in the financial sector that determine not only trade on Wall Street but also the success or failure of many millions of small cases like individual credit applications.

By Pixabay.com

Algorithms decide on who obtains credit and at what interest rate. The more data about individual applicants they have at their disposal, the more accurately they can predict their future financial behavior.[3] Like in many other fields defined by AI, it is not difficult to recognize here how prediction slips into modification and modification into techno-determinism which seals the fate of the world’s population. Indeed, this immense power over individuals, holding their past, present, and future with iron clips together, is nothing short of a force for a new religious realm and a wake-up call to Christian theology from its dogmatic slumber.

Conclusion

It is clear that if there is a positive theology of artificial intelligence as such it must go far beyond an analysis of explicit, positive “religious content” in today’s online environment.  If so, one question certainly remains which is impossible to answer within the confines of this blogpost: what would a negative theology of AI look like, a theology in which an engagement with AI would go hand in hand with a distance from and criticism of it?

[1]  cf. Stef Aupers & Dick Houtman (eds.), Religions of Modernity: Relocating the Sacred to the Self and the Digital (Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2010).

[2] This idea is spelled out in Virgil W. Brower, “Genealogy of Algorithms: Datafication as Transvaluation”, Le foucaldien 6, no. 1 (2020): 11, 1-43.

[3] This is one of the main arguments in Cathy O’Neill, Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy (New York: Crown, 2016).

Gábor L. Ambrus holds a post-doctoral research position in the Theology and Contemporary Culture Research Group at The Charles University, Prague. He is also a part-time research fellow at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, Rome. He is currently working on a book on theology, social media, and information technology. His research primarily aims at a dialogue between the Judaeo-Christian tradition and contemporary techno-scientific civilization.

Recreating our World Through Mustard Seed Technology

In this blog, I sketch the outline of an alternative story for technology. It starts with an ancient parable and how it has sprung into a multiplicity of meanings in our time. It is a story of grassroots change, power from below, organic growth, and life-giving transformation. Those are terms we often do not associate with technology. Yet, this is about to change as we introduce the concept of mustard seed technology.

Narratives are powerful meaning-making tools. They bring facts together and organize them in a compelling way, making them hard to refute. Most often, their influence goes beyond story-telling to truth defining. That is, the reader becomes a passive, uncritical receiver of its message mostly taking for granted the fact that it is only a narrative. The story often becomes an undisputed fact.

Looking Behind the Curtain

When it comes to technology, the situation is no different. The dominant narrative tells the story of Silicon Valley overlords who rule our world through their magical gadgets, constantly capturing our attention and our desires. Other times, it hinges on a Frankenstein perspective of creation turning against their creators where machines conspire to re-shape our world without our consent. While both narratives hold kernels of truth, their power is not in their accuracy but in their influence. That is, they are not important because they are true but because we believe in them.

Photo by Frederico Beccari from unsplash.com

The role of the theologian, or the critical thinker if you will, is to expose and dismantle them. Yet, they do that not by direct criticism alone but also by offering alternative compelling narratives that connect the facts in new ways. Most dominant narratives around technology share a bent towards despair. It is most often the story of a power greater than us, a god if you will, imposing their will to our detriment. Hence, the best antidote is a narrative of hope that does not ignore the harms and dangers but weighs them properly against the vast opportunities human creativity has to offer the world.

The best challenge to algorithmic determinism is human flourishing against all odds.

That is what AI theology aspires to. As we seek to intersect technological narratives with ancient text, we look both for ethical considerations as well as the lens of hope, both in short supply in the world of techno-capitalism and techno-authoritarianism. In the worship of profit, novelty, and order, these two dominant currents tell only part of the story. Yet, unfortunately, as they proclaim it with powerful loudspeakers parallel stories are overshadowed.

A Biblical Parable

According to the Evangelists, Jesus liked to teach through parables. He knew the power of narrative. The gospels contain many examples of these short stories often meant to make the hearer find meaning in their environment. They were surprisingly simple, memorable, and yet penetrating. Instead of being something to discern, it discerned the listener as they encounter themselves in the story.

Photo by Mishaal Zahed on Unsplash

One of them is the seminal parable about the mustard seed. Evangelist Matthew puts it this way:

He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field;  it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.

Matthew 13:31-32

From this short passage, we can gather two main paths of meaning. The first one is of small beginnings becoming robust and large over time. It is not just about the fast growth of a startup but more a movement that takes time to take hold eventually becomes an undisputed reality that no one can deny.

The other path of meaning is one of function. Once it is grown, is not there simply to be admired and revered. Instead, it is there to provide shelter for other beings who do not have a home. It is a picture of hospitality, inclusion, and invitation. The small seed becomes a big tree that can now help small animals. It can provide shade from the sun and a safe place for rest.

A Contemporary Story from the Margins

Jesus was not talking directly about technology. We can scarcely claim to know the original meaning of the text. That is not the task here. It is instead an attempt to transpose the rich avenues of meaning from the text into our current age and in turn, build a new narrative about the development of technology in our time. A story about how technology is emerging from the margins and solving problems in a life-giving way, rather than a flashy but profitable manner. That is what I would define as mustard seed technology.

What does that look like in concrete examples? From the great continent of Africa, I can tell of at least two examples. One is the story of a boy who built a wind generator to pump water to his village. With limited access to books, parts, and no one to teach him, he organized an effort to build the generator using an old bike motor. The Netflix movie The Boy who Harnessed the Wind tells this story and is worth your time. Another example is how Data Science Nigeria is training millions of data scientists in Africa. Through hackathons, boot camps, and online courses, the organization is a the forefront of AI skills democratization efforts.

Beyond these two examples, consider the power unleashed through the creative economy. As billions get access to free content on YouTube and other video platforms, knowledge can be transferred a lot faster than before. Many can learn new skills from the comfort of their home. Others can share their art and crafts and sell them in a global cyber marketplace. Entrepreneurship is flourishing at the margins as the world is becoming more connected.

Conclusion

These examples of mustard seed technology tell a different story. They speak of a subversive undercurrent of goodness in history that will not quiet down even in the midst of despair, growing inequality, and polarization. It is the story of the mustard seed technology springing up in the margins of our global home. They are growing into robust trees of creativity and economic empowerment.

Do you have the eyes to see and the courage to testify to their truth? When you consider technology, I invite you to keep the narratives of despair at bay. For a moment, start looking for the mustard seeds happening all around you. As you find them, they will grow into trees of hope and encouragement in your heart.

AI Future: Technology And The Direction of Cosmic History

One of the biggest casualties of Western subject-based knowledge is the separation between Science and Humanities. Because of this rift, Science became abstracted from human affairs and Humanities disconnected from the natural world. This did not happen by accident but came as a result from the combination of specialization and human limitation. As each field expanded, it became humanly impossible to learn about it in conjunction with others. Yet, what specialization added by uncovering complexity it hurt by promoting fragmentation. If academia is to serve society again, then it must find ways to train holistic scholars who are both competent in their fields while also able to relate their field of knowledge to other areas. 

A recent attempt to integrate the two is an effort called Big History. This teaching philosophy, idealized by historian David Christian and recently funded by the Gates Foundation, seeks to connect Humanities with Science by looking at history in its totality. That is, from the beginning of the cosmos to the emergence of human history. The field of History would most often limit itself to human civilization having little interest in what preceded it. That was left to natural sciences with little connection between the two.  

While I applaud such integrative effort, I must point out that David Christian is not he first one to attempt such holistic view. Religious texts have been doing that for centuries. The Hebrew Bible, for example, wades into natural history territory in its first chapters of Genesis. Other religious texts of the time also contained creation stories that meant to explain the perennial question of how it all began. Certainly, scientific discoveries of the recent centuries have complicated these narratives. Yet, the main point here is to locate an attempt such as Big History in the persisting human need for a holistic story. We long for an integrated view of the world separating into different subjects will not help us get there. 

Where Did We Come From?

For centuries we looked at Cosmic History through a religious lens. Cultures developed their own view of the origins of the world. This was not only a way to understand beginnings but also its meaning and implications for how to live together in society, functioning as a regulating standard for all members of that society. 

In the West, this perspective began to be challenged by the the theory of evolution and with the rise of modern natural sciences. While this approach uncovered new findings, it abstracted the question of meaning from the quest for knowledge. The scientific endeavor became obsessed with tracing the origins of existing natural processes with little regard for questions of “why?” and “what for?”. 

Such predicament forced us to operate with hybrid brains. For questions of how, we turn to science (often associated with the left side of the brain), for questions of meaning we turn to religion, art and philosophy (often associated with the right side). As long as no attempt to relate the two were made, life could go on.

 In religion, and more specifically in Western Christianity, the dominant religious response was rejecting evolution and its implications. This response did not entail in a wholesale rejection of science, but removing it from the areas that contradicted traditional religious views. This solution was made possible by a separation between the natural and the supernatural. The natural, the realm of humanity, could still be run by the pre-suppositions of science and technology. Yet, in the realm of the supernatural, where ultimate meaning lies for believers, religious worldview ran unchallenged. 

In science, the reigning philosophy is naturalism. That is, we can only understand and trace back the processes that gave way to the world we live in. This “objective” quest has no room for questions of meaning. The universe simply is and the only knowledge that matters is the one that can be quantified or verified by scientific experimentation. In essence, the naturalist view does not dispute the natural and supernatural divide. It is simply not interested in the latter. 

Clearly these responses have run into tremendous difficulties in a multi-cultural world. Its main loss, however, was the original unified view of reality that pre-modern creation stories provided. 

A New Path For Cosmic History

In The New Cosmic History, Theologian John Haught forges a path aiming to transcends the natural vs supernatural divide by looking at cosmic history as a way to engage and also challenge both science and religion. Informed by scientific discovery that describe an evolving universe and holding tight to the religious yearning for justice, the theologian proposes an anticipatory view of Cosmic history. It incorporates the development of life through billions of year but it gives it a future goal. Haught sees the emergence of religion in the axial age (800-300 BC) as a precursor of what is to come. By doing so, John Haugth flips the natural-supernatural divide into a time continuum. God is not out there in a supernatural realm but in the future. Religion, birthed as hope in the human consciousness, points to a reality that evolution will eventually leads us to. 

Haught calls this view of Cosmic history, anticipatory. It moves the locus of meaning away from quantifiable natural processes and from supernatural conceptions and places it in time dimension. The yearning for rightness present in all religious is not simply a hope but the very direction of Cosmic History. In a sense, religion is the universe whispering to us: “everything will be ok at the end.”

While heavily influenced by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s natural theology, this perspective also shows echoes of Molmann’s hope theology and Pannenberg revelation as history view. Yet, it adds to these thinkers by presenting it within the context of a science-informed Cosmic History. By doing so, it emphasizes that the development of religion was indeed a revolutionary step in the history of the cosmos, not only of humanity. It is so, not because of what it is but to the future that it points to. In a Christian perspective, Haught’s view reinforces that idea that truth is eschatological – an unfolding that will only be fully understood at the end when God renews the earth.  

Implications for Technology

For the purpose of this blog, I want to correlate Haught’s anticipatory view of Cosmic History to an understanding of technology. First, it is important to note that discussions of technology tend to fall in into discipline-based mode of knowledge of natural sciences most often done with little correlation to human experience. The fragmented foundation in which current technology was developed yields a byproduct misaligned with human flourishing. Hence re-visiting this foundation and replacing with a holistic view of reality can go along way to repair this disconnection.

Second, Haught’s dispelling of the natural/supernatural divide also helps address another divide in the topic of technology. That is, the natural/artificial divide. The same dualistic thinking that encouraged the natural/supernatural divide is also behind our tendency to divide the natural from the artificial. Usually, the connotation is that natural is pristine and superior to the artificial which is often seen as a poor approximation of nature. An alternative view would place technology in a continuum with nature as opposed to another category of its own. This would not only help humanity back to nature but also allow technology find its purpose in flourishing. 

These two insights opens the path for a new way of re-imagining our relationship with technology and in shaping its future. Can technology be part of the renewal of the earth prophesied by religion? If so, then we have a lot of work to do for certainly what we see today is underwhelming, only an evolutionary stage in the way of becoming something beautiful and true.