July 30, 2023, column from the Amarillo Globe-News:

Chatbot sermons lack soul and heart

By Mike Haynes

                A preacher paces next to the front pew of a small church, alternating wide smiles and pauses with words of reminiscence. Tears aren’t quite visible, but his eyes look a little wet. He’s talking about the time three decades ago when he kneeled at the altar that now is just behind him and acknowledged the call he was receiving from God.

 

Thacker Haynes

               He recalls the personal support he had back then from members of the congregation that he now leads. People in the pews who remember those friends fondly nod their heads.

                It’s a story that reinforces this sermon on listening to God, committing to following Jesus Christ and loving others.

                On another Sunday, a different preacher talks about a photo on the screen behind him. It’s a picture of a simple wooden table, rough, clunky, almost 100 years old. The hands of the preacher’s grandfather had made it, and over decades, five generations of the speaker’s family have gathered around it in an old house in a small town.

                This preacher says the family table “has been surrounded primarily by laughter but also by tears. Jesus knew that tables and the things we taste there and talk about with those gathered together around them – these are the times, these are the things that we remember.”

                Those heartfelt words lead into the importance of the Lord’s supper – communion – where Jesus sat with his disciples and told them to remember him.

Jim Shelburne

                A third preacher, another day, tells a congregation about his conversion to Christ as a young man, in part through the influence of a good friend. The speaker’s experience then and his commitment to Christ since are effective examples of the kinds of changes God wants all of us to make.

                Finally, a nationally known preacher talks on video about good friends, a married couple whose 6-month-old child had passed away. The preacher and his wife had attended a memorial service where many in the church were sobbing, broken up about the little one and his grieving family.

Tommy Politz

                But when the slow cadence of the hymn, “It Is Well With My Soul,” filled the air, the preacher looked over at the parents. Their hands were raised in praise as they sang, “When sorrows like sea billows roll, Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul.”

  
               Those four brief examples from sermons that my wife and I have heard are answer enough to a question in this newspaper two weeks ago: “Can chatbots write inspirational and wise sermons?”

                The development of ever more sophisticated artificial intelligence, which basically is computers programmed to use information that humans have given them through the internet and other sources, is a hot topic. Chatbots are computer programs designed to mimic conversation with human users, and experiments show that they can write sermons. I suppose that yes, they can write “inspirational and wise” ones.

 

Francis Chan

               But the four preachers I mentioned – my cousin Thacker Haynes of McLean, Jim Shelburne and Tommy Politz of Amarillo and Francis Chan of Simi Valley, California, in that order – show something that I think takes “real,” rather than “artificial” intelligence – and that’s heart.

                The AI story two weeks ago by Joanne Pierce of “The Conversation” quoted Hershael York, a dean at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. York said the main failing of a sermon written by a chatbot is that it “lacks a soul.”

                 If you’ve attended a Walk to Emmaus retreat, you know what he’s talking about. For three days, clergy and lay people give talks on key aspects of the Christian faith. They aren’t technically sermons, but I don’t see much difference. The talks cover the basics of becoming a Christian and especially how to live the life God wants us to live. They get into some abstract concepts such as “prevenient grace” and “sanctifying grace.”

I believe the reason most of the listeners pay attention to and understand those ideas is because each talk also includes some of the speaker’s personal life journey.

                Talks can include dramatic conversion stories or just accounts of struggling to be consistent with the faith the speakers have held onto since childhood. Either way, the personal, relatable and sometimes emotional stories are the inspiration that makes listeners want to grasp the challenging concepts.

                Whether it’s an altar, a table, an encouraging friend or grieving parents, people relate to stories about slices of life. The Bible is full of them. God seeks out people, so the more genuine human experience in a message, the better.