Pastors' view: Sermons written by ChatGPT will have no soul
Among sermon writers, there is fascination – and unease – over the fast-expanding abilities of artificial-intelligence chatbots. For now, the evolving consensus among clergy is this: Yes, they can write a passably competent sermon. But no, they can't replicate the passion of actual preaching.
“It lacks a soul – I don't know how else to say it,” said Hershael York, a pastor in Kentucky who also is dean of the school of theology and a professor of Christian preaching at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Sermons are meant to be the core of a worship service -- and often are faith leaders' best weekly shot at grabbing their congregation's attention to impart theological and moral guidance.
Lazy pastors might be tempted to use AI for this purpose, York said, “but not the great shepherds, the ones who love preaching, who love their people.”
A rabbi in New York, Joshua Franklin, recently told his congregation at the Jewish Center of the Hamptons that he was going to deliver a plagiarized sermon – dealing with such issues as trust, vulnerability and forgiveness.
Upon finishing, he asked the worshippers to guess who wrote it. When they appeared stumped, he revealed that the writer was ChatGPT. responding to his request to write a 1,000-word sermon related to that week's lesson from the Torah.
“Now, you're clapping -- I'm deathly afraid,” Franklin said when several congregants applauded. “I thought truck drivers were going to go long before the rabbi, in terms of losing our positions to artificial intelligence.”
“ChatGPT might be really great at sounding intelligent, but the question is, can it be empathetic? And that, not yet at least, it can't," added Franklin. He said AI has yet to develop compassion and love,
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