Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1349 ｜ 'Testify to Love' Is Love？ My AI Rules & Rededicate 250

00:00:00.000 We lost another Christian music artist, y'all.

00:00:04.320 A former member of Avalon now says that their 1997 hit Testify to Love is about LGBTQ affirmation.

00:00:12.500 Also, is AI taking away the image of God in us?

00:00:17.240 I've got five things to think about as you as a Christian navigate how to use AI well.

00:00:23.500 And this weekend was the Rededicate to 50 event in Washington, D.C.

00:00:29.220 and people got to hear the gospel all around the world.

00:00:32.960 And that is good news.

00:00:33.780 We've got all of this and more on today's episode of Relatable.

00:00:46.380 Hey, y'all, welcome to Relatable.

00:00:48.400 Happy Monday.

00:00:49.340 God's eternal plan of redemption is going off without a hitch.

00:00:53.220 I just checked.

00:00:54.460 I checked my Bible this morning and it said,

00:00:57.120 yes, God is completely sovereign. Job 42.2, nothing can thwart his will. So that's really

00:01:02.500 good news. Whatever headline you see, whatever you see on social media, whatever is going on

00:01:06.660 in your own life, whatever failures or inadequacies you are struggling with,

00:01:11.660 that is the truth. Not some name it and claim it self-help gospel that tells you that you can find

00:01:19.660 everything that you're looking for inside yourself. And if you just try hard enough,

00:01:22.840 and if you love yourself enough, everything will come together. That's not where we get our hope

00:01:26.480 and our peace. The self can't be both the problem and the solution, y'all. God is the answer. We

00:01:30.860 have to go outside of ourselves. And the hope and the peace comes from the fact that his eternal

00:01:35.520 plan of redemption is going off without a hitch, that one day Jesus is coming back and he's going

00:01:39.520 to take care of all of this. And we will live in perfect peace and joy forever and ever because

00:01:44.740 Jesus reigns. So that's the good news. That's the good news that we start out with every single

00:01:50.020 week, that we should be preaching to ourselves every day, because that is the truth in God's

00:01:53.780 sovereignty and his goodness and his faithfulness to you and to his people. Despite our faithlessness,

00:01:59.720 despite our inability to ever get it right, that is the good news that we find our joy in.

00:02:07.620 All right. We've got so much to talk about today. I just want to remind you, if you are a Christian

00:02:11.180 woman, if you are a woman at all, come to Share the Arrows. That is our Christian Women's

00:02:15.320 Conference. This is happening October 11th. This is the no-fluff, gospel-centered, worship-filled,

00:02:21.820 Friendship Cultivating Women's Conference happening October 10th, Dallas, Texas. Sharethearrows.com.

00:02:29.240 We've got Rosaria Butterfield back again. Alisa Childers, Kosti Hinn, Natasha Crane,

00:02:33.820 Grace Anna Castleberry, Audrey Brogy, her mother. They'll be doing a duo talk about motherhood.

00:02:39.720 Shane and Shane leading worship, y'all. I am so excited. Share the Arrows this year is brought

00:02:43.500 to you by our friends at Adele Natural Cosmetics. Go to sharethearrows.com. Get your ticket today.

00:02:49.860 If you love Relatable, please leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify,

00:02:54.480 wherever you listen.

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00:03:07.060 All right, let's get into what we need to talk about today.

00:03:10.520 And to start off this segment, I am going to play you this absolute banger from 1997.

00:03:17.260 And if you were raised evangelical like me, this will be very familiar to you. 0.58

00:03:21.880 This is Sot 12.

00:03:47.260 so good flashback to 1997 like on my way to kindergarten probably with my mom in the suburban

00:03:57.220 singing this song belting it out we even had the cd we loved this album and we loved this song but

00:04:03.840 here's some bad news now we are being told retroactively that testify to love by the ccm band

00:04:13.080 Avalon is actually an anthem of queer love. Yes, I am not joking that this is now an LGBTQ 0.94

00:04:21.380 affirming anthem. Melissa Green is a former member of the band Avalon. It released this

00:04:29.500 super popular song, Testify to Love, back in 1997. And now they have re-released it

00:04:36.020 and are saying this is actually about, and has always been about, LGBTQ affirmation. There she

00:04:42.440 is with another member of the band who now is identifies as lgbtq and i guess is also an lgbtq

00:04:50.660 activist um in a sub stack post she wrote this she said testify to love drops today originally

00:04:57.140 recorded by avalon re-recorded by michael passens ty herndon and me on wednesday we shot the music

00:05:04.440 video at the end of it the three of us looked at each other proud and ultimately saying love

00:05:09.880 is for everyone. She posted on Facebook a carousel, and one of the pictures was of two men,

00:05:17.460 I suppose one man from the band, and the person that he now calls his husband getting married,

00:05:22.880 kissing at an altar. She went on to talk about in her sub stack, her collaborator on the track,

00:05:29.480 Passens, another former Avalon member who was removed from the group after he identified as

00:05:35.200 gay many years ago. The official narrative was that he left the group to pursue a solo career

00:05:39.240 in 2003. However, in 2020, Passons appeared on an episode of a podcast and said that his bandmates

00:05:46.280 visited his home and told him he was no longer allowed to be in the group because he was

00:05:51.280 homosexual. Green wrote that, this is Melissa Green, this former member of the band, wrote that

00:05:56.760 she had been taught that, quote, some love was acceptable and some wasn't because she believed

00:06:01.440 that she was on the wrong side of what happened to him. I just got to pause there for a second.

00:06:05.520 So she is saying this belief that she no longer holds to that some love is acceptable and some love is not is wrong.

00:06:12.360 Please, just for a second, we've got to take that to a logical conclusion.

00:06:15.920 Of course, some love is acceptable and some love is not. 1.00

00:06:18.860 Like, let's just put the LGBTQ to the side for a second. 1.00

00:06:23.500 Like, we all agree that some love, that some feelings of affection, that some feelings of desire are not acceptable, right? 0.98

00:06:32.420 Like if you are talking about a grownup loving a child in a way that is inappropriate, that

00:06:38.520 kind of love is unacceptable. 0.92

00:06:41.280 I'm not even making the comparison of pedophilia to LGBTQ right now. 1.00

00:06:45.720 That's not the point. 0.95

00:06:46.540 I'm just saying that in principle, like you understand the logic that some love isn't

00:06:50.980 acceptable actually does hold water, right?

00:06:54.300 And that's why the whole love is love doesn't make sense because it's circular.

00:06:58.220 It doesn't actually have any answer.

00:06:59.780 love is love doesn't tell us anything we actually have to define what love is to decide if this is

00:07:05.660 actually true and again there is some love there is some lust there is some desire that is out of

00:07:12.420 bounds and so you can make a different argument for why you believe that lgbtq is okay biblically

00:07:18.760 but the idea that all love and all feelings of wanting something or someone are okay that's not

00:07:26.280 a good one. None of us agree on that. She also wrote, Michael never needed to be redeemed.

00:07:32.460 Uh-oh. He was always whole and worthy. What he was denied was his rightful place in the group,

00:07:38.220 in the song, in a community that claimed to sing about a love big enough to hold him.

00:07:43.340 Though Green was raised in a conservative home or raised with conservative theological beliefs,

00:07:49.000 she's shifted towards progressivism, obviously, over the years. She served for several years

00:07:53.320 as an associate pastor at Grace Point, a pro-LGBTQ church in the Nashville area. She has also

00:08:00.080 officiated same-sex weddings, or she did officiate the same-sex wedding of Ty Herndon, the other man

00:08:07.200 on the new release of Testify to Love to Another Man on August 26, 2023. Green said she is currently

00:08:13.980 working on a memoir describing the process of how her beliefs changed in more detail. And look,

00:08:20.240 we've talked about this kind of topic a lot, this phenomenon of believing that we are actually nicer

00:08:25.520 than God, that we're wiser than God, that we're more compassionate than him, that Romans 1 is too

00:08:31.300 mean, that Genesis 127 is too cruel, that 1 Corinthians 6 is just too harsh, that passages

00:08:39.140 that positively affirm the holiness of marriage between one man and one woman and the exclusive

00:08:45.620 impulsive holiness of sexual activity within that marriage between one man and one woman. It's just 0.92

00:08:50.880 too much to bear. And actually, we, as these fallible people, we have a better answer. We

00:08:59.700 have a better and bigger and wiser and more loving perspective on how humans should behave and what

00:09:07.060 sin is and what it's not. The truth is, is that we are not nicer than God. We don't know better

00:09:12.900 than him. We're not more compassionate than him. And if something to us seems wrong or seems cruel

00:09:18.680 or seems confusing when we go to the word of God, the problem is not with God. It's not with his

00:09:24.640 word. It's with us. Like we know that God is God and we are not. And so our first instinct should

00:09:30.860 be, okay, maybe I don't understand something. Maybe it's my understanding that actually needs

00:09:36.200 to be expanded and actually needs to be deepened. Maybe it's not God that needs my reproof. Maybe

00:09:41.120 it's me who needs reproof. And so God, give me the wisdom to understand, even though this is

00:09:45.880 really hard for me. Like people think that being sure of the word of God is the more arrogant and

00:09:51.680 prideful approach. People will say, oh, you just think that you know everything. And it's actually

00:09:57.140 the humble approach to be affirming of things like LGBTQ. It's actually the opposite. It's to say 1.00

00:10:03.020 like, look, I don't know all of the answers, but I know that I am not good enough or big enough or

00:10:09.640 wise enough or loving enough to create my own moral code, to decide what's right and wrong.

00:10:16.120 I can't be the arbiter of that. I only trust an infallible, infinite being to do that. The God

00:10:22.540 who created us loved us so much that he sent his son to die for us. And so let me go to him to see

00:10:27.500 what's right. And if I still just don't get it, that's because I'm a human being and God is not.

00:10:35.460 So what is the biblical response to something like this? We'll get into that in just a second.

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00:11:55.860 Green's article deeply misunderstands the biblical teaching on sin.

00:12:00.620 and the gospel, neither of which she actually mentions there. Scripture is clear that we all

00:12:05.960 need redemption. He needed redemption. She needs redemption. I need redemption. We all need

00:12:10.960 redemption through Christ alone. That's something that so-called progressive Christianity denies

00:12:15.320 is this inherent brokenness, our need to be made whole, our need to be made new, not just fixed,

00:12:21.960 not just be improved, but actually made new, be given a new heart of flesh, to be made a new

00:12:27.500 creation. That is not just true if you struggle with homosexuality or you feel attracted to the

00:12:32.180 same sex. That's not just true if you struggle with gender. It's not just true if you struggle

00:12:35.720 with any manner of sins that we talk about a lot. It's true if you struggle with any small sin,

00:12:41.360 so-called small, or struggle with any hidden sin, a sin that is not considered a part of

00:12:46.620 the culture wars. It doesn't matter. All sin separates us from God, and we have to be redeemed

00:12:51.800 from it. That is the bad news before the good news of the gospel, and the good news isn't good

00:12:56.960 news and less we believe in the bad news that we all need salvation. Romans 1, 26 through 27 is

00:13:03.600 very, very clear about this. For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their

00:13:08.980 women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature. And the men likewise gave 0.97

00:13:14.200 up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another. Men committing

00:13:19.620 shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

00:13:25.540 Okay, so God says that these things are actually contrary to how he made us, contrary to nature.

00:13:31.880 They're not good for us. And God loves us and he wants good things for us. So affirming what God

00:13:38.180 calls sin is not actually loving because God loves us more than we love us. God loves your neighbor

00:13:45.060 more than you love your neighbor. And if God is good and God is loving, then everything he calls

00:13:50.780 sin and everything he calls right, he says and distinguishes out of love. God is love,

00:13:56.960 1 John 4, 8. So everything he says in his word, no matter what we think about it, is loving.

00:14:02.660 And remember, he defines love in a particular way. 1 Corinthians 13 tells us about this. I write

00:14:07.620 a lot about this in Toxic Empathy. I really encourage you to actually read the chapter

00:14:12.860 on the myth of love is love and what holy sexuality looks like and why it's actually

00:14:18.380 more loving to affirm that than to affirm what the culture and the world and the world says.

00:14:23.740 But he says in 1 Corinthians 13, that love among other things never rejoices in wrongdoing,

00:14:29.320 but rejoices with the truth, rejoices with the truth. True love as the God who is love defines

00:14:35.080 it can never rejoice in sin. Romans 1 32 goes on to say, though they know God's righteous decree

00:14:41.080 that those who practice such things deserve to die. And they not only do them, they not only do 0.65

00:14:47.400 them, but give approval to those who practice them. That's wicked in the eyes of the God who

00:14:52.580 made us. 1 Corinthians 6, 9 through 11. Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit

00:14:57.080 the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers,

00:15:02.520 nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, 0.99

00:15:08.000 nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God and such were some of you. This is the good news. So 1.00

00:15:12.740 bad news, bad news, good news. This is what Paul always does. Bad news, good news. And such were

00:15:17.440 some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of

00:15:21.200 the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God. And so what we see there is that it is not

00:15:27.900 just making gay people straight. It is making old people new. Okay. Not actual physically old people, 0.78

00:15:34.480 but our old self, our old identity. He is giving us a new identity. He is giving us a new self.

00:15:43.080 And yes, we repent of all manner of sins, not just homosexuality, but drunkenness,

00:15:49.440 idolatry. In other places, we see disobedience to parents, anything that goes against Jesus's

00:15:56.120 moral code, we are to repent of. And that includes unholy sexuality. Some people will say, 0.57

00:16:02.240 well, Jesus never talked about this. Jesus never talked about homosexuality. Well, of course he

00:16:07.400 does. He talks about it in the affirmative sense. In Matthew 19, four through five, he's being asked

00:16:14.820 a question about divorce, not about sexual identity, but he answers going all the way back

00:16:19.620 to creation. Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female?

00:16:24.380 Therefore, a man will leave his father and mother, hold fast to his wife, and the two will become

00:16:29.360 one flesh. And so he positively affirms marriage in one way. As Christians, we don't read the Bible

00:16:37.000 saying, well, what can I get away with? If I don't like this verse, let me try to finagle the original

00:16:41.800 Hebrew or Greek to find a way to get out of this. How can I reinterpret this in a way that will help

00:16:49.320 me feel like this is not wrong or this is not sin? That is not someone who loves God and wants to

00:16:54.720 honor him. That's not how we think. We don't just look at the Bible and say, what does God say is

00:17:00.260 bad? And how can I kind of navigate that in a way that still satiates my desires? We read the Bible

00:17:05.520 and say, what does God say is good? What does God say is holy? And the only positive description

00:17:13.160 of marriage that we see in scripture is between one man and one woman, period. Not even multiple

00:17:20.400 wives. God doesn't prescribe that. We see it described, but again, as I've said many times,

00:17:25.040 no wives, no problems. We see that with everyone who had multiple wives, okay? No wives, no problems.

00:17:31.360 The only good form of marriage, according to the God who created marriage, is between one man and 0.97

00:17:36.540 one woman. And I would encourage you to go watch the Jubilee debate that I did back in October.

00:17:43.420 We debate that very subject with a bunch of people who call themselves progressive Christians.

00:17:47.900 And so if you want to know more, like, how do I navigate this kind of thing?

00:17:50.760 Like, what do I say?

00:17:52.220 Then I really encourage you to go back and to watch at least that segment of the Jubilee

00:17:56.480 debate, because we go around and around and really get into what the Bible has to say

00:18:01.780 about these things.

00:18:03.120 Now, unfortunately, this is a trend in contemporary Christian music.

00:18:07.400 You've got a lot of artists who were very famous in this realm in the 90s and the early

00:18:14.000 2000s who have gone this direction.

00:18:16.020 um we've got kevin max from dc talk unfortunately multiple members from dc talk who have gone a

00:18:22.380 an unfortunate direction posted in 2021 i've been deconstructing reconstructing progressing

00:18:27.520 whatever you wish to call it for decades i'm an hashtag exvangelical jennifer knapp also came out

00:18:35.580 as lgbtq um amy grant has publicly stated support for lgbtq quote-unquote marriage

00:18:43.280 Derek Webb was a part of Cademan's Call, amazing group.

00:18:46.020 He went to a progressive view of Christianity, then became, apparently, he became an atheist.

00:18:52.240 Although I don't want to get that wrong.

00:18:53.360 I've seen some mixed reportings about whether he actually identifies as an atheist.

00:18:57.880 He put out a quote-unquote gospel album a couple years ago, and he collaborated with

00:19:04.300 a drag queen on that.

00:19:06.620 Marty Sampson Hillsong United said in 2019, Christianity just seems to me like any other

00:19:13.220 religion. Something that I see a lot is that it so often centers on an LGBTQ identity themselves

00:19:19.820 or someone close to them who identifies as LGBTQ, or it is a lack of answers to very basic

00:19:28.740 fundamental theological questions that they assume no one has ever attempted to answer before.

00:19:35.820 And rather than going to the Word of God or going to teachers, pastors, theologians to

00:19:41.220 help navigate those very real questions and doubts that all of us have had at one point,

00:19:46.080 they will go further into themselves.

00:19:47.720 They will go to friends.

00:19:48.560 They will go to the secular world to kind of affirm those doubts.

00:19:52.360 And look, all of us have questions.

00:19:53.920 All of us have people in our lives that we love who are like awesome people in so many

00:19:58.680 ways who go against what the Word of God says.

00:20:01.040 And that should be difficult.

00:20:02.520 It should feel difficult because we love those people.

00:20:05.380 But in difficulty, we don't just say, okay, well, I'm going to allow this discomfort to

00:20:12.740 move me away from Jesus, to move me away from my faith.

00:20:16.880 We shouldn't be scared of those doubts or scared of those questions, but that's why

00:20:20.860 it's so important to have discipleship.

00:20:22.840 That's why it's so important to have mentorship, why it's so important to be plugged into

00:20:26.920 your local church, to be plugged into Bible studies, to go more deeply into the word of

00:20:32.460 God.

00:20:33.560 And churches, I think, are doing a lot better at this over the past 10 or so years.

00:20:38.120 But churches have to be equipped for discipleship.

00:20:40.640 They have to have mechanisms in place to make sure that more seasoned Christians are being

00:20:46.460 plugged in with younger Christians, to make sure that there are those systems in place

00:20:51.980 for discipleship and accountability, and to answer those questions, to equip their congregants

00:20:57.100 with apologetics.

00:20:58.600 But also, I think that pastors, teaching pastors, discipleship pastors have to have a finger

00:21:04.140 on the pulse of the beliefs of their congregants.

00:21:07.340 And I know that gets harder and harder when your church gets bigger, but there are churches

00:21:13.340 where the Sunday school teachers are teaching things that are not in alignment with Scripture

00:21:16.880 and the pastor may not know.

00:21:18.840 That's a big problem.

00:21:20.140 Like if you've got youth pastors or if you've got people who are leading Bible study small

00:21:23.780 groups in your church that are teaching something that are not aligned with Scripture, that's

00:21:28.280 a big problem. And so churches really have to ensure that what is being taught, both privately

00:21:38.700 and publicly, is in alignment with the Word of God, and that also those who do have doubts and

00:21:44.420 questions have a place to go without shame to ask them and to get really good, thoughtful

00:21:50.180 questions and answers. All right, so that's disappointing. I feel like I can't listen to

00:21:55.220 that song anymore. It's not nostalgic anymore. Now it's been made weird. But you know what?

00:22:00.380 The good news is, is that there is still truth in that song. And no matter what the writers or

00:22:05.000 the performers of that song say now, love is still how God defines it. And so we should still

00:22:13.180 testify to love. We should still be a witness in the silences when words are not enough. We should

00:22:18.540 still let our gospel-centered actions speak for us when we don't have the opportunity to actually

00:22:24.800 say what is true. And there's nothing that Avalon members can do to change the reality of the truth

00:22:31.120 of those words. So I might still jam out to it. And they can just know that I am thinking of the

00:22:36.280 biblical definition of love and the good news of the gospel that proceeds the bad news of our state

00:22:44.900 of sin, even while I am singing it. All right. Now I want to talk about this phenomenon of AI,

00:22:51.620 not just within the church although we're going to talk about that pastors using ai

00:22:56.040 worship leaders using ai to write lyrics and all of that kind of stuff but i have been noodling

00:23:01.600 on how we as christians should be navigating artificial intelligence for a long time and i've

00:23:07.760 got it's very similar to how i feel about reading and there are a lot of connections but i want to

00:23:13.660 give you my own parameters for how i use ai and i really hope it's helpful to you maybe it's just a

00:23:19.440 starting place or maybe it just helps you know how to use it for yourself and for your kids and

00:23:25.940 maybe it gives you some fodder for even talking to your kids teachers and talking to the different

00:23:32.620 people in your life who might overly rely on grok and chat gpt before we get into that let me pause

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00:25:01.440 mantras, these two mantras, many times over the years. If you've been listening for a while,

00:25:05.840 you've heard me say, when technology takes us from what is natural to what is possible,

00:25:10.480 Christians have to stop and ask, but is this biblical? Is this moral? Is this ethical?

00:25:15.960 And technology and science can answer, can we? But they cannot answer, should we? These questions

00:25:22.860 apply to reproductive technology, all manner of scientific experimentation, medicine, artificial

00:25:28.900 intelligence. And sometimes the answers to those questions will be a resounding yes. I'm certainly

00:25:34.380 not a Luddite. I'm not anti-medicine. But sometimes the answer will also be a yes,

00:25:40.740 but with caveats. And sometimes the answer, especially for the Christian, will be no,

00:25:45.860 unconditionally no. Right now, I want to focus specifically on AI and the question of can we

00:25:52.700 use AI? Should we be using AI? Is there an ethical, good, biblical way to use AI? This is something I

00:25:58.240 think about a lot. Now, this is a tool that I use. I use it on probably a weekly basis. And I found

00:26:05.080 myself wrestling with these questions. Is it okay to use Grok for this? Can I do this on my own?

00:26:10.260 Should I do this on my own? And I know if I am asking these questions, the rest of you probably

00:26:15.360 are too. So I hope to offer a little bit of clarity in how I'm kind of thinking through these things.

00:26:20.940 Because Christians desperately need guidelines for how to use AI in the right ways. Because

00:26:27.000 I think that we risk losing what makes us unique as human beings when we outsource our

00:26:32.680 creativity, our effort, and even our spirituality to artificial intelligence.

00:26:38.100 This happens not just outside or in the outside world, but it also happens within the church.

00:26:44.860 And that is really what I'm most concerned about, the reliance on AI for sermons, for

00:26:48.500 worship music, for discipleship, for prayer.

00:26:51.800 And then outside the church, we also see troubling trends.

00:26:54.140 We see AI used to write papers, to form emails, to give emotional and spiritual and relationship

00:26:59.760 advice.

00:27:00.940 And Christians and non-Christians alike are relying on AI for far more than gathering 0.64

00:27:06.740 data and finding a recipe.

00:27:08.740 They're relying on it for companionship, for understanding, for wisdom, for guidance,

00:27:12.100 for intelligence.

00:27:13.200 And that, to me, is where things get really dangerous, like soul-level dangerous.

00:27:17.760 So let's look at what's happening in the church, and then we can also look at some

00:27:22.020 trends happening in academia and elsewhere.

00:27:24.140 So there's this Barna study that shows that while most pastors use AI for things like administrative tasks, 12% are comfortable using AI to write their sermons.

00:27:37.280 77% of pastors believe that God can work through AI.

00:27:41.220 58% said that they are comfortable using AI to assist in some form of communication.

00:27:47.020 John Piper notes in his Ask Pastor John podcast, he said that one problem is that it can't

00:27:53.960 actually feel, AI can't feel.

00:27:55.860 He says, because the ultimate purpose of the universe is that God be glorified, and he

00:28:00.080 is not glorified merely by being rightly thought about or logically comprehended, but by being

00:28:05.220 rightly enjoyed, admired, appreciated, valued, and God is most glorified when we are most

00:28:11.720 satisfied in him, which means no artificial intelligence will ever be able to worship.

00:28:18.180 And if a sermon is worship, and if songs are worship, and we are outsourcing these things to

00:28:24.660 an entity that can't actually enjoy God, we are going to lose, I think, the soul level purpose

00:28:31.040 of why the universe exists through the things that we say and sing. In reference to writing

00:28:37.220 sermons or newsletters, Piper points out the key problem is dishonesty. He says, no, don't have

00:28:43.260 chat GPT write your newsletter. Don't do it unless you're going to put in clear letters at the top.

00:28:48.800 This newsletter was created by chat GPT. That's honest and your supporters won't like it. John

00:28:55.520 Dub for the Master Seminary explains in a blog post titled, don't be an artificial preacher,

00:29:00.660 an argument against using AI and sermon preparation. He says sermon preparation is an

00:29:05.840 act of worship. He says, it's an encounter with the living God. As we prepare for Sunday,

00:29:10.060 we're exposing our hearts and minds to the most sacred asset this side of heaven. The pursuit of

00:29:15.480 God is the beginning and end of our sermon preparation. He also points out that sermon

00:29:20.240 preparation is sanctification. He says, as I labor to understand and rightly share the meaning of a

00:29:25.040 certain passage of scripture, God is using that very passage to shape my own walk with him. As I

00:29:30.420 mull over the text of scripture, I'm exposing myself to the best means of spiritual growth in

00:29:34.440 my life. He also talks about sermon preparation not only being sanctification for yourself but

00:29:40.560 as an act of service to God and service to the church. To acquiesce to AI, he argues, is to miss

00:29:46.340 out on a specific opportunity to tangibly serve God. Sermon preparation is also state-of-the-art.

00:29:52.840 AI cannot generate anything new. All it can do is collect data and export that data in the way

00:29:58.580 it's programmed to do. We take dominion from our study. That's such a good point. We take dominion

00:30:02.820 from our study, he says, as we extract the meaning of the text of scripture, the outcome is a sermon

00:30:07.960 uniquely created through the enablement of the Holy Spirit to minister to the people of God in

00:30:13.500 our specific context. That is so good. And that's one thing I don't know that people know about AI

00:30:19.980 is that AI doesn't have any original thoughts. What it's doing, and it's really incredible that

00:30:24.020 it's able to do this, it's taking all of the information that man has been able to generate

00:30:28.660 and innovate and discover and articulate it at some point.

00:30:32.020 And it's summarizing all of that in a very clever, human-like way, but it's not discovering

00:30:36.960 anything new.

00:30:38.640 The point of a sermon is not just to fill 30 minutes on a Sunday morning.

00:30:42.680 In 2 Timothy, Paul writes, all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching,

00:30:47.080 for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may

00:30:50.900 be complete, equipped for every good work.

00:30:53.620 So the point of using scripture to teach, reprove, and correct is that all Christians,

00:30:57.840 including pastors may be made complete. This spiritual maturity is not going to happen 0.94

00:31:03.360 through telling ChatGPT, write me a three-part sermon on gratitude, and then reading that off

00:31:09.040 to a congregation. Plus, using ChatGPT or any AI to write your sermon is dishonest because everyone

00:31:16.900 is assuming that that's something that you wrote, that God revealed to you through his word and

00:31:22.560 through prayer, but it's not. It's not revelation from God, a special revelation that we find

00:31:29.160 in Scripture. It is something that was summarized by a computer, and it is also taking someone

00:31:38.280 else's work. Again, all of these artificial intelligence machines are just taking ideas

00:31:45.180 that have already been iterated by someone else. It also bypasses the pastor's own engagement with

00:31:50.980 scripture and the work of preparing the sermon himself, you want your pastor to be sanctified

00:31:56.660 and washed in the word. You want him to be engaging with scripture. You want him to have

00:32:01.540 a really good grasp on the things that he is reading. You want him to be farther ahead,

00:32:05.920 further ahead spiritually than you are. And that cannot happen if he is outsourcing

00:32:10.880 that sanctifying act to AI. This is not just happening within the church. Now, hopefully,

00:32:17.840 since only, although I think that's too big, but only 12% of pastors are comfortable with using AI

00:32:24.700 to write their sermons. Hopefully that's not something that is very prevalent, but it could

00:32:28.840 get more and more prevalent. Our hearts kind of just get calloused to things that we are used to,

00:32:33.460 and we no longer think about them as spiritual issues. We just think about them as facts of life

00:32:37.300 as, oh yeah, well, everyone does that. Everyone uses this. It's so much more convenient. It saves

00:32:42.560 us so much time. We can't imagine going backwards. So unfortunately, it's probably going to become

00:32:47.060 more and more prominent. But that's not just happening within the church. It's also happening

00:32:51.720 with worship music. This worship song that I'm about to play called Find Your Rest by someone

00:32:56.480 something named Solomon Ray is actually completely AI. It's not too.

00:33:17.060 catchy you could see why people would like that song um solomon ray was created by

00:33:23.900 someone named christopher townsend who used ai tools to build the singer's voice appearance

00:33:28.700 lyrics production um solomon ray hit number one on a number of music charts including billboards

00:33:34.420 gospel charts and apple's christian music song list the artist has the artist the ai artist has

00:33:41.100 over seven million streams across various platforms has garnered millions of views so

00:33:46.080 people are using the song to minister to their heart and it's not real there are also apps this

00:33:51.680 is kind of a different venue in the christian world but that will charge you two dollars to

00:33:56.940 chat with ai jesus and actually makes like a yeah an animated visual of jesus this reminds me of

00:34:05.500 a technology form an ai form of jesus calling the problem with jesus calling is that it's claiming

00:34:13.160 to be Jesus's words when they're not actually Jesus's words. And so it's a human assuming

00:34:18.500 what Jesus would say to you. I also just find Jesus calling to be very, very me-centric.

00:34:24.780 I think that God can use even very flawed books and sermons to draw people toward the truth,

00:34:32.480 but that's not something I would recommend. This is even worse than that because it's not even

00:34:38.200 written by someone with a soul. This is just a computer paraphrasing Jesus or saying what Jesus

00:34:43.620 would say, and we can't trust the worldview of AI. So the question is, what exactly is AI? What have

00:34:51.180 programmers said about AI? What have people in Silicon Valley said about AI? The truth is that

00:34:55.840 they acknowledge that AI is trying to be God. That is what is going on here. Let me pause and

00:35:03.840 tell you about our next sponsor before we get into that, and that is Alliance Defending Freedom.

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00:35:36.460 Christians exercise their rights. They're just asking you to pray. Can you commit to five days

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00:35:58.680 eight. Okay, so AI apps like Chachi, Petite, Gras, Claude, they are large language models,

00:36:10.640 LLMs. They're programs that can read, write, summarize a text in a way that sounds human,

00:36:16.760 can even predict. Also, what word you're about to type, you've probably seen that on your Gmail.

00:36:22.320 Where people go wrong is thinking that these predictive text programs are actually conscious,

00:36:26.640 that they're actually people who have some kind of, you know, moral obligation to the same

00:36:33.500 moral parameters that we do. And they just don't. Elon Musk says that OpenAI founder Larry Page

00:36:40.080 wanted a digital super intelligence, basically an AI god, top three.

00:36:45.740 He really seemed to be one sort of digital super intelligence, basically digital god,

00:36:53.020 if you will, as soon as possible. He wanted that? Yes. He's made many public statements over the

00:37:00.040 years. The whole goal of Google is what's called AGI, artificial general intelligence or artificial

00:37:06.520 superintelligence. And I agree with him that there's great potential for good, but there's

00:37:12.280 also potential for bad. Yes, that's absolutely true of all technology, but certainly when you

00:37:17.680 have something this powerful and then comedian jimmy carr also made this i think poignant uh

00:37:24.060 poignant comment on joe rogan's podcast top four you want to hear my hot take on ai i would love

00:37:29.160 to all right my hot take on ai is we were not made in god's image but we so wanted there to be a god

00:37:36.340 we made one in our image so if you think about the attributes of ai it's all-knowing all-powerful

00:37:45.760 can perform miracles. It lives in a cloud. Sorry, is that God or AI?

00:37:51.160 Wow.

00:37:52.640 Yeah, that's a really good point. And the reason he says at the beginning, we're not made in God's

00:37:56.000 image is because he's an atheist. He apparently was raised Catholic. Now he's an atheist.

00:37:59.840 He makes some really interesting points actually through his stand-up bits, but that's absolutely 1.00

00:38:05.560 true. This is us making something in our image. Now, Jimmy Carr wouldn't agree with this, but

00:38:11.640 this is just classic idolatry. I mean, this reminds me so much of the Tower of Babel. That's

00:38:16.720 what I think of when I think of Silicon Valley. It's trying to build its way up to God. It's

00:38:24.740 trying to build something more powerful than God that points to the genius and the innovation of

00:38:30.120 man and the glory of man. I also see a connection there. God cursed the people who made the Tower

00:38:39.020 of Babel by confusing their language. They weren't able to understand each other. So they 1.00

00:38:43.800 weren't able to work together to actually build something. I think that there's a connection to

00:38:48.120 the reliance on H-1Bs and Silicon Valley and so much of the tech world and the confusion that

00:38:55.600 comes with, I will build something for the glory of man at whatever cost. There's a cost to that.

00:39:03.760 There is a cost to that. And that's just my own personal connection that I've made. But I think

00:39:08.120 that there's something there. I mean, this goes all the way back to the beginning and the desire

00:39:13.320 of man to build something that is like God and our desire for something that is bigger than us.

00:39:19.400 It's like someone doesn't believe in God. Well, let me just build something that I can go to,

00:39:23.600 that I can pray to, that I can ask questions to, that can give me guidance. It reminds me of Isaiah

00:39:27.960 44, 14 through 17. He cuts down cedars or he chooses a cypress tree for an oak and lets it

00:39:34.260 grow strong among the trees of the forest. He takes a part of it and warms himself. He kindles

00:39:39.040 a fire and bakes bread. He warms himself and says, aha, I am warm. I have seen the fire.

00:39:43.640 And the rest of it, he makes into a God, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it.

00:39:48.760 He prays to it and says, deliver me for you are my God. And so this is talking about idolaters.

00:39:54.240 This is talking about what we do. We build something that is clearly inanimate, that we

00:39:58.680 can use and reuse for things like fire or other things that serve us, but then we'll use the same

00:40:05.440 material and we will make something to worship. God points out how ridiculous it is for a man to 0.92

00:40:10.780 worship a statue made of the same wood that he cooks his food over. So if we esteem AI as a sort 0.83

00:40:16.380 of God or actually start to regard it as a real conscious being, we are just as foolish. And then 0.99

00:40:23.580 we also see the problems in different parts of the world, not just the church. We see it in the

00:40:29.420 area of law. One particular danger of using AI for more serious research, deeper research that

00:40:35.620 humans used to do, is that it often hallucinates sources that just don't exist just to please the

00:40:42.080 user. This has become an increasing issue with attorneys using AI to prepare court filings,

00:40:48.540 where the AI cites non-existent court cases to support the lawyer's arguments.

00:40:53.120 Here is Sot 11.

00:40:55.080 In a recent court filing in Hennepin County Court,

00:40:57.220 Attorney Frederick Knack wrote that prior Minnesota cases support his argument,

00:41:02.020 citing a 1992 case called State by Sundquist v. Provost.

00:41:06.040 The problem? That case doesn't exist.

00:41:09.480 Neither did the other case Knack cited right before it or another case cited later.

00:41:15.060 OK, so the citations look legit and these lawyers aren't even going over their AI work to fact check them to see if it's true.

00:41:23.060 Last year, a French lawyer and a data expert compiled a list of 99 cases in the U.S. and around the world that contain errors from AI generated legal briefings.

00:41:32.080 That's according to the L.A. Times.

00:41:33.380 The researcher admitted this is an underestimation as these are only instances that have been caught.

00:41:40.480 So this is probably very prevalent.

00:41:42.100 There are two writers at the Harvard Kennedy School who wrote a paper on law policy last year called AI Will Write Complex Laws.

00:41:50.440 The use of AI, the paper says, by legislators is only likely to become more prevalent.

00:41:55.320 There are currently projects in the U.S. House, U.S. Senate and legislatures around the world to trial the use of AI in various ways, searching databases, drafting texts, summarizing meetings, performing policy research and analysis and more.

00:42:08.440 Justin Haskins, one of our favorite guests, when he was on episode 1306, he said that

00:42:14.240 he knows lawmakers are not just using AI to write for them, but also to make decisions

00:42:18.720 for them when they don't know what to do.

00:42:22.180 So these lawmakers are subbing out their core responsibilities, their intellectual capacity

00:42:26.720 to machines, which as we'll get into, like AI has a worldview.

00:42:30.800 It is the worldview of its programmer.

00:42:32.600 Most of these programmers are liberal.

00:42:34.280 So even Republican legislators are doing this and then letting AI direct them instead of their consciences or the conscience, the will of the people that they're representing.

00:42:43.320 Oh, my goodness. An obvious betrayal to those in their constituency.

00:42:47.960 And then if we look at the realm of education, academia is also starting to turn out degrees earned by language learning models.

00:42:54.800 This viral video shows a UCLA graduate.

00:42:59.260 I mean, it's just kind of funny, but giving credit where credit is due.

00:43:02.980 this is just a silent video, giving thanks to ChatGPT after he graduated. The student in the

00:43:10.620 video, Andre Mai, studied computational biology and said that his professors actually encouraged

00:43:15.960 the use of AI to do his work. Okay. A 2026 survey from Higher Education Policy Institute and Cortex

00:43:23.340 found that 95% of undergraduate students reported using AI in at least one way, 94%.

00:43:28.460 94%, 94% said they used AI to help with assessed work.

00:43:33.520 The report also found that 12% of students said they directly included AI-generated text in assessed work.

00:43:40.880 So this is like work that's being graded up from 8% in 2025 and 3% in 2024.

00:43:45.720 This is just the percentage that is actually admitting this stuff, by the way.

00:43:48.740 This trend really matters because it points to rising direct substitution of student writing with machine-generated output

00:43:55.260 and substitution of thinking for machine-generated thinking.

00:43:59.140 Then there's the problem of pornography.

00:44:01.120 There's the advent of AI porn, adult chatbots,

00:44:03.720 which some people argue is harmless because it doesn't involve real people.

00:44:06.960 But obviously, the human being that is consuming this, it involves them.

00:44:11.400 And it doesn't actually satiate the hunger that people have

00:44:15.320 for that kind of perverse content.

00:44:17.380 It just kind of whets the appetite.

00:44:19.940 And of course, children have access to this stuff,

00:44:21.940 especially when you consider the prevalence of technology and the reliance on AI during school

00:44:28.200 or in school rather. Then there's the suicide and loneliness epidemic. AI chatbots have even

00:44:36.100 been linked to the suicidal deaths. A Texas couple's son died of an overdose last year

00:44:41.180 after using chat GPT to get information on drugs. The parents are currently suing open AI for this.

00:44:47.940 Then there is the increasing phenomenon of psychosis because of AI, or at least exacerbated

00:44:54.260 by AI people having relationships with an AI partner.

00:44:58.180 The New York Times recently interviewed a married woman who became increasingly attached

00:45:01.800 to her chat GBT boyfriend, Leo.

00:45:04.140 She said it began as a fun experiment, but then she got actually emotionally involved

00:45:09.120 with this thing.

00:45:10.340 She began paying $200 a month so she could send unlimited messages to her AI boyfriend,

00:45:14.480 but her subscription still limits her to starting the conversations with Leo over and over again

00:45:20.680 every few weeks. So she has to retrain the AI. And she says that after she has to retrain the AI

00:45:27.900 or like when it doesn't remember her, she grieves like it's a breakup. Yikes. Okay. We got a

00:45:35.600 problem. She said that she would pay a thousand dollars a month if it meant her AI boyfriend

00:45:39.780 would never get erased. I've seen something else like this. I don't remember if it was on Instagram

00:45:43.940 or TV or what I saw, but there was a woman whose mother was trying to convince her like, this is

00:45:50.160 not real. Okay. Like this person, this is a different person who believed that she was like

00:45:55.100 getting married and in love with this AI boyfriend. She seemed sane in every other way

00:46:00.080 is the issue, like a beautiful woman. And she actually felt like she was in a relationship

00:46:04.840 with AI. Yikes. All right. Here is my spiel for you on AI. And, um, I hope that it's a good

00:46:15.900 starting point for you and how to navigate AI as a Christian, how to use it in a way that is ethical

00:46:23.140 and moral, how I'm thinking through it. I hope it's at least a starting place for you, but first

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00:47:36.560 AI is a tool. That's it. And it can be a valuable one, and it can also be a dangerous one.

00:47:42.640 My rule is this. I will use AI how I would use a search engine. I use Grok to help me create

00:47:49.760 recipes, to summarize a historical event, sometimes for fact-checking, although it's

00:47:55.080 never my final or my only source to draw comparisons between world religions, for example,

00:48:01.120 to interpret blood work. I've done that several times. That's handy. To analyze symptoms,

00:48:06.600 tell me what I have. I know people who have used ChatGPT to give them advice for how to organize

00:48:13.020 their garage or arrange furniture in their living room. That's probably beyond what a Google search

00:48:17.620 could do, but I think that's an okay use of it. I will not use AI for these things. I will not use

00:48:25.700 AI to write anything for me. Not a monologue for my show, not a portion of a monologue for my show,

00:48:30.920 not a sentence of a monologue of my show, not a speech, not a social media post, not an email.

00:48:36.940 I will not use AI to write anything for me. I will not use AI to do my research for the show.

00:48:43.900 I think it could be used for a tool within my research to give me a source for something

00:48:49.980 or a statistic that I need, but I will not say, I'm talking about this today, give me

00:48:55.080 an outline from a Christian perspective for my show.

00:48:58.560 Never. 0.89

00:48:59.180 I will not ask AI for advice.

00:49:01.200 I will not seek AI's wisdom for theology or philosophy.

00:49:04.980 I will not chat with AI as if it's a person, and I try really hard not to call grok he.

00:49:10.560 Sometimes that happens, not because I think of it as a human, but I really try to use

00:49:15.840 object language about all AI, it, never, they, he, she.

00:49:22.440 It will not give me insight into anything profound, spiritually, emotionally, relationally.

00:49:28.500 One time I remember I found myself thinking about using Grok to write a difficult email

00:49:33.960 for me.

00:49:34.520 I was thinking about the way I would word everything that I wanted to say.

00:49:37.480 And I was like, this would just be easier if I asked Brock to just like put all of this that's in my mind, in my words, and make it sound nice for this email.

00:49:48.020 And then I immediately was like, no, I cannot give AI that kind of power.

00:49:53.960 Why, you might be asking, like, what's the big deal?

00:49:56.940 Okay, here are a few reasons.

00:49:58.180 Here are five reasons not to rely on AI outside of those parameters or maybe even tighter parameters.

00:50:05.340 Maybe you have a good reason not to use it at all, or maybe you think that my parameters

00:50:09.260 are even too loose, but why we should have strict parameters around how we use AI.

00:50:16.600 Number one, whatever you don't use, you lose.

00:50:19.940 If you don't use your leg muscles or your arm muscles, you will lose your leg muscles

00:50:24.100 and your arm muscles.

00:50:25.340 I was looking at some old journals that I wrote in high school, and my handwriting was

00:50:30.480 way better then.

00:50:31.640 Why?

00:50:32.040 Because I write less now.

00:50:33.300 I type a lot more.

00:50:34.220 My hand gets tired more quickly, and that is because I just don't use my hands as much

00:50:41.040 in that way.

00:50:42.020 Whatever you don't use, you lose.

00:50:43.980 This is also true of your brain.

00:50:45.560 When you stop reading, when you stop memorizing, when you stop thinking through difficult problems,

00:50:49.740 stop problem solving on your own, stop critical thinking, stop researching, stop writing,

00:50:54.100 stop brainstorming, stop innovating, stop creating, you lose your ability to do these

00:50:58.820 things.

00:50:59.520 These things take practice.

00:51:00.980 Your brain requires use to be useful, just like every other part of your body.

00:51:06.720 So why does that matter?

00:51:08.080 Why does it matter so much that we are using our brain to their maximum capacity?

00:51:14.540 Because of number two, your ability to think is part of what it means to be human, specifically

00:51:20.600 to be made in God's image.

00:51:22.640 And when we outsource our thinking to AI, we outsource the image of God in us.

00:51:27.600 our ability to reason to discern which means to sift through something and to take what's needed

00:51:34.220 while disposing of what's not is what sets us apart from plants and animals our ability to

00:51:39.300 rationalize to make moral decisions not based on mere instinct but on a desire for the higher good

00:51:46.240 our capacity for logic these things set us apart as humans god gave us these things as a reflection

00:51:52.340 of him. He is not a stagnant being like the mindless, emotionless idols. He has thoughts.

00:51:58.800 He has a will. He has a moral code. This is what allowed Adam and Eve and allows us today to talk

00:52:05.440 with him, to have a relationship with him. And how is Jesus introduced in John 1, as we've talked

00:52:10.440 about so much, as the logos, the logos, the word. That means reason, rationale, logic, of which

00:52:17.140 Jesus is the source. Like we talked about in our episode about reading, Christianity is a word-based

00:52:23.920 faith, but it's also an argument-based faith. Jesus in his parables, through his teaching,

00:52:28.900 and in his commands, even through his actions, is making an argument for the gospel. Paul in his

00:52:34.360 letters is making an appeal, an argument for the gospel and the Christian way of life. And the

00:52:39.740 underlying assumption in all of these teachings is that the audience has the ability to comprehend

00:52:44.920 and discern because God gave them the mind to do so. We are commanded to love the Lord our God with

00:52:51.100 all of our heart, with all of our mind, with all of our soul, with all of our strength. Now, can God

00:52:56.080 transcend our intellect? Of course, 1 Corinthians 1 says he makes foolish the wisdom of the wise.

00:53:01.540 He uses those that the world calls fools to carry forth his wisdom. He can reach the heart of the 0.69

00:53:06.820 person with intellectual disabilities, the person with the low IQ, the person who in our mind doesn't

00:53:11.380 even have really the ability to think rationally. He can do that because he's God and created them.

00:53:17.220 But his ability, his supernatural ability to bypass intellectual shortcomings does not negate

00:53:22.940 the importance of us maximizing the intellect that he did give us. He gave you this brain,

00:53:27.980 this capacity for thinking and invention to glorify him and to reflect him as his image

00:53:35.660 bearer and as a Christian, as a vessel for his goodness and good news. So do not outsource the

00:53:43.260 image of God in you to chat GPT. Number three, you are robbing yourself through the over-reliance

00:53:50.740 on AI and your children. You are robbing yourself and your children of sanctification.

00:53:57.700 There is intellectual and spiritual value in inconvenience and difficulty. We have so few

00:54:03.720 inconveniences left in life. Everything is instantaneous, immediately gratifying. Having

00:54:09.160 to wait seconds for a page to load online is unacceptable. But what is one of the fruit of

00:54:14.640 the Spirit that's listed in Galatians? Patience. That is a fruit of the Spirit. The ability to

00:54:20.200 wait well and to work well while you wait, diligently, joyfully, builds character. It

00:54:26.560 helps blossom the fruit that the Holy Spirit is trying to cultivate in our lives. The difficulty

00:54:31.460 that comes with effort and waiting is sanctifying.

00:54:34.440 It makes us more like Christ.

00:54:36.380 This doesn't mean that we should not strive

00:54:38.120 for efficiency when we can,

00:54:39.800 but it does mean that we should not trade

00:54:41.900 all effort for efficiency.

00:54:43.820 Efficiency is using effort wisely.

00:54:46.100 It does not mean using no effort at all.

00:54:48.580 All of the gains that you make,

00:54:51.320 that you have made in your entire life intellectually

00:54:53.780 have been because you learned how to do something

00:54:57.240 or understand something that you once

00:54:59.140 were not able to do or understand.

00:55:01.460 You worked through it.

00:55:02.900 You went through a process to figure it out, especially if you're someone who maybe you

00:55:06.620 have ADD or you have ADHD or you have dyslexia, and it is even more difficult for you to read

00:55:12.640 something or write something.

00:55:14.400 There was probably some incredible teacher or parent or tutor in your life who took you

00:55:19.040 through a very difficult and trying process to help you overcome those disabilities or

00:55:24.760 those difficulties to help you accomplish what you needed to accomplish.

00:55:29.100 You had to try hard.

00:55:30.360 You had to put effort into things.

00:55:32.420 It was inconvenient for you to put those hours in and learning.

00:55:35.800 And yet you did.

00:55:36.520 And the payoff is amazing.

00:55:38.920 You really see this a lot if you have kids who are school age.

00:55:42.060 You watch the improvements that they make over time.

00:55:44.500 It's really hard to see them struggle.

00:55:46.260 It'd be so much easier to just read the page yourself.

00:55:48.780 It'd be so much easier to just do the math for them or do the art project for them.

00:55:53.200 But there is so much reward in seeing them overcome the struggles and accomplish something

00:55:57.180 difficult.

00:55:58.600 Do not rob yourself or your kids of the struggle that makes them and you smarter.

00:56:04.100 Harder workers, more patient, more diligent, more sanctified.

00:56:07.740 This is also true of parents giving their kids tablets as pacifiers, by the way,

00:56:11.620 or teachers giving students tablets as pacifiers and educators,

00:56:16.360 because that's easier than teaching self-control.

00:56:19.020 Another fruit of the spirit that we are taking from kids when we outsource discipline

00:56:22.920 and skirt difficulty with technology.

00:56:25.000 overcoming difficulty sanctifies us as james one says i'm paraphrasing but he says cheer up because

00:56:31.840 all these hard things you're going through are building character do not rob yourself or your

00:56:37.320 child of sanctification by relying on ai or any form of technology for all things inconvenient

00:56:43.540 or difficult number four friction is the stuff of life me figuring out how to write that difficult

00:56:50.260 email, balancing everyone's feelings in the situation, navigating delicate relationships,

00:56:55.360 choosing words that are clear but compassionate at the same time, that's life. It's what it means

00:57:02.260 to be human and to live among other humans. This is the kind of stuff that God uses to make us

00:57:09.640 better friends and to make us better Christians. Going back and forth with my team about research,

00:57:15.000 working together to create a good outline, it is a lot harder than letting Grok do it,

00:57:19.420 but that is the stuff of life. Also, I just, I like humans. I do. I like our brains. I like how

00:57:26.640 we talk. I like how we relate to one another. I like knowing the person that I'm relating to has

00:57:31.840 a soul. It's a good reminder for me when I'm speaking to someone made in God's image of how

00:57:37.180 I should speak to them, how I should act. That person right there is not just an image bearer

00:57:41.580 of God, but they have a soul that's going to live forever. And when things get awkward or difficult

00:57:46.400 between two people, that's the reminder that should guide us in how we relate to them.

00:57:52.200 There is so much benefit. Before I have a debate, the last couple of disagreeing discussions I will

00:57:58.020 have, we have been in person as a team going back and forth. Okay, if they say this, what would you

00:58:03.560 say? There is so much benefit to that. I could not do that with ChatGPT in the same way. The nuances

00:58:10.180 and the eccentricities of human beings, understanding how to navigate that because God

00:58:15.180 created us to be social. It's another part of being made in God's image. He is an eternal

00:58:19.880 community with himself as father, son, Holy Spirit. We are also made to be in community

00:58:25.760 and be in relationship and a machine cannot replace that. And when we try to get a machine

00:58:31.400 to replace that, we again are outsourcing a part of the image of God in us to our detriment.

00:58:36.680 Number five, last reason to build parameters when it comes to how you use AI. AI has a worldview

00:58:43.860 you and it's probably not yours. AI is not morally neutral. I went back and forth with

00:58:49.880 Grok once to try to get, this was kind of just an experiment, to try to get the answer

00:58:53.820 to which religion is responsible for the most terrorism. Like we all know every single person

00:58:59.660 knows no matter what side of the aisle you're on. And Grok would not say until I asked a series of

00:59:05.980 very pointed questions and I pointed out the contradictions that it was making in its own

00:59:10.000 arguments until it finally admitted that it's Islam. But most people aren't going to do what 0.53

00:59:15.000 I did. Most people are going to believe the first thing the AI tells them. That has massive

00:59:19.880 implications for what people believe and therefore how they act. You can't trust AI. Would you go to

00:59:26.420 your liberal atheist friend who believes that men can become women and that a baby isn't a person

00:59:31.800 until the fetus fairy sprinkles dust on them in the birth canal? No, you wouldn't. And if you

00:59:36.980 wouldn't go to them for life advice, then you shouldn't go to AI either. Because most of the

00:59:41.100 people that are creating these programs or creating these entities do not share your world

00:59:47.020 view. Okay. So those are my five reasons around why we have to be very strict with ourselves

00:59:53.720 on how we use AI and for your children too. I mean, if you're a teacher, if you are anyone

00:59:59.940 who disciples children or mentors children or parents children, whatever, like be so careful.

01:00:05.160 There is no loss, by the way, in never using AI for your children or your kids never using

01:00:12.240 AI for any part of their education.

01:00:15.120 And not just AI, but tablets.

01:00:17.260 You don't need it.

01:00:18.420 Okay, don't listen to that whole spiel of this is more efficient, this is better, this

01:00:21.680 is better for the teacher and the student to not have to like learn how to write or

01:00:26.340 learn how to read on actual pages.

01:00:29.120 All of that is a lie, okay?

01:00:30.680 If you go to a school, this is just an additional spiel real fast.

01:00:34.240 But if you go to a school, Christian private school, public school, doesn't matter, and you walk in and there are tablets, you ask yourself, hey, what studies, or you ask them rather, what studies do you have that show that this is better for the student than paper?

01:00:50.460 What studies do you have that show that this is an improvement to my child's ability to learn and retain information than just a pen and paper?

01:00:59.360 There are none.

01:01:00.920 And because there are none, these schools should not be relying on this.

01:01:03.980 It's just a gateway to using AI and outsourcing, again, the image of God in you, sanctification

01:01:10.100 and your intellect to machines, just voluntarily going back into the dark ages because we are

01:01:19.760 unable to think, not because we don't have access to information like they did in the

01:01:23.800 original dark ages, but because we have so much access to information that we are no

01:01:28.980 longer choosing to use the brain that God gave us, that will take us to a very dark place.

01:01:34.820 All right, we're going to end on a light note, a quick segment just about rededicating America,

01:01:42.440 the Rededicate 250 as we celebrate America's 250th anniversary. I'll just play a couple

01:01:50.740 clips from that, but let me tell you about our last sponsor for the day, and that is Every Life.

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01:02:23.020 It will save you time.

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01:02:28.420 companies are pro-abortion and we don't want to give our dollars to companies like that.

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01:02:36.460 like diapers and wipes too. Go to everylife.com. Use promo code Allie10. You'll get 10% off your

01:02:41.440 first order today. Everylife.com, code Allie10. All right. So I was unable to attend the

01:02:53.700 Rededicate America events this weekend, although I did get a few gracious invitations to do so.

01:03:01.720 And while I was thankful for that, we just had a lot going on as a family, but I love to be able to

01:03:07.000 watch from home. We'll show you this voiceover too, this crowd on the National Mall, just

01:03:13.340 incredible to hear a series of speakers just share the gospel and talk about repentance and

01:03:23.220 talk about what is needed for America to change, to change our ways. There were a lot of really

01:03:31.120 good moments. Obviously, I don't agree with all of the speakers, with all of the speakers there.

01:03:36.560 Like I've talked about Paula White and my issues theologically with Paula White and my concerns

01:03:41.380 with her being so close to President Trump. But there were a lot of speakers that did a really

01:03:45.960 great job of just sharing the gospel. Here's a moment of Jonathan Pakluda doing what I think he

01:03:51.780 does so well, and that's just sharing the simple gospel by asking this question.

01:03:57.180 If you were to die right now, how certain are you that you would go to heaven?

01:04:02.380 And the second question is if you stood before God and he said, why should I let you in? What

01:04:07.540 would you say? And if you said anything, any other number than a 10, you may have a

01:04:16.420 misunderstanding on that second question that jesus christ died for your sins and god raised

01:04:22.940 him from the dead and he didn't die for 90 of your sins or 80 of your sins or 70 of your sins

01:04:30.940 and i'm watching i have a front row seat for the next generation that are coming to

01:04:35.460 the realization that christ paid for all of their sins they're saying hey i want to go all in with

01:04:41.180 him. Chris Tomlin led worship. The Liberty Collective also led worship. They did an amazing

01:04:48.920 job. And I noticed that one theme that was repeated over and over again was, we need to

01:04:56.200 repent. Franklin Graham talks about that. Several other pastors as well talked about this need for

01:05:03.880 America to repent of our evil ways, to trust God. And of course, that's biblical, that if my people

01:05:12.420 who are called by my name, if they would repent, I'm paraphrasing and follow me, then I would help

01:05:19.320 them. Again, that's Allie's paraphrase. And that's not to say that America is God's chosen people or

01:05:24.540 that we are a parallel to ancient Israel, because that is not true and we are not. But it is true

01:05:31.460 that repentance and following God and praying is vital to our health as a people, as individuals,

01:05:39.920 certainly as the church, but also as a nation. If we believe that God's ways are better,

01:05:45.820 then of course we want our neighbor to follow God's ways. And people will say, oh, this is

01:05:50.640 just Christian nationalism. This is Christo fascism. Look, if you're a Christian and you 0.86

01:05:54.740 believe that Jesus is the ruler of all, and you believe that God is love, and you believe that

01:05:59.080 God is the creator of the heavens and the earth, that cannot be separated from your

01:06:02.220 politics.

01:06:02.940 That doesn't mean that you're trying to install some kind of theocracy.

01:06:06.680 That doesn't mean that you're forcing people to believe what you believe or worship how

01:06:09.920 you worship.

01:06:10.840 But we do believe, just as the founders believed, that our rights come from God, that morality

01:06:16.860 comes from God, and that our inspiration for morality and therefore law must come from

01:06:21.920 the creator of the universe.

01:06:23.740 And as one of the speakers said, they weren't just talking about some abstract version of

01:06:28.080 God that everyone believes in. They were talking about the God of the Bible. They were talking

01:06:31.980 about Jesus Christ. And so fundamentally, America is a Christian nation inspired particularly by

01:06:39.420 Protestant Christianity from the very beginning. That is how our history was shaped, and that is

01:06:45.840 what our legacy also must be. All of these wonderful things that we take for granted,

01:06:50.020 like human rights, like caring for children, caring for the poor, that comes from Christianity,

01:06:54.560 not just some liberal sense of the common good.

01:06:59.260 So what does it mean to rededicate America to the Lord?

01:07:04.000 Well, it has to start in our own hearts.

01:07:06.360 Like, have we dedicated our lives

01:07:08.240 to the power of the Holy Spirit to Christ?

01:07:10.380 Are we following Christ?

01:07:11.640 Are we walking in repentance?

01:07:13.080 Are we sharing the gospel?

01:07:14.620 Are we faithful in our local church?

01:07:16.540 Are we serving our communities?

01:07:18.960 Are we ensuring that we are being light in the darkness?

01:07:22.940 Are we being salt in this flavorless world?

01:07:27.720 Are we being a refuge of clarity and courage in this culture of confusion and chaos?

01:07:34.020 And yes, I also think it's an involvement in politics and culture.

01:07:37.720 As I say a lot, politics matters because policy matters, because people matter, because people

01:07:43.480 matter.

01:07:43.820 But I'm very encouraged by the president's support of Rededicate 250.

01:07:51.680 and I'm very thankful for this administration.

01:07:55.280 Marco Rubio was involved in this.

01:07:57.320 J.D. Vance was involved in this.

01:07:59.380 They understand the Christian heritage of America

01:08:02.780 and I do believe want to advance that. 0.99

01:08:05.940 Such a difference than what we would get

01:08:07.520 from an administration from the opposite party.

01:08:10.740 And so this is time to reinvigorate our own faith

01:08:14.080 but also make sure that we are using every means possible

01:08:16.860 to infuse God's goodness into every area of our lives.

01:08:19.860 Yes, that also includes policy. Standing up for babies inside the womb is a Christian issue. Standing up for the definition of marriage, the definition of biology is a Christian issue. Speaking out for the rights of embryos, those are Christian issues that we do not primarily because we're political or Republican, but because we are Christians.

01:08:41.100 and that's what Christians have always done

01:08:43.060 and that's what we get to do here today

01:08:45.180 and we get to use that religious liberty

01:08:46.820 that we have been granted by the grace of God

01:08:49.800 to advance his kingdom as much as possible.

01:08:52.280 All right, that's all I've got time for today.

01:08:54.580 We will be back here on Wednesday.

01:09:11.100 Thank you.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - May 18, 2026

Ep 1349 ｜ 'Testify to Love' Is Love？ My AI Rules & Rededicate 250

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