So Glenn Beck, a Mormon, runs a website call “Blaze Media” that is discussing what it means to be genuinely Christian. How far we have come. I met Mr. Beck once, briefly, at Mitt Romney’s “Faith in America” speech back in 2007 when Romney was defending his run for POTUS in the face of charges that as a Mormon Romney was not genuinely Christian. So now a Mormon run website is trying to tell us what it means to be Christian? That’s a big shift in 20 years.
I was one of the first in the nation to describe Mormons as “heterodox Christians.” What I meant by that is that their theology – their statements and discussion of what they believe – is outside the boundaries of traditional Christian thought. But, as I said more than once, “We are saved by Jesus, not our theology.” I will not pretend to know who Jesus calls his own and who He does not – that is His business. I know a lot of people in churches that are considered traditionally Christian that hold personal theologies that are way, way out-of-bounds. There is far more at play in the question of who is genuinely Christian than just theology – and given that God has made it quite plan that how He thinks about things is very different than how I do, I’m going to leave such questions up to Him.
But, that said, there are a lot of things that God has made quite plain are against His will for us – things we do, actions we take that are not in our or His best interests. We debate these behavioral lines endlessly. We also ceaselessly debate how to deal with those that cross them. These are question that will be debated until the Christ returns. Such is just another indication of our inadequacy to think as God thinks. Nonetheless, I learned about one yesterday that I cannot quite get my head around.
There are AI-driven chatbots out there pretending to be Jesus. The audacity necessary to set such a thing up is mind-boggling. Can you imagine thinking to yourself, “I’m going to set up a computer system that sort-of-kind-of sounds human and make it act like it is God Incarnate.” It would be funny were it not outright blasphemous. For the uninitiated:
blasphemy
1 a the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence for God
b the act of claiming the attributes of a deity
And there you have it – such a chatbot is just about as blasphemous as it gets – not merely claiming the attributes of a deity but pretending to be that deity.
It is tempting to say such a thing should be outlawed. But for one thing, I think it is probably protected by the First Amendment. However, more importantly, I think God is likely to use such a thing for good in the lives of those that genuinely are seeking Him – despite the money-grubbing intentions of those that set them up.
Confused? Good – so am I. But I cling to the fact that God is a whole lot smarter than I am. My faith is in Him, not in what I believe about Him. I think the country, and probably the world, would be a better place if everyone that calls themselves Christian put there faith in that same place.
