Episode 200: Algorithms & Integrity: Is AI Helping or Hurting Truth?

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Today Counts Show Episode 200

Preview

Winston: But super intelligence is the kind of scary part of AI, where it supersedes humanity when it gets fully developed to super intelligence. AI starts talking to AI.

Jim: Yeah, I can see that happening both in speed and depth.

Winston: You said it jokingly earlier, like, “This is the antichrist. We’re introducing, we’re getting into some weird spaces.” It was about three months ago. I don’t know where it’s at now, but the number one Christian contemporary top song was generated by AI, an AI artist.

Jim: Wow.

Winston: I do want to get back to your statement about the seeker-sensitive movement. You say “dead.” Is that what you said?

Jim: Well, if it’s not dead, we should shoot it.

Appreciation of our Supporters

Winston: Hey, before we jump into the podcast, we want to thank all our donors and supporters who make The Today Count Show possible. It’s through your generosity that we’re able to shape leaders through this content and this podcast. Be sure to like, subscribe, and follow wherever you find yourself coming across this content. All right, let’s get to the podcast.

Introduction: AI, Media, and Faith

Today on The Today Count Show, we’re talking about something we’ve created that is smarter than us, hoping it’ll save us. But what if it decides it doesn’t need us? We’re talking about artificial intelligence: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

My name is Winston Harris, and I’m a co-host today alongside the man, the myth, the legend, Jim Piper. Jim, how are we doing today?

Jim: We are doing exceptionally well.

Winston: Exceptionally well?

Jim: Yeah.

Winston: Okay, I like the “exceptionally.” On a freeze day here in South Texas.

Jim: It is cold. The longer I’ve lived here, I’ve noticed my blood has thinned out. We’d be laughing about this in Colorado.

Winston: Yeah. It’s literally a no-snow snow day today, and it’s pretty comical if you live here.

Jim: I think we called it at our house a get-out-of-school cold day. It’s a cold-day.

Winston: Get-out-of-jail-free card, basically what it looks like.

AI’s Impact on Journalism and Media

Framing the Conversation: Media, Faith, and Trust

So, we’re jumping into the interesting topic of artificial intelligence, AI, and maybe trying to take a little bit of a different angle at it, specifically looking at it through the lens of media and faith. Is it a tool for truth, or is it a threat to trust?

You’re going to share your thoughts, Jim. I’m going to share mine from our fairly different positions, and kind of get into whether we can use AI in a faith space when we’re creating content, messaging, sermons, and devotionals. How is it impacting media and news and how we’re seeing the world even today?

We’ve got things like what’s happening in Minnesota right now. How is AI impacting that? How is journalism truthfully telling what is happening accurately?

An Initial Stance on Artificial Intelligence

My immediate position on artificial intelligence is that it should be seen as mostly positive. I think it should be received as something to be excited about, something to leverage, a tool that can increase productivity, at large be highly beneficial in so many industries and spaces, with the caveat, of course, if used appropriately.

I see you’re already smirking because that asterisk seems to be a big one.

So, maybe just jumping into this first space where we’re talking about journalism and how information is getting presented to us, whether it’s on social media or the news, what do we think about AI’s impact on media?

How Much Are We Actually Using AI?

Jim: Well, the first thing I can’t seem to skip over before jumping into the media piece is, how much have you used AI?

Winston: That’s a great question. I was thinking about that on the way here, and I would probably say maybe 60/40, AI, and probably increasing, because AI has different ways to use it.

For most general consumers right now, it’s probably ChatGPT or Claude or something to that effect. Even noticing some of the built-in stuff that you’re not necessarily choosing consciously, like banking or phone calls, a lot of things are being more automated. There’s probably more than we realize that is already integrated.

I would say I’m using it more than not.

Learning Curves and Big-Picture Thinking

Jim: The reason why I ask is more curiosity than it is attacking you. However, when I think about it, there are things I don’t understand yet. For me, my contribution to this episode is going to be somewhere between 25,000 and 30,000 feet and on the ground somewhere.

Winston: High, low.

Jim: All that stuff in between, I’ll admit I need to learn. For example, what is the relationship between an algorithm and artificial intelligence? I’m going to assume, with 30,000 feet thinking, that an algorithm is part of some application of artificial intelligence.

What’s interesting for me, when we get back to your question of media, I can’t help but think about my temperament. One of the phrases to describe my God-given temperament is the technology temperament, which is interesting for a baby boomer.

All humans grew up with technology.

Winston: In some form.

Speed, Media, and the Erosion of Fact-Checking

Jim: Whether we discovered the wheel or fire or whatever it was, but not in the rapid advancement that my kids and my grandkids have been. I do appreciate efficiencies. I do appreciate speed. And I think that plays into media. By media, I assume you’re talking about all media: social media, legacy media, even the stuff that we put out.

This is what I’ve noticed about speed. The faster things can be produced, I think it is human nature to do less and less fact-checking.

If you ask ChatGPT to write you a paragraph for an email because it’s going to save you time, and it’s something simple like an invitation to your house for a party, it’s pretty benign. There’s not a lot at risk there. You read it and say, “Good enough,” and you send it.

What you’re teaching yourself is, “Oh, it does good enough.”

From Convenience to Risk

The next thing you know, you’re saying, “Hey, will you write this paper? Here are my five main points that I want to make.” At least that’s how I’ve used it to see how it works. It seems like the more I give it, the less it says.

So I wonder about that, and not to mention how AI and video come together. Some of the stuff that AI puts out, you look at it and say, “That must be AI because I’m not sure I’m believing what I’m seeing.” But then there are things that are pretty benign on the surface that you find out were AI-generated. That scares me a little bit.

From two angles: what I see and hear, is it real or is it AI? Also, even if it wasn’t meant to deceive, if I get in the habit of it saying what I want to say, am I going to get in the habit of assuming it’s fine and sending it out, then finding out later that it didn’t really communicate my voice or who I am?

Fact-Checking, Fake News, and AI’s Promise

Winston: You make an interesting point about fact-checking. That phrase, that idea, especially in the past few years, even with political media, it has been a point of contention. Is what we’re hearing and seeing true?

The term “fake news,” all these realities are out there. It almost seems like in 2026, with so much access to information, we’re constantly trying to sift through what is real, what is true, and what isn’t.

There’s an argument that AI has the ability to do more fact-checking than humans fact-checking humans, leveraging the ability of artificial intelligence to filter information from historical events and line it up with present-day communication, all that kind of stuff.

But the caveat is always going to be humanity. To your point and the example of you inputting certain things and getting something out of it, AI is a tool that is going to b leveraged at the level that humanity is able to influence it.

This is a deeper argument that we’re not going to get into because it’s definitely above my paygrade, but super intelligence is the scary part of AI, where it supersedes humanity. In some levels, t’s said that when AI gets fully developed to super intelligence, it starts informing AI, talking to AI, building AI.

Jim: I can see that happening in both speed and depth. If it takes me five years to learn something about something and AI can do it in five minutes, there’s your speed and depth.

Emotion, Objectivity, and Political Media

Winston: That’s where people, if you’re anti-AI, people get really dismissive because you jump to that extreme, and that spectrum of, “Oh, okay, this is where Will Smith in the movie Robot, the world gets taken over and AI is evil.”

But I think to push back on that fact-checking thing, at the same level, maybe we don’t feel comfortable fact-checking AI. We can also maybe not be comfortable with humans fact-checking each other and leveraging AI to do fact-checking.

But even then, if we take it a little bit deeper and stay in the political media space, where we get so much communication from either one side or another, a lot of it is emotional. It seems to be framed to tug at heartstrings, to make us angry, to divide us.

There is a thought out there that AI can supply more data-driven communication, which can give us more objective views and more objective information. That can help us make more rational decisions, less emotional decisions, less emotional bias in communication.

So one could think, “Man, if we leverage AI correctly, we can take the facts at hand, generate more facts, or put together communication that is less emotionally driven.” That way, we can sift through the silliness at times and get to the core of certain issues.

We can understand: How can I be best informed by what’s actually happening versus what I’m being told is happening through manipulative ways of communication?

A Theological Lens on Technology

Jim: Yeah. Not to oversimplify it, but I see it as more of the same. We talk about these mobile phones, what’s good about them, what’s bad about them, and I think there’s plenty that falls on both sides.

As we dive into this topic, I can’t help but think theologically, not because I’m a better person than anybody, just because I’m trained that way. Looking at the good side of AI from a very high level, as I said before, to me it’s more evidence of us discovering things that already existed. It’s a constant revelation of how wonderful and powerful God must be, because we’re doing handstands thinking this is awesome, and this is not even a drop in the bucket for God’s intelligence and speed.

Human Power and Human Limits

It’s exciting in that way because every time we– I know I’m dating myself but the first time I saw a cordless phone, I pondered it for weeks. I thought, “I don’t understand how that works,” even though we had walkie-talkies, which I just accepted because I grew up with them. Then we got a cordless phone, and that was a whole next level. Then these phones came along, and I went, “What in the world?”

What comes with them now is and has been even more so through social media algorithms, and now we have AI.

The Risk of an “AI War”

On the other side of the theological spectrum is what humans tend to do with power, what humans tend to do with stuff. I’m not saying we go into a bomb shelter and hide, but I just know that I know because of what my human experience tells me about myself and other human beings and what the Bible tells me about myself, there’s going to be a lot of bad stuff that’s going to happen. It’s already happening.

I didn’t really think about what you said before about humans fact-checking humans with AI, but that leads me to another point. I think that’s part of the problem. It’s like in football, what we call piling on. If we can’t use our own voice to argue something, we use AI to bolster it.

Now we’re in an AI war. I’m beginning to wonder, am I even talking to that person anymore? Or are they loading their point into AI and throwing it back, and then I’m throwing that into my AI box and saying, “How are you going to handle that?” At some point, I don’t even know what’s being said. It’s just two robots going at it.

Winston: AI box, that’s hilarious. I love that.

Jim: What are you going to do with that one?

AI as an Amplifier, Not a Replacement

Winston: I definitely understand what you’re saying. This is where I love the potential of AI to be an amplifier of humanity. That’s what it has the potential to do at a level nothing else has ever been able to.

To your point, when we get lazy with AI, it stifles creativity. Back to the example of creating an email draft for a party at your house, you’re dumbing down critical thinking. But that’s not the position I’m coming from.

You can make that argument with anything. How often do you use cruise control on your car versus always driving? Or the fact that you have automatic versus a manual?

Jim: Right, it’s more the same.

Winston: At what level are we trying to do less and not grow, and at what level are we trying to leverage the appliances, equipment we have to be amplifiers of our lives so that we can create more space for what matter?

I think we even had a conversation a few weeks back about where my time is best used. Do I need to mow my lawn, or do I need to hire somebody to mow my lawn because that two hours can be used somewhere else in my life at higher clip, more effective, my time whether with my family or working on a business?

That same angle applies to AI. We have to use it as a tool to give us more freedom to impact the places and spaces we find ourself in.

Jim: Maybe.

Winston: But ultimately–

The Human Element: AI as an Amplifier or “Soulless Sludge”

Jim: I certainly think that’s true, can be true in some places. Have you heard of the term “soulless sludge?”

Winston: I’ve heard those two words separate from each other, not together.

Jim: Let me introduce them: soulless sludge.

I started getting excited about ChatGPT and the like. I’ve written three books. I’m working on my fourth. I know I’m not a natural writer. If I got an A in English in school, it’s because I worked really hard. For whatever reason, I never thought I would write a book. As far as I was concerned, my goal in life was never to write a sentence.

I’ve come to find out that I like to write, but I have a mountain to climb in this life to become a better writer. It was beyond tempting to engage ChatGPT as a thought partner where I’m really struggling with a sentence structure.

And so I take this ugly sentence and I put it into ChatGPT, and I say, “Make this better.” And I delightfully get something, and I don’t know why I didn’t see that.

But then that tempts you to say, “Write this paragraph.” And then that tempts you, because it will constantly prompt you: “Do you want me to just go ahead and finish this?” Because absolutely, you suck at it.

Like I said earlier, one of the things I noticed is that the more I let it write for me, the more it became very wordy. The grammar was– It’s kind of like corporate America. Corporate America uses AI now to write a lot of their job descriptions. And I don’t know if you’ve ever gotten your hands on them, but after you read them, you do not know what that job is about.

Word Salad and the Loss of Meaning

Winston: It’s just a bunch of nothing.

Jim: It is. Yeah, it is a word salad. And we know where we got that phrase from, at least recently in modern history.

I’m going to tell you a story. I have a friend who has been in prison for over 20 years, and he wants to write a book about his experience—the whole experience, the stuff that preceded that, and then what he plans to do afterward.

I’m talking on the phone with him while I’m driving down the road, and I asked him a question. He said he was having a hard time organizing his thoughts. And I said, “Hey, I get that. Putting together the outline is as hard of work as writing itself.” I said, “Have you ever tried using ChatGPT for putting together your outline?”

He answered me. He’s a very pensive individual, so he doesn’t usually respond quickly. You’re usually waiting three seconds, five seconds, kind of a thing. And he talks slower because he’s very philosophical.

But in this case, there was no time. The ink didn’t even dry on my sentence before he said, “I will not use AI.” He used theological terms. He said, “Because I want to be guided by the Holy Spirit.”

I’m not going to go as far as making that statement. But what I will say is this: even though I have told ChatGPT, “You and I have worked together a lot. You should know my voice by now. So I’m going to ask you to write this in my voice,” what I get back is soulless sludge. It just doesn’t make any sense.

Replacing Argument with Automation

So maybe it’ll get better. Maybe it will get better. Right now, it’s more of less. That’s how I see it, at least in my experience on that part.

And I know we’re going to talk about the media and the phases of journalism. But what I like about writing, about reading people’s books is that they have a tone. They have a way. Whether it’s my way or your way, I feel like I’m having a conversation with somebody.

I don’t know if this is true, but since ChatGPT, books that have been published have gone up exponentially, all traced back to ChatGPT. A lot of the reviews are coming out saying the same thing: “I’m not sure what was said. I’m not sure what is being said.”

Almost to where somebody is willing to put their name on a book they honestly didn’t write. Maybe they provided the outline and gave a few points, but they didn’t get to argue it. And to me, that’s as much knowing somebody and hearing their arguments. I just don’t know how it can replace somebody else’s way of speaking. I think that misses something important.

Winston: Well, I think what you just said is the key. If your intent is to use AI to replace your voice, you’re always going to be sadly mistaken, versus leveraging it to amplify it.

Jim: Give me an example of that.

Using AI as a Thought Partner

Winston: Asking artificial intelligence, even in its simplest consumer-based form, the way most of us use AI for the moment, ChatGPT and Claude, which I’ve learned a little bit in my research.

Jim: It’s supposed to be more creative, right?

Winston: It’s supposed to be specifically for writing long-form maybe better than ChatGPT. I couldn’t give you the super nuanced answer why, but it’s recommended versus ChatGPT. But either way, I think you kind of touched on it.

Instead of asking it to write you a paragraph, input equals output in the sense of, “Okay, what am I trying to achieve by engaging ChatGPT or Claude?” Am I trying to get it to construct and unpack this idea for me? Or am I trying to use it as a thought-provoking tool versus going to an autobiography?

If I’m writing something about sports journalism and I’m looking for some kind of angle, and I’m using a book that’s already written by somebody else, the temptation is to take what they’ve already written and regurgitate it. Or am I using that as a tool to create some new thoughts that come from me?

Essentially, the same idea. Am I using AI? Am I using ChatGPT or Claude to help me pull out what’s already inside of me, versus depending on it to do something for me instead of me doing the work myself? And I think, once again–

Jim: I think that’s legitimate. I think it’s harder than one might think.

Prompts, Tools, and Responsible Use

Winston: I would argue that there is a niche industry trying to leverage the idea of how to use AI appropriately through prompts. And I think that’s part of what we’re talking about here.

In this new world of using this technology, there’s a right way to use it. You need to use a hammer a certain way. A hammer doesn’t work any way you want it to work. You have to use certain tools the right way to get them to do their most effective job.

I don’t know that we all understand how to use it best, the best prompts, or the right applications. It’s because it’s so unregulated. It’s almost like it would do us some justice to put some licensing around it.

Think about social media and podcasts. Nowadays, everybody has a podcast. Everybody can build their own platform. But should we? Probably not.

There should be some level of regulation around communication. I know we talk about free speech, but there’s some stuff out there that’s just not helpful.

Just because you can get on social media, just because you can create an Instagram account, do you know how to use it appropriately?

Misuse creates brokenness, pain, misinformation, deceit, and lies. And people, back to theology, can build a theology and life based on misinformation, based on somebody misusing tools that could, in the same token, be used to amplify truth.

And I think even when we get into journalism or the faith space, to not oversimplify it, AI can be used to amplify truth if we choose to use it that way.

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The Limits of Experience and “Soul Work”

Jim: Yeah, not disagreeing with that, but pointing out, depending upon how much experience somebody has put into it. Obviously, I generate a lot of content, and the frustration about that is I can’t give what I don’t have. So, I still find that to create content, I have to spend more time doing soul work, meaning bringing in information through reading, research, listening, and those kinds of things.

If one is not careful, they’re going to substitute that really good soul work for shortcuts.

Two things I’ve noticed about these shortcuts. One is that I can say, “Give me a three-point outline that supports my conviction of thos.” So, I give my conviction, and I think that’s a pretty good thing to ask.

Winston: A prompt.

Jim: Then I get these three points, but I don’t like them. That’s my point. Sometimes it’s not me.

Arguing With ChatGPT

I’ve also done this. I think it can be helpful if you learn how to argue with ChatGPT. We’re picking on ChatGPT because that’s the main tool right now.

I’ve noticed that ChatGPT is too nice.

Winston: What do you mean?

Jim: What I mean is, I would say, “I think what you wrote here is really stupid. It seems like you–”

Winston: You put that in the prompt?

Jim: Literally.

Winston: That’s awesome.

Jim: You haven’t done that?

Winston: No.

Jim: No? Okay. Let me say, I’ve got a lot of experience with this. I’ll say, “It just seems weak, and you seem to be playing to the crowd.”

Every time, ChatGPT apologizes and says I am right. I have so much discernment. It literally lifts you up and then gives another shot at it. And I’m going, “Yeah, this is not what I’m looking for.”

All right. On the other side of the coin, I said, “All right, here is what I believe. Here’s why I believe it. Now give me an argument for the other side.”

I’ve been surprised. The arguments are pretty good, and some of the things I hadn’t thought about make my writing better. Then I go, “Some of the arguments might be this, this, and this.”

So I’m not throwing mud at everything. I think I am trying to do it too. But what I’m really concerned about, really concerned about, is what I said earlier.

And I know you’re going to get to this. I can’t wait to get to sermons. I’ll just set up and wait for you.

AI and Sermons: The Struggle of Incarnate Communication

Winston: We can just get into it. Let’s just get into it.

Jim: I just don’t know. All right. Now, this is just me. It is my testimony. Rarely have I been able to teach—let me back up.

Sermons Versus Repeatable Teaching

There’s a difference between putting together a deck, a workshop deck that you present over and over again. Even in doing that, hopefully you make it better every time.

For example, that’s what I’m doing in 2026. I’ve put together my framework of leadership in a day-and-a-half workshop, and I will give it over and over again. But I doubt it will live in 2026 without a variety of improvements.

A sermon is something different to me. A sermon still needs to be incarnate like the workshop. Maybe it’s because of our society and the way it’s delivered.

We live in a society where we do church weekly, and we hear a presented message. I find that very taxing. I did that for decades. Personally, I find that very taxing.

As a Christian, I want to believe that I have been guided and prepared by the Holy Spirit, and that it is fresh, new, and alive in me.

I’ve never been able to pull a message out of the archives, blow off the dust, and preach it. I don’t know if I’ve outgrown it. I don’t know that that’s true, but it hasn’t come through me fresh and new again.

Scripture as Living and Active

Christians say that the Bible is God’s Word, and it’s living and active. So it is a lot of work to do it week after week after week.

I could imagine asking ChatGPT, “How do I transition from this point to this point?” I’ve tried that, but even that has left me wanting.

There’s something about the struggle of the sermon. Even if you give the sermon and say, “That was horrible,” you still struggled with it.

When I listen to a man or woman give a message, I’m listening for heart as much as content. So I don’t know what to do with that one.

AI in Worship and the Church Space

Winston: I think this is a hot topic in the church space, specifically if you’re on a pastoral staff, if you’re a communicator. There are those who see it as a tool and those who see it almost– You joked earlier, like, “This is the Antichrist.” We’re getting into weird spaces.

I don’t if it’s true. It was about three months ago, I don’t know where it’s at know. The number one Christian contemporary song on iTunes, or Apple Music– I’m a Spotify guy, so I’m not sure what to do with Apple Music. But the top song was generated by AI, an AI artist.

Jim: Wow.

Winston: A worship song that is supposed to lead people to worship God was totally AI. There was a human behind it, prompting AI to write the song. But the song itself, the voice, all of it, was AI.

Creation, Reductionism, and Discomfort

Jim: Here’s my stretch to try to be agreeable.

Jesus said, “If you don’t, the rocks will cry out.” If you don’t recognize Him, if you don’t worship Him, if you don’t pray, the rocks will cry out.

All of creation, whatever that is, I don’t think we know everything that creation is. Now we are getting out there. That would be my stretch.

“Maybe it’s not beyond the realm of possibility because we can reduce–” If you become reductionist and you go backward, you can almost create a reason for anything.

That one is tough for me to swallow. Believe it or not, speaking for my generation, we have probably slammed that to hell. I’m usually more forward-thinking than a lot of my generation, although I don’t always agree with myself. I can come back tomorrow and say I disagree with myself in this or that.

That’s bizarre.

Winston: I’m interested to hear your take on this.

I’m going to say I don’t know that I fully agree with a whole song totally generated by AI, even if a human is prompting it. Becuase I think there is some level of nuance when we’re talking about spirituality. Going as far as to say, what spirit is on that song? What can’t we see that is influencing what we can see?

Jim: Or even just cut to the chase, what is counterfeited?

Winston: On the flip side, push back if you think this is a stretch, Paul writes, there’s guys out here that are preaching for their own gain, but they’re still preaching Jesus. As long as Jesus is being preached, what’s the issue? I’m paraphrasing that.

Paul’s motives were different than these other preachers’ motives, but Jesus was being preached. He’s essentially saying, “Let’s not stir up conflict.”

Borrowed Sermons and Earlier “Resources”

Jim: Isn’t there a similar conversation in the New Testament that aligns very similar to that where they were looking at the fruit and the motivation behind the message Maybe not exactly. I don’t know. Let me give you a different take.

In the 1980s, when I was digging deeper in my theology and growing as a minister, I found help through two church leaders: Bill Hybels out of Willow Creek in Chicago mostly from the leadership side, and Rick Warren from the leadership side but probably more from the speaker side.

Bill Hybels had a style that I don’t think you could mimic. It was unique.

Rick Warren was very good at bringing the Bible practically to people. So good that he started an organization. I forget the name.  Actually, I was confusing John Maxwell for a second, but Rick Warren.

You could sign up to get Rick’s sermons. As a pastor, you could sign up to get his sermons. He was a form of AI in that time because the guy could pump out sermons like no other.

Winston: He was a resource.

When Resources Become Shortcuts

Jim: Yeah, he was a resource. I signed up for it because I didn’t know how. When I would read through his sermons, they became organic for me. They convicted me. I might change a word here or there. But whenever I would put my outline together, and then I would put at the bottom of the outline—this is during the seeker movement, which right now I think is dead, and I wouldn’t recommend it moving forward—but in those days, I think the Lord used it to help a lot of people.

Winston: I’m going to come back to something there, but you keep going.

Jim: Okay. But anyway, I don’t want to sound like this purist or this old-fashioned guy because I’m excited about the future, but I’m also just as scared as I am excited. What I saw happen with some pastors—and I’m honestly not trying to put myself above them—but all of a sudden, Rick’s sermons became their sermons. Though I never said out loud, “Rick Warren created this,” I always made sure that at the bottom of the outline there was recognition given to the formation of the outline or whatever. In a lot of my public talks, I would give credit to him.

What I would often say, for example, is, “Rick Warren initially provided this content.” I don’t think he used the content these days, but this message. “He said it this way, and I couldn’t say it any better.” Then I would add that he used an illustration, and I would use a different illustration. He’d use his son; I’d use my son. That’s what we do—we kill our kids when we’re up there.

Regurgitation Versus Heart-Level Processing

I wanted to come back to that. Regurgitating something that is really good, if it’s fact-checked and convicts you, I think that’s awesome. I just think that if you take a shortcut, and I go back to what Wayne Cordeiro taught me about burnout, when you skip the process of the content going through your heart before you provide it to others, you’re skipping your heart. When you skip your heart, you’re hurting yourself, at least.

Maybe the Holy Spirit isn’t bound in the use and benefit of others, but I know for sure from personal experience that if I use my knowledge alone to present messages, it falls short.

AI as Amplifier or Revealer of Motive

Winston: You triggered a thought here that maybe AI is an amplifier. I’ve said that already, but I’m saying it in a different way. Maybe AI is potentially an amplifier of somebody’s heart. If there’s a reason you would take a shortcut, is AI going to be the reason you take a shortcut, or is it just going to reveal the fact that you’re a shortcut taker?

Jim: Now, hold on. You just gave me an example of where I would use AI. You, Winston Harris, are much better at turning phrases or coining phrases than I am off the top of my head. What I can see, because I have used ChatGPT, is I’d say, “Here’s my thinking. Can you reword this in a memorable, poetic way?” Sometimes it can’t, but other times it does. And I go, “I like that.” That does represent my heart and what I came up with. But sometimes it needs to come out rusty, crusty like me, and that’s how I deliver it. I’d rather choose that than the cleaned-up version.

Winston: Polished versus authentic.

Jim: Sometimes we’re just going to go with my rusty gate. Here we go.

Incarnate Communication and the Temptation of Efficiency

Winston: As you were talking about that tension of incarnate communication—what’s happening in you coming out—versus taking a shortcut, spending less time wrestling, for the efficiency of–

Jim: Exposing the shortcut taker.

Winston: I think there’s something there. No matter what the industry is, whether we’re talking about a pastor, the Christian space, a content creator, a politician, a doctor, however we use AI, you’ve alluded to it throughout this conversation, the temptation to mismanage it or misuse it is always there. That speaks less about the tool and more about the person.

Biblical Communicators Versus Church Builders

Jim: There’s something I’m going to say right now, and I think I’m supposed to say it, but I don’t like it. I think there’s a difference between a biblical communicator and a church builder. Sometimes a church builder is tempted to take shortcuts because most of their time is doing other things that are important that build the church. But they’re not as gifted, called, or convicted to bring this thing that I’m talking about, where I’ve really wrestled all week to you.

I don’t even know that I mean that as a criticism as much as it becomes that thing that gets them. My worry for them, of course, is burnout. That would be my concern for them, believing their heart’s in the right place. But the center, at least in my evangelical, traditional mindset, if what we say about the Bible is true, then why would we delegate it to anything?

That’s where I struggle.

Winston: For the church builder and the church administrator, I think AI definitely creates more efficiencies. It arguably frees up shepherds, pastoral teams, and staffs to do more human work that AI couldn’t do. The spreadsheets and the numbers.

Jim: I’m a perfect example of that. I could easily fall into church building because I have a gift of administration and a background in business. Spreadsheets, metrics, strategies, org charts—I can. I think I’ve left that behind now, but I’ve seen myself float into those things.

With the assistance of AI, if I would have had that, the problem with some technologies is that it takes longer to learn how to use it than it does to save you the time. But that’s probably another podcast.

The Seeker-Sensitive Movement and Theological Illiteracy

Winston: As we land the plane and wrap up—before we do that—I want to get back to your statement about the seeker-sensitive movement being dead. Did you say dead?

Jim: If it’s not dead, we should shoot it.

Winston: I’m curious. Elaborate.

Hospitality Versus Seeker Sensitivity

Jim: When I talk about seeker sensitivity, I’m not talking about hospitality. Hospitality is one of the requirements of an overseer—somebody who cares about God’s people and cares about people seeking out God who finds their way in a conversation in a coffee shop or in a worship service or where ever they find themselves. Going back to Henry Blackaby’s theology, God is always working. God’s people need to work hard at saying, “What is God doing?” and then join Him, rather than create our own things.

I don’t pretend to know how or why. In those days, I was more of a pragmatist than I am today, where I’m more philosophical, although pragmatism hasn’t left me. I like to get stuff done. There’s no doubt about that.

Political Polarization and the Church

I think today, one of the things I’ve noticed about politics, I don’t think you can compartmentalize these things. They know which side they stand on, whether red or blue. Some wish there was a middle group, but it doesn’t win elections. What it does is create indifference and a lot of places like that. I think I see that has penetrated the church, where churches are slowly beginning to align red or blue. You can see that.

If you don’t think that’s happening, then just make a blue statement, a clearly blue statement, Democratic statements, what we would now today call left side, or make a strong right statement, and you will see that your church is moving to the red or to the blue.

Now, of course, some people are cussing me out right now because they’re going, “Well, if it’s a real church of Jesus, it’s going to be blue or it’s going to—” So there’s my point right there. But we won’t talk about it.

Winston: Why do you think that is?

Illiteracy, Theology, and Public Discourse

Jim: Well, I think it’s because this is harsh. I think that we’re not well-rounded. We’re not well-rounded in our politics. We don’t know why the Democrats believe what the Democrats believe, and we don’t know why the Republicans believe what they believe. We don’t know why evangelicals believe in such black-and-white ideas, particularly in eternity and morality. And I don’t think we understand the stance that a more liberal view–

We don’t know how to navigate a world that’s halfway between hell and heaven. We live in a world that is in the middle, and so the main reason why I believe that is we’re illiterate. We’re illiterate in so many things. We don’t have a piece of paper in the studio long enough for me to list all the things that I’m illiterate about.

So I know that. Geology, I took a class. I’m illiterate. Math, I am now illiterate. I probably always was, because I think I got to trigonometry and barely passed. And 40 years later, or however many years that is, I’m illiterate. I’m illiterate in so many things, and it’s dangerous to be illiterate.

So if you’re theologically illiterate, which I do believe the vast majority of America is, and I would say even as a pastor who has a Master’s in Divinity and has done some advanced studies, I would still say I’m more illiterate than I am literate. So if that’s true for me, then how does that represent politics?

I used to know how our government runs. I still have books, but it’s been so long that I don’t understand straw polls. And I don’t understand some of these things. I have catching up to do. So we don’t know how to talk because we don’t know anything about what we’re talking about.

Speed, Technology, and Shallow Formation

And then I think, to the whole point that you’re bringing up in this episode, technology has worsened it because we live in a world of sound bites. We’ve said this before in this podcast: we’re throwing sound-bite grenades. Getting PhDs now is so narrow. To have a PhD is a narrow thing. We can be filled with PhDs, but we would need a PhD over every topic to speak on everything.

The world is just getting faster, and you can feel the threat. The threat is just there. So pastoral work is slow and steady, and our world doesn’t like slow and steady.

Invite people into a small group that’s going to study the Book of James. No one’s going to come. Unfortunately, I’m sounding like a parrot of the woes of our culture.

Down deep inside, anyone who knows me knows I’m super optimistic. I’m super positive. I’m super hardworking. I believe there’s a solution. But to be honest, I’m scratching my head right now.

So the secret movement is dead, or it should be dead, because all it really does is get us by for another week. I think there’s more. I think we can give more to that.

What Comes After the Seeker Model?

Winston: What would come after the seeker movement?

Jim: I don’t know. I don’t think any model that I’ve seen in the past—

Right now, the arguments are a guy that gets up, is super talented, speaks out of emotion, and hugging the crowd. You have that model. You have the exegetical verse-by-verse model. You’ve got the topical model, also known as the seeker movement. I don’t know.

Winston: I heard this recently, and it piqued my interest. I’ll try to bring this back to the leveraging of AI as a tool versus a shortcut. There’s the charismatic space in faith. There is the intellectual, theological, reformed space. Let’s leave those two spaces out there, because you can split those two pretty straightforward: the Spirit-filled, sometimes weird space, and then the more traditional space.

I heard that when those two rivers merge, or when these two spaces merge, something that has never happened before might happen.

Humility, Methodology, and the Presence of God

Jim: It would have to be a rush of God’s humility. To overspiritualize it, I don’t know what else to call it. It would have to be a move of the Holy Spirit because it can’t be done by humans. There’s too much pride involved, too much threat, and the need to–

On the intellectual side, we need to know the answers, but the same is true on the charismatic side. We just say it in a different way.

Everyone’s looking for that path, that guide. It’s interesting how this podcast is landing: tools do shape theology. They always have. Methodology has always led theology, not the other way around. People think that’s true, but it’s not. If they knew enough human history and integrated it with how God has revealed himself through things, it’s always been methodology has led theology.

We might try to fix things by looking back and putting those things together, but our fundamental need is the Lord’s presence among us. Sometimes I think the Lord is too much of a gentleman, and other times I’m really glad he is, because I don’t know how I would stand.

Jesus as the Unmatched Teacher

I said in an earlier podcast today that as I was reading through the Gospel of Luke and literally writing down everything Jesus said in my journal, just his words, just a weird funny thing I’m doing right now, when I got to Luke 6, it might be 5, where he tells his version of, Matthew’s, the Sermon on the Mount. One of the things that struck me is that nobody has taught like Jesus has taught.

I can’t live it. I can’t do it. The things that Jesus introduces, teaches, commands—to love your enemies, to serve them, to go out of your way to help them—there’s too much protest in me that comes from the intellectual side about reaping and sowing. There are all kinds of biblical arguments that go on, but God lives at a whole other level that we’re not at yet.

So I don’t know that we’ve left this vey helpful.

Conclusion: AI as a Revealer of Self

Winston: I think what I’m going to walk away with today from our conversation is the fact that AI, among any other tool, is a revealer of self. AI has all this positive potential, in the same token, humans are humans. Humans have desires to take shortcuts and to do things more efficiently for the benefit of self or whatever. All of that can muddy up what a tool like AI could be.

I personally think there’s a need for Christians, for morally strong people of character, to take this tool and use it appropriately—to be effective for the communication of truth, for the formation of people’s souls, and for the benefit of our society. How do we need to look forward and anticipate positive change?

It’s going to take the right type of people who are following the one who is making some really strong claims—Jesus. These people have to be the forerunners of how we use this tool in a way that is not going to be to the detriment of us ultimately

Jim: I think you did a great job landing the plane. I have more to say about it, but we can talk about that later.

Winston: All right. Until next time, we’ll see you on the Today Count Show.

Outro

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