American Pastor wrote a column about 'soulless' sermons generated by AI

According to the Associated Press, there is a consensus among priesthood that AI chatbots can generate passably competent sermons but they cannot imitate "the passion of actual preaching".

A rabbi in New York, Joshua Franklin once decided to secretly perform sermon written by ChatGPT and asked afterwards the worshippers to guess who created it. The worshippers did not recognize and the rabbi told them the truth. Some of the worshippers applauded.

“ChatGPT might be really great at sounding intelligent, but the question is, can it be empathetic? And that, not yet at least, it can’t,” stated Franklin.

And this is not the only instance of experimenting with the AI chatbot in sermon-writing.

The Rev. Russell Moore, editor-in-chief of the evangelical magazine Christianity Today, stated:

“Such life-altering news needs to be delivered by a human, in person. A chatbot can research. A chatbot can write. Perhaps a chatbot can even orate. But a chatbot can’t preach.”

There is a strong hope that “wise, virtuous pastors” will not let modern technology discourage them from personal immersion in sermon-writing.