Save us from the Gospel according to Grok |
The Rt Revd Martyn Snow, the handsome and up-to-date Bishop of Leicester, has decided that it’s OK, even admirable, for clergy to use AI to write their sermons. Bishop Snow was on the radio over the weekend, proud to share with listeners that in his diocese of Leicester, they’ve even had an AI expert come to give pointers to the priests. No more painful head-scratching on a Saturday afternoon for the lucky clerics of Leicester. ChatGPT will sort it. Just plug in a Bible verse and a few well-crafted prompts, and you’re off to the cricket, or to Pride, whichever way you swing.
It’s one of those many times I wish Michael Wharton was still alive and writing. Wharton, under the pseudonym ‘Peter Simple’, wrote the Way of the World column for the Daily Telegraph throughout the last half of the 20th century, in which he detailed the adventures of a cast of satirical characters he’d cooked up. One of his finest was Dr Spacely-Trellis, the ‘go-ahead’ Bishop of Bevindon, and author of God the Humanist. Like Snow, Spacely-Trellis would have rushed to embrace AI and considered it a great win for the C of E PR. I can see clearly in my mind’s eye the book Spacely-Trellis and Snow would co-author: Claude, the fifth Evangelist. So modern!
The Bishop of Leicester has decided that it’s OK, even admirable, for clergy to use AI to write sermons
The Bishop of Leicester has decided that it’s OK, even admirable, for clergy to use AI to write sermons
Nice Sarah Mullally, the........