ChatGPT And Sermon Preparation

In a recent article on preaching and ChatGPT, Kate Spelman, explores the question, “Could ChatGPT write your sermon?”

Spelman acknowledges that there are those who argue that preachers should never use ChatGPT in sermon preparation. Citing Micah Jackson at Bexley-Seabury, she notes that ChatGPT may be able to write a competent sermon but it cannot write a pastoral sermon. And citing Bill Brosend, former director of EPF, she admits that ChatGPT cannot answer Brosends oft-asked question, “What does the Holy Spirit want these people to hear from these texts on this occasion?”

She also notes that Jackson contends that using ChatGPT also violates “the pastoral contract that governs the relationship between preacher and congregation. Not only do Episcopal congregations usually expect a newly written sermon every Sunday, but also those in the pews expect to hear something that reflects their shared life with the preacher. ChatGPT can only mimic the rhythms of empathy; it has no real compassion.”

But having registered these objections, Spelman’s answer to her own question is pragmatic. Noting that preachers may find it difficult to find time for sermon preparation, that “a trite AI-generated sermon may be better than no sermon at all”, and that preachers inevitably face writer’s block, she argues that ChatGPT is like other tools. Used judiciously and transparently, it is a valid conversation partner in a process that still requires “a living, breathing preacher—one of authentic faith and deep hope, inspired by their love for people of God.”

I am not convinced, and both Jackson and Brosend identify some of the reasons that I believe ChatGPT is not an appropriate addition to sermon writing. The tech involved cannot speak pastorally to the needs of a congregation, nor can it hear what the Holy Spirit has to say – to the preacher or the church.

But their observations point to other problems:

For one thing, because ChatGPT cannot speak pastorally, it inevitably generates sermons filled with what I have called “stain-glassed language” – glittering, theological generalities that do not and cannot speak meaningfully to the felt needs of congregations. Even more basically, sermons of that kind also leave unanswered questions that are essential to living into the truths of Scripture.

Emptied of a witness to the work of the Holy Spirit and informed by an experience of that journey, sermons that are generated using artificial intelligence lack both the specificity and transformative power of a sermon that arises out of human experience. Unsurprisingly, sermons of that kind also have negative consequences: They inevitably alienate people and leave them without a means of applying the message of Scripture to their lives.

Beyond these concerns, however, my opposition to using ChatGPT is fueled by this concern: Sermon preparation is a spiritual discipline and one of the few disciplines that have a place all but exclusively in the lives of clergy. It is in sermons that clergy deepen the understanding of Scripture. It is in sermons that they surface what they believe and what they shouldn’t believe. It sharpens their skill in witnessing to those convictions. It challenges clergy to give expression to that witness in categories that are compelling and attractive. And, over time, the effort devoted to sermon preparation can become the basis for a shared conversation about the Christian life.

Using a crutch like ChatGPT, destroys the fabric of that conversation and will undermine the practice of that discipline. It will also encourage a laziness that already fuels plagiarism among some clergy and could easily become a habit.

St. John Chrysostom describes what would be lost:

Preaching improves me. When I begin to speak, weariness disappears; when I begin to teach, fatigue too disappears. Thus neither sickness itself nor indeed any other obstacle is able to separate me from your love….For just as you are hungry to listen to me, so too I am hungry to preach to you. My congregation is my only glory, and every one of you means more to me than anyone of the city outside….Oftentimes in my dreams I see myself in the pulpit speaking to you.

Could ChatGPT write your sermon? Yes. But just because it could, doesn’t mean you should.