Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
paperback, 14 chapters, 160 pages
Every disruptive technology has arrived with a panic attached, and every panic has had the same two features: it was right about a loss, and it was wrong about the ending. Plato warned that writing would ruin memory. An abbot warned that printed books would rot. Preachers warned that radio would empty the pews, and television would turn worship into a show, and the internet would end the church. Something was lost each time. The church is still here, and the Bible is more available this morning than on any morning in history.
Now the machine talks back, and Christians are asking whether this time is different.
Nothing New Under the Sun names the four fears Christians have about AI and takes each one seriously before answering it. It sets the whole subject under the God of Daniel and Isaiah, who removes kings and sets up kings, and who has used pagan infrastructure for the gospel since Augustus's census put the Messiah in Bethlehem. It gives practical, scriptural wisdom on using the tool well: for the work of the church office, for Bible study, for translation, for the deaf and the blind and the aging, for the Bible class teacher with an hour on a Tuesday night. And it draws the lines in four chapters on the lie, the oracle, the companion, and the sluggard.
The last part of the book answers the question underneath all the rest. If a machine can write a sermon, console a widow, and pass the bar exam, what is left of the image of God? The answer runs from Genesis 1 to the empty tomb, and it rests on what no machine has or ever will: a body, a will, a death, a resurrection, and a God who is mindful of it.
Inside the book:
The four fears, named and taken seriously
A plain-language account of what the machine is and isn't
Every tool the church has panicked over, and what it learned each time
Babel and Pentecost as the Bible's two poles for human technology
God's providence over kingdoms, engineers, and Roman roads
The good uses, with Paul's secretary Tertius as the model
The lie, the oracle, the companion, and the sluggard
Why the image of God was never about intelligence
Body, soul, death, and resurrection: what Christ assumed and what he redeems
Written for Christians in the pew and the pulpit, with no technical background assumed, Nothing New Under the Sun is a book for a church that intends to use this tool, refuse its abuses, and keep preaching the same gospel it always has.
paperback, 14 chapters, 160 pages
Every disruptive technology has arrived with a panic attached, and every panic has had the same two features: it was right about a loss, and it was wrong about the ending. Plato warned that writing would ruin memory. An abbot warned that printed books would rot. Preachers warned that radio would empty the pews, and television would turn worship into a show, and the internet would end the church. Something was lost each time. The church is still here, and the Bible is more available this morning than on any morning in history.
Now the machine talks back, and Christians are asking whether this time is different.
Nothing New Under the Sun names the four fears Christians have about AI and takes each one seriously before answering it. It sets the whole subject under the God of Daniel and Isaiah, who removes kings and sets up kings, and who has used pagan infrastructure for the gospel since Augustus's census put the Messiah in Bethlehem. It gives practical, scriptural wisdom on using the tool well: for the work of the church office, for Bible study, for translation, for the deaf and the blind and the aging, for the Bible class teacher with an hour on a Tuesday night. And it draws the lines in four chapters on the lie, the oracle, the companion, and the sluggard.
The last part of the book answers the question underneath all the rest. If a machine can write a sermon, console a widow, and pass the bar exam, what is left of the image of God? The answer runs from Genesis 1 to the empty tomb, and it rests on what no machine has or ever will: a body, a will, a death, a resurrection, and a God who is mindful of it.
Inside the book:
The four fears, named and taken seriously
A plain-language account of what the machine is and isn't
Every tool the church has panicked over, and what it learned each time
Babel and Pentecost as the Bible's two poles for human technology
God's providence over kingdoms, engineers, and Roman roads
The good uses, with Paul's secretary Tertius as the model
The lie, the oracle, the companion, and the sluggard
Why the image of God was never about intelligence
Body, soul, death, and resurrection: what Christ assumed and what he redeems
Written for Christians in the pew and the pulpit, with no technical background assumed, Nothing New Under the Sun is a book for a church that intends to use this tool, refuse its abuses, and keep preaching the same gospel it always has.