Artificial Intelligence and the Image of GodMost of us have heard talk in recent days of Artificial Intelligence – on our radios, TVs, at work, in school or college, and (if we have one) on our digital devices. For many it raises curiosity and also a degree of unease. But our starting point need not be anxiety or fear; rather the conviction that every new technology invites us to think again about what it means to be human, created ‘in the image and likeness of God.’AI processes information at astonishing speed, but it cannot demonstrate love. It generates words but does not pray. It imitates human conversation but cannot engage in relationships of grace, forgiveness, or compassion. These belong to men and women, girls and boys - those whom God has purposed for life-enhancing relationship with Him and each another. AI reminds us of our unique status - we are not machines; we are beloved of God our Creator.Christians especially should think responsibly about how they use AI and how it could help reflect God’s love. AI could help us serve others more faithfully, free up time to devote kind care and support of others. Used wisely, AI can help us communicate, organise, and reach those who are otherwise isolated. AI may be ‘smart’, but people like you and I can embody the love and goodness of God. People like you and I can demonstrate kindness, seek justice, forgive enemies and speak about the hope God gives us. Perhaps AI’s greatest gift is it prompts us to appreciate attentive human presence, authentic community, and God who meets us, not through algorithms, but through the Spirit of Jesus Christ, made known through the lives of others.The Rev’d Dr Richard HinesRural Dean for Wisbech Lynn Marshland richard.hines@outlook.com(written with the assistance of AI)
‘By the light of the silvery Moon …’Noticed the moon recently? If you listen to the radio, you’ll likely have heard reports recently about NASA preparing for the second in a series of complex ‘Artemis’ missions that will enable human exploration at the Moon and future missions to Mars. Be that as it may, there’s still nothing quite so lovely as having been surprised by the unexpected bright light of a full moon – especially first thing of amorning.The moon has of course no light of its own. Whenever we see the Moon, we see light reflected from the Sun. It’s light from our Sun which picks out the meteor-battered surface of what is otherwise largely consolidated rock dust – all quite dark and mysterious on the other side, the side we never see. And in a similar kind of way, the Psalms in the Bible tell us that though we hear no voice, yet the ‘sound’ of God’s glory is ‘heard’ because the stars and the planets are ‘telling out’ the wonder of their Creator. The book Genesis speaks of God as has having made humankind in his image and likeness. Now at a graveside I regularly recite ‘earth to earth … dust to dust’ but I also on other occasions read of ‘the glory of God being seen in the face of the man Jesus Christ’. The privilege and wonder of our having been made in God’s image and likeness is that by the illuminating power of God’s unseen Spirit, ordinary earth-and-dust creatures like you and me can become Christ-like so we too reflect the glory of God’s goodness and love into the situations and circumstances of our everyday lives. That’s rather lovely and pretty amazing too, don’t you think?
No hope for the Church of England?Early in January a leading Church of England historian wrote: ‘It is a sad, gloomy, and mournful place where our Church currently finds itself. It has not been in such a bad place for centuries. Its standing, as an institution, in society, and the local community has plunged. Its moral reputation has been wrecked. There is a pervasive sense of organisational incoherence, dysfunctionality, dishonesty, and betrayal. Instead of leading the way, as it often has done in the past, the Church of England has lost its way. But (the writer added), although the morale of the faithful in their parishes has been severely dented, many still carry on as best they can and deserve enormous gratitude for that.’This article prompted quite a backlash in the Church Times. Some acknowledged with a sense of shame and humility that the behaviour of many, including leaders, has been found wanting, and in some cases seriously so. Others pointed out that away from the headlinesthere remains evergreen evidence of authentic Christian faith seen in the lives of God’s ‘ordinary’ people. Untrumpeted, and missing from the annual Honours Lists, such ‘salt of the earth’ individuals display (unselfconsciously) simple goodness, love and integrity. They live it out in family, neighbourhood and community life at ground level. Perhaps if you stop and think for a moment, some such individuals will soon come to mind.Let’s remember, Jesus taught that the ‘kingdom of God’ (for which we pray day by day) grows unobtrusively, like yeast in a batch of dough or like seedlings which emerge unnoticed. And that St Paul discovered that only in our weakness and reliance on God’s help would the goal be achieved.The Rev’d Dr Richard HinesRural Dean for Wisbech Lynn Marshland richard.hines@outlook.com
Tending the Garden of our Mind Last year’s BBC Reith Lectures were given by forensic psychologist Dr Gwen Adshead who has studied the minds of society’s most violent perpetrators for more than 30 years. Dr Adshead has come to the conclusion that the capacity for evil is to be found in all of us and in one lecture she suggests that individual minds are like a garden that needs close tending so that its boundaries are not obscured and lost. Neglected weeds so easily choke all else to death in an untended garden, and so she proposes the importance of cultivating goodness in the individual mind, and so more widely in communities. ‘We need to grow goodness by practicing compassionate states of mind which can lead to the growth of tolerance, gentleness and patience. Such virtues act as a protection against violent and destructive states of mind.’ Dr Adshead believes that defending against such states of mind means developing a capacity to take horrible emotions, like rage and hatred, seriously. We especially need to recognise in ourselves the kind of anger that leads to a wish to hurt others, so that we then take care to protect ourselves and one another. She concludes that this kind of self-care is vital given the wilderness of combative attitudes and aggressive ideologies to which we’re regularly exposed. It is perhaps especially important for those of us who have suffered trauma and for whom anger may be a constant struggle to manage – anger which could so easily be the connection with later violence. St Paul urged us long ago in similar vein: ‘Whatever is true, pure, pleasing and excellent … think about these things … and the God of peace will be with you.’ The Rev’d Dr Richard Hines Rural Dean for Wisbech Lynn Marshland richard.hines@outlook.com
