what we would expect given the understanding we hold on one hand ( the concept of God ) and the way the world seems to us on the other hand ( evil exists ). I ’ ll leave that idea there as it relates to the problem of evil but borrow the ‘ axiological expectation mismatch ’ idea to get at the questions that came up in the CMS session .
HOW SHOULD WE THINK ABOUT THE ETHICS OF THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY IN WORSHIP ?
Let ’ s start with an example of something that we would likely conclude as being unethical . Say a pastor goes online and asks ChatGPT to write an entire sermon on the topic of evil in the world . ChatGPT spits out its results , and the pastor prints it up and reads it to the congregation word for word . The pastor prefaces the reading by saying , “ Here is the sermon I came up with on my own for you all this week .” The expectation of the congregation would be that the pastor reflected on his or her experiences , prayed for guidance on what to share , opened up the Bible , and did the work to find just the right scripture for the occasion and let the spirit guide the creation of the notes and references and themes for the week . This is likely close to what actually happens in most cases . But we have an expectation mismatch since the pastor only typed in ‘ write a sermon on evil ’ and merely regurgitated whatever ChatGPT spat out .
It doesn ’ t seem right to claim that it was authored and created by the pastor by any definition in this case . This is a clear unethical use of technology in my view and probably a view most of you would share . If a student did the same thing with their school homework , they ’ d be in trouble for plagiarism . Not cool . As a side note , recent research suggests that between 50 % and 75 % of pastors do sometimes use ChatGPT and similar tools in some minor aspect of support of their crafting of a sermon or scheduling their week . I am not claiming that any use of these tools is unethical , merely that extreme and unexpected uses in an extreme manner could be .
How about the worship band carefully lipsyncing and playing ‘ air guitar ’ on stage while pre-recorded tracks were being played and absolutely no sound from the band was being heard ? Yep , probably another case ( without clearly stating that the lip-sync was happening ) of an unethical use of technology . A gap between the expectation of the congregation ( that vocalists and musicians are actually playing ) and the reality of the situation ( only tracks are being heard ).
EDGE CASES ?
What are the expectations of the average churchgoer in relation to technology like pitch correction and immersive audio or even basic common effects like reverb ? If 5 % of the notes that a vocalist is singing are being subtly ‘ refined ’ via a pitch correction tool , is that unethical ? Again , I don ’ t think so . It would seem that most people probably understand ( and expect ) that the sound system in a modern church has some features that will enhance the overall musical quality .
Compressors , reverb units , etc . exist for just this purpose . Short of classical music or traditional jazz performance , most music we hear today has elements of technology of this sort baked into the style itself . Pop music is arguably ‘ pop ’ just because of the stylistic elements in place . In fact , if Taylor Swift was performing live and
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