Yes, I believe the Christian Church is ripe for a significant split (and it is AI-assisted).

[ I appreciate from the outset that my Christian/religious peers and my AI-interested university/academic peers and may not fully ‘get’ this collision of thoughts, but who knows where this finds you. Perhaps you are concerned with the state of the world, the Church, tech, and society too. Perhaps you are feeling a shift among religious folk and feeling the divide of left and right more acutely than just 5-years ago. ]

In her 2008 book, The Great Emergence, religious expert and historian Phyllis Tickle pointed out that roughly every 500 years the Christian Church has a rummage sale. By rummage sale, she means that the Church gets rid of things, changes things, brings in new things. This 500-year cycle has looked like this: Christ and early church in the first century AD -> the Dark Ages in the 5th century -> the Schism in the 10th century -> the Protestant Reformation in the 15th century (1517) -> Current day 20th century. Tickle notes that these major shifts/splits in the church were made up of several factors, including the introduction of technology between eras. Every cycle, these factors contributed to an overarching repeated question that caused the notable splitting and branching across the Christian church. That overarching question has always been, “Who or what is the authority now?”

In 1517 AD, it was Martin Luther who challenged the Catholic Church of his day on its idea of what or who should be the authority within the Christian life. While some stuck with the Papal authority, and the church’s traditions and interpretation, a new branch emerged that became known as Protestantism. Luther and others offered an alternative authoritative view; being, ‘sola scriptura’ (only scripture as authority). This 500-year cycle is now upon us, and although I would agree with some critics that this 500-year cycle pattern is quite a simplistic view, I think it is a striking and helpful pattern to consider.

Interestingly, Tickle and other historians give weight to the technological innovations that always precede and enable these break-aways. For example, in 1517, when Luther ‘nailed’ his famous 95 Theses to a church door, it was the Gutenberg printing press that allowed his message to go far and wide—sparking a change and empowering the groundswell shift in authority that he and others like Calvin and Knox had been pushing for. In the midst of swarming political, economic, and social factors, the printing press also meant that access to bibles increased massively. Before Luther’s time, the improvements in writing, book production, and translation accompanied (and preserved) the diverging traditions during the Schism (1054), contributing towards the split between Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Roman Catholic) Christianity. Before the Schism, in the Age of Monasticism leading up to Gregory the Great, the codex, Monastic Scriptoria and copying practices enabled the consolidation of institutional Church authority.

But what about now? What technology precedes the current branching away from scripture as authority in the church? Tickle suggests current communication technologies (and the car) have changed the landscape of the church, in the West especially. Think about it: just 120 years ago most Christians in the West, including North America and Australia, attended their very local neighbourhood church. There, they heard from one minister, (usually male), adhered to a single denomination, and had very little access to differing views, thoughts, or options. If you didn’t like the preaching on Sunday, too bad. There was no car to drive to a neighbouring town, no podcasts, no Christian bookstore, no streaming, no Youtube or Zoom gathering. People used to have two options: take it, or leave it. And leaving it was often met with a familial cost—after all, the rest of your local extended family was attending that church and going to mum’s house for a lunch after the service.

Obviously, things have changed dramatically over the last century. Christians have a range of options and distractions. Heck, considering the bible as a point of authority is not what it used to be. Research suggests bible reading and literacy is decreasing. In fact, the reading of all books and literacy is in decline. Tickle and others are correct: over the last century communication technology has transformed the way people worship and attend to religious and spiritual practise. And much like every technological revolution that preceded splits in the church—and re-imagining of authority—I believe we are in a branching-off right now. Also, I think the proliferation of AI in our communication channels since 2022 is accelerating the shift dramatically. Why? Trust in authorship.

Without gushing out into pages with history, references and stories, please allow me to present a few simplified observations. Take them, or leave them. a) We HAVE BEEN living in an era where it took very little personal effort to trust that a person wrote the things we read. b) We rarely questioned the authorship of emails, books, letters, etc. because there was only one way the words could appear before us; through a person’s brain and fingers. c) Even though plenty of written history is lost in translation and altered over time, most people have taken what they read as trustworthy—particularly sacred texts, like the biblical canon. d) Your average protestant Christian has very little idea about biblical scholarship, and are likely to think Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John personally penned their own books as they travelled. Most are shocked if you present largely agreed upon scholarly findings that suggest the gospels were penned after Paul’s epistles (e.g. 1 Thessalonians, Galatians, etc.).

Why? Blind trust, human nature, ignorance, faith, peer pressure etc. But largely because scripture is expected to be given a place of authority in a Protestant Christian’s life, and they (we) have grown up in an era where you could trust the authorship and authority of any written word—including the ‘Word of God’.

And yes, I think AI is breaking the author-reader trust-bond that has existed for centuries. Why? Because for the first time in history, giant bodies of text can be perfectly produced (extruded) from a machine onto a screen. And not just written communication, but videos and photos too. Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini are eroding our trust in authorship. The general population is becoming increasingly suspicious of the written word, and whether we like it or not—along with political, ethical, and cultural factor—this is subtly affecting the ‘sola scriptura’ mantra so many have been holding onto for centuries.

Across the education sector, emerging genAI training and use is raising new questions and endless debates on its ethical and practical implications. Before the prevalence of LLMs, research suggested that reading and writing abilities were dropping among our young people. Understandably, educators are concerned that machine-created text will see literacy ability continue to trend downward. It isn’t all bad news, the emerging generation has many communication options and their ability to create audio and video seems to be trending upwards.

What does this change in communication medium and the ability to produce text at length by an inferred AI prompt point towards? From a ‘written word’ perspective, AI has introduced a new level of distrust and suspicion on a medium of communication once considered trustworthy. And when I say trustworthy, I am not suggesting we trust all that we read—but there has been an effortless trust given to the fact that what we read was authored by humans, and most likely the person whose name is against the text/book/article etc. Doubt has entered the waters, and certainty on authorship and authority is dropping. And to circle back to Tickle’s point, in the midst of this uncertainty and murkiness, Christians today are again asking—”Who or what is the authority now?”

There are branches of people who, like the Catholics in Luther’s time, will hold on to their old sense of authority—digging in and doubling down on their stance of the bible’s divine role. On the other hand, there are branches of people who are ripe and ready to re-examine alternative options, not by dismissing the bible, but by reconsidering its place in their lives as people doing their best to follow the way of Christ.

For me, after 3 decades as a faltering and flawed follower of Jesus, I am in this second camp: reconsidering the bible’s place in my life. Not because I don’t like or read the bible. I do. But I can tell you this first-hand; moving from an immature and simplistic view of the bible to a more experienced and nuanced view of its origins, faults, changes, and complexity has been a faith-shaping experience. It is now more interesting, more challenging, more poetic, more edgy, and equally more important to me. In a kind of nerdy fashion, I guess I have rearranged the latin SOLA scriptura, into ALSO scripture.

I will finish with a point of personal concern, and an open question.

Right now, the Christian nationalist branch that I see emerging in my social media feeds, particularly from North America, troubles me. It seems that in people’s desperation to find security and certainty, many well-meaning Christians who once gave the scriptures a place of authority, are making their political affiliation—with its leaders, policies, power, and preferences—a kind of sacred authority. Some even approach their political leaders with a kind of papal (Pope) authority. I see this emerging branch of “Sola Natio” (only nation) as a symptom of our current uncertain and murky era. I don’t think it has the global sway or power to emerge into any kind of Christian movement but it certainly does highlight people’s desperation for security, certainty, and safety.

Open question: If it is true that we are at a 500-year inflection point, who or what do you think should be the authority in a Christian’s life?

David

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