 Press is actually enamored with what happens when you put water on a robot for some reason. They're really worried about that issue I'm not as much. I Am thankful to be here. Thank you for inviting me to speak this morning. I have the privilege to Go this afternoon back to Miami to Officiate over our Palm Sunday services. So unfortunately, I will not be here the rest of day So I'm gonna say a bunch of controversial stuff and then I'm gonna go jump on an airplane Because that's about the safest thing you can do as a speaker But I want to encourage you if you'd like to talk with me You just go to my website Christopher benic.com and you can find all the ways to reach me. I'm happy to talk what I have learned is my words are wildly insufficient and usually People hear what they want to hear when I speak and so I haven't even titled this talk for today I think they made something up to put in the advertisement You can call it what you want by the time we're done But what I have learned that is helpful for me is if I begin in prayer And so if you would indulge me in that as a pastor, I would appreciate that and let us pray Merciful and gracious God, I thank you for everybody here Lord. I thank you for the MTA and I thank you that we have the privilege to look at our reality and See a new perspective God I Pray God from my mouth to listeners ears You would transform my words so that they would be yours in yours alone and we would see The possibilities that lie before us Be with us this morning and be with everyone throughout the conference. We pray in Jesus name. Amen so I want to begin by saying that I Think that Christian transhumanists are focusing on the wrong problems. Let me say that again if you didn't hear it Christian transhumanists are focused on the wrong problems And I believe that we're we're doing so we're focusing on the wrong problems because we failed to articulate a systemic theology That comprehensively explains our divine call to steward technology Now the fundamentalist myth is that it's that's pervasive and modern Christendom is that the Bible is definitive on what it says and most matters in life Now, let me be clear on this. I'm not questioning the authority of the Bible Instead what I'm pointing out is the hubris of those who claim that they somehow fully and completely understand the biblical texts Humanity simply does not know all of the possible information in the cosmos And even if we did it doesn't mean we would be able to understand it or all of its possible configurations new information informs our reading of scripture and new information arises and As it arises our interpretations and understandings of these texts change It's not that the texts are changing It's that our perspectives are changing and with our changing perspectives We gain new insights as to who we are in relationship to God and what that means for our divine calling As a matter of fact, we are on the very front end of understanding the biblical texts and let me explain what I mean when I say that So most of you probably know that the Bible wasn't written in English. Hopefully, you know that right? it was written in Hebrew Greek and some Aramaic and During the early years of the church the Bible was widely translated into Latin because the Romans spoke Latin and they occupied a large portion of the world at that time as Christianity was expanding now It is estimated that during that period only five to ten percent of Roman citizens were actually literate and That may sound like a very small number, but actually that was pretty good for that time in history for instance comparatively in 1820 almost 300 years after the Reformation when the Bible was being translated into other languages only 18% of the entire world Could read and write as late as 1960 only 42 percent of the world was literate and Since 1960 the global literacy rate has increased roughly four percent every five years and was up to 86 percent in 2015 So why do I bring this up? Well, it's simply to point out that it's only been until relatively recently That most of the world's population has even had the ability to have the privilege to actually read the Bible for themselves prior to that the general populace had to take someone else's word for it and If you add to the mix that the Bible has only become widely available in most languages in the last 60 years And it's only been widely available Globally and on via the internet for the last 25 years I think it's fair to say that most people simply have not had access to it Now why is that important? It is important because each one of you every single one of you has a context Each one of you is unique and you are beautiful and so far as God has gifted you with a unique and distinctive perspective of the world and When we unite those perspectives when engaging the scriptures we get a more complete Understanding than humanity ever has before as to who we are in relationship to God and what it means for our divine calling This continually developing phenomenon partnered with virtuous action by humanity is the perpetuation of Christ's redemptive purposes in the world The scriptures are not meant to be the destination to which we are traveling the scriptures are the compass that Guides humanity's journey and aids in our transformation. It's our task to interpret The data that the scriptures provide in a way that is applicable to our current Technological context that we presently face So to that effect given my unique context I want to provide a perspective that may help us to understand our present journey and transformation from a technological perspective Many of you have heard me articulate this hermeneutic before I've contended that Humanity is not God Humanity is God's AI alternative intelligence. I don't like the word artificial. I don't think my cat's artificial Seems just like alternative Intelligence to me therefore all matter that humanity experiences is in the cosmos everything that we experience is Divine technology and Humanities divine vocation articulate in the scripture is to be caretakers and co-creators over all the cosmos i.e. All technology so let me say that again humanity is not God therefore humanity is God's alternative intelligence Therefore all matter that humanity experiences in the cosmos is effectively divine technology everything you experience right here is Divine technology and humanity's divine vocation Articulated in the scriptures to be caretakers and co-creators over all the cosmos i.e. over all technology Okay, so y'all following that Okay, so then if we just broadly look at the scriptures We can begin to understand how with this lens how it informs our present participation in Christ's redemptive purposes in the world And let me just preface my remarks by stating that what I'm Attempting to do in the next few minutes here is simply provide some very broad strokes. I'm not trying to get into all the details I'll let the biblical scholars do that What I'm trying to do is allow folks to to go Later into those details and under the standing understanding the scriptures from a perspective That they have an overarching systemic Theological understanding from a technological hermeneutic. This isn't meant to be an end-all be all theological treatise It's simply meant to be a place to start iteration So here we go God starts out in Genesis and God creates and or orders divine technology all matter To create the world and all that is in it and then God uses divine technology to create the first humans And it was all good tech God attempts to teach humans how to be stewards of said divine technology as caretakers of the cosmos But instead of following God's direction humanity rebels and seeks non-virtuous use of tech and that separates humanity from God God being God seeks reconciliation attempts over and over and over throughout the Old Testament to be in Relationship with humanity by modeling how to steward technology both the personal Divine tech that constitutes our being and our corporate tech the cosmos God also repeatedly invites humanity to co-create alongside God now What do I mean by co-create? Well the example that I always use regarding Co-creation is that like a child with a parent we get to work alongside God and the example that I commonly use Pertains to my four-year-old now I think it's fair to say that my four-year-old is not as good at coloring as I am from the world's perspective If you were to sit down and we were to color off My my son would not be able to keep up with me But that doesn't mean that we can't co-create together And it also doesn't mean that if someday my son becomes a better color than me It doesn't hurt my relationship with him Does it hurt my authority with regard to my son? Does it hurt my power with regard to my son? Does it hurt my love for my son? No, actually I want my son to achieve these great things and what is Observationally interesting about this is that creation can arise simply out of reorganization So my son may color something that someone from a world's perspective not think may not think is that great But I as his father think is fantastic So in the context of the scriptures God provides instructions how to build many things an arc an arc It's just something that provides protection and safety that Noah builds tablets for the commandments The tabernacle priestly garments God's apparently into fashion The Ark of the Covenant the temple the list goes on and on and humans get this distinct Honor of co-creating these items by organizing divine technology And at the same time we know that humans as creatures made in the image of God We're also organizing divine technology aka matter and to new at least to us patterns And in so far as those technologies honors God they they were part of our divine calling when they didn't they were part of our rebellion Just like when our actions or our personal use of divine tech that is our body is Virtuous it honors God and when we use our bodies in unvirtuous ways We are rebelling against God and the result of that rebellion is ultimately death Separation from God is like a technological virus and once we Introduced that virus into the system. It was introduced in a way like an old computer operating system It just couldn't self-repair itself So seeing this God enters into the world using divine technology aka matter and the person of Jesus the art incarnation is Something like the most immersive form of VR that you could possibly imagine And again the word virtual like artificial is a totally inadequate word for this technology anyhow, Jesus comes into the world from outside the system while the heavenly host watches on twitch and he begins the process of teaching humanity through observational science how to Steward divine tech Jesus is effectively acting as the antivirus and Has the first objective of introducing new information into the system that will allow the system to eventually help to repair itself So what is that new information? Well, Jesus teaches the disciples how they are to see the world in a different way and How to view the world in an alternative state? So to explain this to people I Like to use imagery from a scientific perspective There's a term in quantum mechanics called superposition Superposition is when matter exists in different states at one time So for instance an electron can hold the state of both a particle and a wave Now what's interesting in this is that while it can be tested to show that an electron can hold two states at one When the electron is observed it is forced to take one state in This way very literally an observer observes their present reality into being and So theologically speaking I think that Jesus is at the God of superposition When Jesus says and John 10 30 the father and I are one. I think he means it literally We actually affirm this statement in the words of the Nicene Creed We say of one being with the father And as such I think superposition scientifically explains how the trinity of God could possibly exist But to take this concept a step further I think that Jesus also sees the world in superposition Jesus sees all of the possibilities of existence and then observes aka stewards into reality by faith The godly ones which he seeks to bring about So when we only see a few fish and loaves Jesus sees a multitude and they are multiplied when we see Just a liquid Jesus sees a solid and he walks on it We see a storm that seems insurmountable and overwhelming and yet Jesus sees calm and there is peace We see sick people and Jesus sees health and we are healed so for an instance an instance when in mark 8 14 through 21 when Jesus gets frustrated with the disciples because they're Bickering because they forgot to bring enough bread and the boat to eat Jesus gets upset with them It doesn't seem to make any sense But he's upset because he had just given them tangible examples i.e. observational science as to how they could observe a new reality into existence and he did this by feeding 5,000 and then again by feeding another 4,000 the disciples are just having a hard time believing what they're seeing is true But what they're seeing isn't some kind of magic trick It's a deeper understanding and expression of what it means to be human made in the image of God as followers of Jesus our prayers should always be that We will see what godly possibilities Lay before us so that we might be better formed into the divine caretakers that God has called us to be God calls us to embody redemption in this world by God's grace and love and vulnerability But to do this we have to listen carefully for God's call so that we might envision a better way and Believe it into existence So when we see injustice May we have the faith to bring about righteousness when we see bigotry may we Have the faith to oppose it and bring about unity when we see poverty or oppression or privilege May we have the faith to equally share blessings and power and So instead of seeing an ordinary world We are called to have the faith to observe miracles and to being for we are called to be a people that like Jesus sees the world in superposition and This was new information presented into our operating system of the cosmos by Jesus via live updates of the Holy Spirit That provide a way for the caretakers us Into our divine calling i.e. redeeming and restoring the world by combating the virus of separation from God living into this calling is how we participate in Christ's redemptive purposes in the world and so what does Your operating system typically require when you download antivirus software You got to shut down and reboot and So once the disciples have been instructed Jesus goes to the cross To effectively permanently patch the system in a way that will allow the caretakers of the system to cooperate and Stewarding it to health over time If you look at it from a biological perspective, which I would say again is divine technology humans now become the antibodies of the cosmos So then the result of the reboot is Jesus 2.0 and We read in Luke 24 13 through 50. I encourage you to go read that passage spend some time with it Later what we read is that Jesus 2.0 is is like us in some ways. He's physical. He gets hungry But in other ways he get his upgraded He can appear out of thin air in places. He walks through locked doors, which The disciples at first think he's a ghost because of this the Disciples who have been with him for years sit a few feet from him and they don't recognize him until he performs ritual action So he's like shape-shifter Jesus He ascends into heaven whatever the heck that means But what this infers is that the eschaton is technological also and That is because everything in existence everything in existence is technological Which means that the work we are doing now is not just for now, but it is an iterative process that leads to redemption So how do we redeem humanity and the world in Christ? We simply keep iterating on our existing stewardship of divine technology in ways that honor God Because Jesus's resurrection implies that technology is not merely temporal, but that is ultimately eschatological So why is all this important? Well, I started this talk by saying that Christian transhumanists are focused on the wrong problems And as the initiator of the formalized institute of institution of the Christian transhumanist association I myself must confess that the problems with Christian transhumanism right now are many and Among them are the following three issues that I want to raise to you this morning First Christian transhumanism has failed to adequately differentiate how it is different from secular transhumanism For instance, I would contend that death should not be the primary issue of Christian transhumanists Death is an immediate issue for secular transhumanists because they don't know Jesus Now don't get me wrong death and disease are the enemies of humanity. I'm not questioning that we should fight them but prioritizing Finding a technological cure for death above say virtue formation For example is in my opinion putting the cart before the horse Additionally Christian transhumanism has failed to adequately differentiate how it is different from secular transhumanism in So far as it has failed to adequately defined and make mantra how it defines transhumanism For instance, I have previously suggested that Christian transhumanist should Define the prefix trans to take on a more nuanced meaning that implies traversing across The scope of what it might mean to be made human It's not a forfeiture of our humanity like many secular transhumanists would imply when they Say that trans means post-human But it's an expansion of our perspective as to what it means to be made creatures in the image of the Trinitarian God of superposition creator redeemer and digital system ups data Nowhere Biblically are we called to forfeit our humanity What we are called to do is live into our humanity made in the image of the Trinitarian God that we serve Second Christian transhumanism has not focused on being inclusive of the vast majority of Christianity Christian transhumanism needs evangelicals To that play nice with one another Because we need their perspectives to help redeem the cosmos and if you want to freak out an evangelical All you have to do is take the words trans and humanism and put them together and not define them And you will succeed overwhelmingly Those are such politically-laden words these days that they necessitate definition and to that point I would suggest that Christian transhumanism has widely failed To adequately exude humility and what I mean by this is instead of pushing Non-essential theological points that are controversial and challenging to the majority of Christianity And I understand the room that I'm in when I say this but say concepts like theosis Let's focus on Handholding to get everyone on board first with basic concepts like Participatory theology instead of escapism theology. I equate our current tasks to the work of transitional ministry when local Congregations seek to bring about new ideas. There are three types of people. There are early adopters There are the majority and there are laggards and Within the third type there are two kinds of laggards Those who can be convinced by handholding and those who won't accept the new idea no matter what a k a fundamentalist Now I will say clearly that I believe that American religious fundamentalism is the greatest threat to emerging technology technological development in the world hands down and so while Christian transhumanists should not negotiate with theological terrorists We should seek to be self-sacrificial in helping those who are seeking to understand and to But just need more time and yet what we have done in practicality is we have run ahead with the early adopters Leaving the vast majority of Christendom behind and if we continue to do this We will incite another separation between the conservative church and science and tech instead of uniting them Third Christian transhumanism and the church universal is widely focusing its efforts on the completely Wrong social issues if you ask me first We should be investing in new ways to provide care for people and science and tech fields And we should be creating new ways to incentivize virtue formation for people in science and tech We often complain that modern technology is unvirtuous But we have no one to blame but ourselves if we're not willing to invest in virtue formation for scientists and technologists Only virtuous people will create virtuous tech Second we should be helping the church to be preparing for the coming automation crisis So the best report in the world the McKinsey report is articulating from that by 2030 There will be 11 to 22 percent unemployment in the United States This is the best report in the world the politicians and leaders around the world that I've talked to Talk about this issue like it is a meteor coming at earth, and they don't know where the heck Bruce Willis is This is a big thing. The church is not talking about it at all 22% on the high end is 3% less than the Great Depression in the United States to give you some context Half of the churches in the United States more than half 57% of the churches in the United States are a hundred members or less and many of them struggle to have Leadership in the church if they lose 11% of their giving not because people don't want to give it But they simply don't have it. We will lose half of the American church by 2030 This is a huge issue Part of what we need to be doing is we need to be teaching people how to live into their creative cells made in the image Of God so that we can create sustainable ventures that will keep the Christian tradition moving forward So that we can help people in their time of need 10 years from now if we have 11 to 22% unemployment and the and the institution that is most geared to help societal change and and aid people is Falling apart we will be in trouble my great-grandmother who lived through the Great Depression Used to tell me that they weren't sure when food would show up on in their house because there was just there was such a lack of it and The church would come once a week and drop food off and it was the only way they were making it We have an obligation to be warning people that this is coming and in the worst-case scenario if we create Flourishing churches. Oh, no 10 years for now. It doesn't happen We have made the church a better place and we have brought about Christ's redemptive purposes even more on earth Brothers and sisters in Christ we now Carry the mantle of redemption in the cosmos we stand on the shoulders of the saints who have come before us and We will be the shoulders on which the growing number of saints of the future will stand If we want to on if we want to honor our ancestors of the past and equip the saints for the future We must continue to humbly advance our understanding of who we are and what we are called to be in the present Thank you. Do we have time for questions? Okay, I'll let you facilitate that house. Okay. There we go. Got it. So how do we prepare people for this automation crisis in your opinion? What are the steps we can take to? Give them the skills the knowledge the You know what what it takes to actually, you know be Valuable during and and thrive during this automation crisis. Well, the first thing we need to do is we need people to be aware of it Nobody in the church is talking about this right now Politicians academics leaders and tech and science are all talking about it. The church is not talking about at all So we have to do that. I would not suggest individually that I have all the answers as to how to fix that That's part of why we need a greater conversation. That's what the church is I would say though part of the reason that we've started co-creators is to begin to equip people and Congregations would be able to look at their creative selves and understand how they can begin to begin to create Sustainable ventures out of that and ways that will help create sustainability for the church. The church can no longer look Towards the offering plate anymore. Mark DeMaz a friend of mine I've wrote an afterward for a book that's coming out in the fall It's talks about sustainability and the church and pretty much we just we need to we need to forget the offering plate And we need to start because it's not something that's biblically mandated We need to give people opportunities to give in different ways and part of that is looking at the creativity that God has instilled in them as divine Creatures to be able to create new things. I don't I don't want to sweep my floors anymore. Let the room But do that automation is not bad the challenge and it's not that there won't be jobs It's the transition in between where there could be a lot of suffering So when you talk about the church like you're talking about the body of believers, right? Correct But you know sometimes that can be a large organization. Sometimes that can be just an individual Congregation somewhere is there a way to organize maybe across congregations or between larger organizations to Work on some of these challenges. Yeah, I mean again, that's that's part of why we've created a non Denominational Organization even non-denominational wasn't a good term anymore because I like I was I'm Presbyterian But I was baptized in the Church of Christ and they would say they're non-denominational I think I think the challenge is is we need to get people right now to start talking about it in their own tribes Once we start talking about our own tribes then we then we will bring these conversations to the forefront even more I was excited to actually see the Southern Baptist Convention have some statements on AI I don't agree with all of them, but I thought actually it's nice to see that they actually Recognize the fact that they're called to steward technology and so while we might disagree with that It opens up the beginning of a discussion that we can have now what we have to learn to do is play nice with one another So that we can respect differences and actually the way and Presbyterian polity is as my understanding Is the way we're supposed to engage each other's I'm supposed to assume that God through the Holy Spirit has something Unique and valuable from each one of you and if in good faith we are working for one another you're supposed to say Assume the same of me and somewhere in the middle is the action We're supposed to take so we need to be discerning that together in my opinion Okay, we're gonna take one more question unless Blair really wants to ask one Maybe we'll take two. Okay most of most of my family and friends are not technologically literate and they have a hubris that their occupations are impervious to automation however, I see the writing on the wall and it's it's going to be less than a decade before their jobs are automated away and Their company heads are probably in the same boat as them as they feel that they're Not going to be affected by the oncoming automation because it's too complex as the automation wave Comes over us what? recommendation recommendations might you have and other people have for Warning people who choose not to see it because they don't have the also because they don't have the ability to see what's coming I Think we have to start to educate them and you can do this really simple simply by just pointing out things that you see all the Time like we all are using AI We're automating things like crazy Are you know, I don't sweep my floors anymore? I don't turn my lights on by myself anymore I have robots to do that if you go into a Sam's Club or a Costco where I live There used to be 14 checkout people now and now there's like three and there's one person overseeing the Automization of that of that thing. So I think I think part of it is just beginning to observationally Show them. Hey, this is coming and begin to educate them on on that now You know you can put a bunch of information in front of somebody It doesn't mean they're gonna listen to it What I would also though say is you can approach from a different angle How does it hurt you as a human being to diversify your talent? If you are learning to be more creative and do other things outside what you're comfortable with that actually helps you to flourish as a human being and so Encouraging people to engage in activities that stretch their boundaries and it may not be directly with technology But you understand that we're everything is technology and so as you do that you're Expanding their viewpoint of the cosmos and I think those are baby steps And then the reality is is if you can't if you can't convince them Then you need to prepare for stain of sustainability so that you can help them when the transition happens That's the need of the church right now is we need to have the vision to be preparing so that when people who don't listen Are in need and there'll be people that don't listen there will be a lot of them Because they don't know how what the answer is they don't know what to do They've been a truck driver their whole life, and they don't know what's gonna happen I actually think truck drivers gonna be late on that that equation, but they've been whatever their whole life They don't know how to how to do that so how to do the new thing To be there and to help them and support them in that time is what we can prepare for now Okay, so I have a question about this idea of the church being stewards of technology And when you say the church I assume you mean like just believers generally of Christianity so non-denominational. Okay, perfect So my question is I'm a millennial and millennials are becoming slowly disenchanted with the idea of the church in general Which doesn't necessarily need to be like conflated with spirituality and Technology being used by the church has been kind of a mixed bag right lots of really good things But not so good things too Let's say I'm a doubter, and I'm saying you know I don't want churches to be the stewards of technology because they're gonna like give me conversion therapy or whatever You know all sorts of things so um what would be your response to a doubting millennial to help down my non-belief Sure, I mean look the the church universal needs to accept the fact that it has done a lot of harm It's done a ton of harm. I Mean if any of you go to church, right? Is your church done harm? Yeah, right. I gotta do is go there, and you know it did harm, right? So what we need to do is we need to be humble in that process We need to recognize the fact that hey, yes, we we need to admit the fact that yeah, we are we're sinners gather Right, and what happens is a giant mess. I have somebody stick a knife in my back about every day as a pastor That's that's part of the part of the thing We have to also learn to engage one another though And I think if we come from a place of humility and we stop focusing on the Institutionality of the church, right that the institution of the church is a gift I'm at first Miami and Downtown Miami they have a gift of property that is very valuable They need to start leveraging that for people outside of themselves, right? And so when they start to stop looking inward and start looking missionally then actually people start to go Oh, well wait a second. Maybe this is something different now. That doesn't mean we shouldn't say hard things I mean if you read Jesus's words, they are hard and we sugarcoat the heck out of those things They are very difficult, but they're actually I think the difficulty that Millennials are looking for What's it mean to sacrificially love somebody? I think Millennials are all about that. What's it mean to actually give up your own stuff? And not take credit for it, but actually go and help somebody the Millennials I know they want to help people they don't want merit badges anymore They want to actually be in they want to implement change and so I so yes We need to own and I had somebody just last week say well pastor. Can I trust you? What a loaded question, right? I was like I said well, let me let me answer it this way I'm I would never ask you to trust me because there are a lot of pastors in my opinion. You shouldn't trust What I would ask you to do is walk with me and see if I'm somebody who has integrity and I do what I say And if over time that that urge your trust and so be it So I think this is the thing that we need to change in the perspective of the church That we are called to be something radically different than what we have become And so so I think there's lots of opportunity and that's why conferences like this are important. Thank you