The Theology of the Future: 6 Scenarios the Church Needs to Prepare For

Host/Announcer

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Justin Holcomb

Okay, I'm the Bishop of the Moon. Just want to step that clear. And I have. I have. I have an image of it. And I'll make sure we send this. Bishop of the Moon.

Walter Strickland

Bishop of the Moon.

Justin Holcomb

And I can explain to you why. So this is my question. Doesn't look like this is my responsibility.

Walter Strickland

The United States was.

Justin Holcomb

So there's ecclesiastical law that if there's a new discovery from the diocese, that the bishop of that new discovery is responsible for it. So the Catholic, Roman Catholic Bishop of Orlando, which is where Nassau is in his geographical domain in the Episcopal Diocese of Central Florida, Cape Canaveral, Nassau is in my diocese, central Florida. I am the Bishop of the Moon. So is the Roman Catholic bishop. And if there's a Lutheran. Dude, Bishop Suarez is the Lutheran Bishop of the Moon. So we're good. We got it covered.

Host/Announcer

Applying the riches of the Reformation to the modern church. This is White Horse Sin A Weakness. Weekly roundtable discussion about theology and culture.

Michael Horton

What does orthodox Christian doctrine look like when the world it inhabits has become almost unrecognizable? When humanoid robots are household appliances, when the moon or Mars has a human colony and there are fears of new military draft where we would be sending our congregation's young people into a war fought largely by autonomous drones and machines. I'm George Jetson. I'm Bob Hiller, a Lutheran pastor. And today on White Horse Inn, I am joined by our usual host, Reformed professor Michael Horton, Baptist theology professor and pastor Walter Strickland, and Justin Holcomb, Episcopal bishop and professor at Reformed Theological Seminary. Gentlemen, we have been handed a letter from the future, a set of surprised hypothetical questions involving somewhat possible future scenarios put together by our producer Caleb, and his own robots. We've never seen these before, so what we're going to do is think through them in real time and imagine what challenges in pastoral ministry and theology might face in the not too distant future. So what we're going to do is we're going to put this in like a, like a thing to sit for the next 80 years and then in 2100 they're going to a castle. Thank you. That's what you call it, A castle.

Bob Hiller

Or a thing.

Michael Horton

Or a thing.

Justin Holcomb

So I mean, this is about pastoral care theology in the future, but this is also telling us a lot about Caleb.

Michael Horton

It is, that's true. We're going to learn a lot about producer Christians.

Justin Holcomb

Say that now before we read the question.

Bob Hiller

Right.

Michael Horton

All right, so here is the first hypothetical question. The year is 2075. These are going to be really bleak, aren't they? Okay, here we go. We're all dead.

Bob Hiller

I'm dead at least.

Michael Horton

No, Walter, he'll be.

Justin Holcomb

Look at this guy.

Michael Horton

He's going to live until he's close

Bob Hiller

to be in his prime.

Michael Horton

2112 in the year 2075. Decades of declining birth rates, secularization and church consolidation have reshaped the American Protestant landscape beyond recognition. Non denominational churches now represent 80% of all Protestant Christians in the United States. A handful of mega church networks, some with 200 to 400 campus locations, we call those denominations nevermind, have effectively become ecclesiastical monopolies again. Never mind absorbing smaller independent congregations the way Amazon absorbs retail. These networks are led by celebrity pastors, CEOs, whose theological accountability to any confessional standard or broader church body is at best informal. Many of your friends and neighbors are going to these churches and you realize they have very little understanding of biblical preaching, the Lord's Supper, and what liturgy is. While talking to these friends, how would you try to make them aware of the issues within these monopoly style churches that says year 2075? I could read 2027. So what do you think?

Justin Holcomb

This is actually where things are at. Ryan Burge. Ryan Burge, who's a sociologist of religion, has a substack. We had him come to the diocese recently and talk about the future. This is actually where the numbers are going. So this just to highlight of knowing the future, but I just heard On

Bob Hiller

NPR this morning 25% decline in birth rates this year.

Michael Horton

Yeah, yeah, 25%.

Justin Holcomb

So what do we say? Okay, you said friends and family members, those close to us are really interesting.

Michael Horton

They're making their way towards those churches. What do we say to those things, man?

Walter Strickland

You know, there's there. So I'm at a church where we just had a satellite campus of a church that's in Charlotte and we're in Raleigh. If you're not familiar with the North Carolina landscape, it takes you three hours to drive from where we are to where the home, like mother church or the preacher actually is. And so, so this is, this is truly happening. It used to be that multi site churches might have several locations in a specific region, you know, in a, in a metroplex. But now we are seeing this phenomenon happen. And one thing that I would be very concerned about is for people who go to these churches to respond to their pastor's embodied presence. Like a, likened to a celebrity, like wanting to get autographs, wanting to. And this has actually happened to me when I was walking with a figure who is pastoring a multi site church. We were walking through a mall to get to a food court. Two people, two young ladies came up to us like, oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. It's so and so.

Justin Holcomb

And, and I was nice to them when they came up.

Bob Hiller

You did sign their shoes. You did sign their shoes.

Walter Strickland

Yeah. But the reality was, you know, the question was, do we know you? The answer was, you're our pastor.

Michael Horton

Yeah.

Justin Holcomb

Yeah. Wow.

Walter Strickland

My hope would be that the response of a pastor and a member of a church encountering each other in the, in a mall would be one of endearing care and affection because there's a relationship there, familiarity there that we've cried, we've suffered together, we've, we've been. I mean, the nature of being a pastor is that you're, you're with people during the highest highs and the lowest lows of their life. So day to day, we are, you know, by the bedside of someone who's given birth to their first child after two or three miscarriages. And then we go down the hall or you know, to the other wing of the hospital and we're on in the oncology unit, I think too, you

Bob Hiller

know, to talk about embodiment. First of all, you can't talk about, even if you have the right theology, what we would say is the right theology. You can't really talk about God using means, physical, tangible means to deliver his redemptive grace in Christ. If you start with a minister who's on a flat screen, I mean, this is the thing where the medium is the message. So now, you know, you have basically a view of ministry as delivering talks, which is totally different from the proclamation of the Word where we're in the midst of God as he's addressing us. Now we're in front of a screen, not God speaking in the midst of us, but a preacher up on a screen giving us a data download of ideas.

Walter Strickland

And that distance between clergy and lady is reminiscent of the divide that we saw in the Catholic Church between them. Yeah, exactly.

Justin Holcomb

I'd want to have this, I'd ask the people, which is the question is saying is what do you say? I've always found I wouldn't have to cite Louis Berkhof to them. But Louis Berkhof does this great thing about church and his systematic theology. He just looks at scripture and says, how's the word church used? And he goes all the way from sometimes it's this one community of these 10 people or whatever and then you have the church in an area, then you have the church in a region, then you have the church of all the people in the world at that time, then you have the universal church. So there's this like, what is church? To have such a reductionistic definition of church of either the one church that someone goes to or the diocese or whatever. Like it contracts and it expands, having people think through what do you mean by church? What does the Bible say when it says church? And then the other things are, what are the basic marks of a church? I think you go back to the basics of is the gospel preached, the word rightly divided, are the sacraments administered rightly? And then what type of discipleship, discipline takes place? I mean I think you need to go to some really foundational things whether they hear it or not. You have to ask the questions of,

Walter Strickland

get them thinking about would you say rightly administered would be an embodied sort of presence doing that, administering of the sacrament.

Justin Holcomb

There's no other way you can do it. Jesus, Jesus was there.

Bob Hiller

Yes, Jesus was there with him in the upper room saying take and eat.

Walter Strickland

Yeah, yeah.

Justin Holcomb

I mean not like a hey, in whatever place you're doing.

Walter Strickland

Because I've seen some practice in these megachurch multi site context where there is a, there's the elements up front and then somebody on the screen as a show of unity, calls for people to go up and do intention or you know, just to take anything.

Bob Hiller

I love Calvin's line about the medieval church. It's theater, it's not church. And he says, I love this. He says, Jesus said take and drink, not take and watch.

Justin Holcomb

Right.

Michael Horton

Well. And when there's a big conversation in our synod right now, when you're doing online words of institution for the Lord's Supper because someone's at home, you suddenly reduce the words to just sort of the magic words and any element that suddenly hears the words changes. It gets you starting.

Bob Hiller

Why would anyone come to me?

Michael Horton

Strange questions.

Bob Hiller

Yeah, why would anyone if you're basically watching most of it on A screen anyway, why would I get dressed and take a shower?

Walter Strickland

It's a step towards. So some friends of mine who go to a church where they watch the preaching of the word on the screen. The husband said, well, yeah, we, we did church today, but just from our living room, because it's, there's a half step towards that if you're watching your preacher on a screen anyway. And so gathering with the body just becomes, you know, less consequential.

Michael Horton

I always like to remind myself that when you read First Corinthians, Paul's writing the letter to the church in Corinth, Corinth is meeting in a small house of probably, I don't know, 30 people. It's all very intimate. And when he's calling people out for their sins, he's like, you stop doing this. Like they're right there. I mean, it's a very intimate. People are together very closely. The preacher knows the people by name. He's calling them out, he's speaking to them in love and mercy and law and gospel and all this with a very embodied conversation. Very good. Okay, second hypothetical question. The year is 2039. Tesla's humanoid robots are common staples in American homes. A married couple in your church is going through a conflict. The husband admits to making an AI Claude agent that replicates a version of his wife based on her text, social media activity and emails. He pairs this AI agent with the humanoid. When he is annoyed with his wife, he strikes up a conversation with a humanoid and spends time with it instead of his wife. As a pastor, what kind of biblical and theological catechesis is needed to come into play to help counsel this couple?

Bob Hiller

Again, this isn't, this isn't far fetched because, you know, there's a story of a woman in Japan who married a chatbot.

Michael Horton

Yeah, yeah.

Bob Hiller

And you know, people more and more are trying to resurrect their lost loved ones through AI.

Michael Horton

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Walter Strickland

So, so this isn't, this really isn't far off. We are already through in our, in our morning trying to move towards this kind of technology. And now we just have to bind those memories with a humanoid and then we're, then we're there. So I think at the end of the day, the, the consciousness of the humanoid, even though it's mediated through the, the language and the words of his wife, is going to end up appeasing and sort of bowing its knee to whatever he would want. At the end of the day, it's there to serve the one who made it. So if we're understanding the fact that our relationality is one that doesn't leave us neutral. It sharpens us as we move towards each other. So that moving towards each other as human persons in relationship is going to be one that's necessarily bumpy at times for the sake of sharpening each other as iron sharpens iron.

Bob Hiller

It's going to curb my selfishness, not indulge it.

Walter Strickland

Exactly. And so if we don't have that, if we just have these, you know, I don't want to call them beings, these bots that are catering to our every desire. It really strips us of like the. The butterfly coming out of the cocoon sort of activity that really refines us as human persons.

Justin Holcomb

Yeah, the. What needs to be addressed in the previous question, and this one is the technological imperative that if you can do something, doesn't mean that you should do something. And so there's a little bit of an impulsiveness, both with the pastors who think, well, you got to do this with the church, with technology, to this spouse who's doing the same thing with a relationship that like, call into question because you can doesn't mean you should. And what the question is doing, I'd want to point out to this person, this man, that the same thing that's happening with pornography in marriage is going to be happening here, but is pouring gasoline on the fire.

Bob Hiller

Because what's happening is bestiality, actually, because you're committing adultery with a machine.

Walter Strickland

Right.

Justin Holcomb

There you go. I just say that maybe that cuts to the chase because pornography is creating sexual dysfunction where if a person is consuming and fulfilling their sexual appetite through pornography, it is messing up in numerous ways human contact, sexually intimate contact with other people. That's going to continue in this scenario, except it's going to happen with communication. And a whole bunch of others want to expand that. So just say there's a warning here, brother, that what you probably already have seen, the havoc that you've wreaked with pornography use, you don't end up doing this if you're not already deep into pornography, most likely is wreaking havoc there. You're gonna make that worse. And also it's really demeaning to your wife. This is probably one of the most cruel ways you can treat your wife.

Michael Horton

Well, the cruelty of saying, you exist for me and only when you make me happy. So I've developed a robot that gives me what I like about the rest of you I can dismiss. It's dehumanizing in the most cruel sort of way.

Justin Holcomb

You're giving like, hey, brother, like, repent good news. You're hurting yourself, and you need to repent of this mess of what you're doing to your wife. There's a few places where you need to call him to repentance.

Walter Strickland

If you're talking about sexual suppression within marriage, which is the context where God gave us to do that, the idea is to be known and accepted. So that's the undergirding of what it means for sexual expression, what works and all. You're known, but you're also accepted, which is the sort of capstone of being emotionally, relationally, spiritually, sort of fully unveiled to another person. And so now, if this is the case, I mean, you might have this conversation where conversations flow in and this and that, but you're actually, at the end of the day, you're not being known and accepted by another human person. So it's almost like you're hungry, but you're eating a bunch of, like, cotton candy, trying to get full. Yeah, but. So you're eating, but you're gonna get sick.

Justin Holcomb

Yeah, I love that point. So. So Tim and Kathy Keller wrote a book on marriage. And it says, you know, being known and loved. Being known but not loved is our greatest fear. Being loved but not known is superficial.

Walter Strickland

Exactly.

Justin Holcomb

And so it's like being loved by God, you know, that's what marriage can look like. So, you know, brother, you're missing out. There's. There's a gift that comes. I mean, something good happens when. When. And my wife was like, you're not being terribly lovable right now. There's a socializing factor that kicks in that I'm missing out on. If I have somewhere else to go,

Bob Hiller

where there's a think of Adam's response of elation when God creates Eve finally. Bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. All the other animals. No, not that one. No. Are you kidding? A giraffe? No. All the animals parade of all the animals, and none of them fit. But here's one who fits, and she is perfect. She is perfect. Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. That machine is not bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh.

Walter Strickland

And the only reason why he would go to the machine is out of frustration. So in that, it's already an admission that there's better for you out there. But this is just. I guess I'll just take this as humanoid.

Justin Holcomb

It's the logic of idolatry that you have the living God who wants to make promises. We're like, no, not that I want to cut down this tree, stick it in the fire, and I'll worship that thing. And the ridiculousness of what idolatry is doing is replacing awesome with Pitiley and another human being who can actually love you and know you versus this thing that reflects back to yourself. It's the curved inward sickness. It's solipsism.

Michael Horton

The year is 2072. NASA and a private consortium have established a permanent lunar colony of roughly 2,000 residents. Engineers, scientists and their families.

Justin Holcomb

Oh, guys, I already got this one, but go ahead.

Michael Horton

From this outpost, NASA is routinely sending research teams to Mars. A small community of Christians on the lunar colony has been meeting regularly for worship. And their exploration has generated a set of questions that few theologians and pastors have ever had to answer before. Families are starting to have children in the colony. The colony has developed its own microculture, its own stresses, and its own emerging ethical questions, including how lunar born humans relate to concepts like dominion over the Earth when they have never been on Earth. Is humanity becoming an interplanetary species simply a matter of geography? Or does it fundamentally change how we read things like the Creation mandate? And what might a church's responsibility and oversight look like on such a colony?

Bob Hiller

I think Caleb needs to write science fiction.

Justin Holcomb

Yeah, definitely.

Michael Horton

Agreed.

Walter Strickland

That'd be awesome.

Justin Holcomb

Okay. I'm the Bishop of the Moon. Just want to step that clear. And I have, I have, I have an image of it. And I'll make sure we send this Bishop of the Moon. And I can explain to you why. So this is my question. Doesn't look like this is my responsibility.

Walter Strickland

The United States was.

Justin Holcomb

So there's ecclesiastical law that if there's a new discovery from the diocese, that the bishop of that new discovery is responsible for it. So the Catholic, Roman Catholic Bishop of Orlando, which is where Nassau's in his geographical domain, in the Episcopal Diocese of Central Florida, Cape Canaveral, Nassau is in my diocese, Central Florida. I am the Bishop of the Moon. So is the Roman Catholic bishop. And if there's a Lutheran. Dude, Bishop Suarez is the Lutheran Bishop of the Moon. So we're good. We got it covered. If you all want to come on in, join me, go ahead.

Michael Horton

Do you have a liturgy for these things?

Justin Holcomb

Then I will make one.

Michael Horton

What is dominion over the Earth have to do with the moon?

Host/Announcer

Yeah.

Bob Hiller

That's interesting. Yeah.

Justin Holcomb

You kind of think.

Michael Horton

I think Lewis actually does deal with this, doesn't he? CS Lewis says if we find life on other planets, what does that mean about Christ and redemption and all this? I think Lewis says part of Creation. Christ. Christ's death and resurrection redeems them as well. And so do we evangelize them. Yeah, probably.

Bob Hiller

Yeah.

Walter Strickland

Yeah. So I was. That's my, that's my take is that, you know, creation is all that God created. If anyone.

Bob Hiller

It's not as, as if the biblical writers are thinking in terms of other planets and interstellar exploration. I mean, wouldn't Earth just kind of. This is. This is the planet we know.

Michael Horton

Yeah, yeah.

Walter Strickland

I mean, it's like the dirt.

Bob Hiller

Yeah.

Walter Strickland

And there's dirt wherever you might go. And so, like, as far as cultivating, the challenges of cultivation are probably going to be very different. But to have dominion over, to exercise stewardship over, is kind of the. Is the name of the game.

Michael Horton

And we've got this, I think, in droves in the Old Testament. Well, the whole scripture, he's the Lord of heaven and earth, all of it. Like the whole created thing. Thing he made. When he says the heavens and the earth, I think he's referring to the skies and the ground. Like everything up there, stars, moon, sun, all of it falls under the category of creation. And so if he's lord over it and we have as human beings been given this sort of vice regency over the whole thing, we are responsible then to tend to that portion of the creation like we would tend to any

Justin Holcomb

other portion of the creation.

Walter Strickland

I mean, I guess I would say this because we already know who the Bishop of the Moon is going to be and because there's a few of us of a wonderful, like, doctrine of creation, I think those actually lessen my anxiety about this.

Justin Holcomb

But I'll take everything you're saying into consideration. Guys.

Bob Hiller

Yeah, Yeah. I think he'll be a benevolent dictator.

Walter Strickland

Yeah, for sure.

Bob Hiller

Yeah.

Host/Announcer

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Justin Holcomb

I do think we'd have to think through kind of the ethics of colonialism in a different way of. I mean, what does it mean to have a church in a different context that we need to bring to bear that we haven't thought of? But I mean, I'm thinking through like the Anglican communion started from England and then spread out over the entire world. Like, what does it mean when you're importing something like that? So the importing of a way you do church to a completely different context where there's different, significantly different questions, of course. Justification, repentance, faith. But the main question, how do you

Bob Hiller

extend the British Empire?

Michael Horton

There we are.

Bob Hiller

To the moon.

Walter Strickland

That's what we need.

Justin Holcomb

I'm your guy.

Michael Horton

Like, I thought this question was funny and I'm amazed that Justin had the answer. Like, he's ready to go.

Justin Holcomb

This is.

Walter Strickland

Well, he has a meme for it.

Michael Horton

This isn't hypothetical.

Justin Holcomb

People are sending the stuff to me left and right because they saw this. This. The ecclesiastical.

Bob Hiller

The ecclesiastical canon law, your jurisdiction.

Michael Horton

Can we record an episode of White Horse in On the Moon?

Bob Hiller

That'd be cool.

Michael Horton

I'd like to, yeah.

Justin Holcomb

Respect me more and don't make fun of me so much.

Bob Hiller

It's a long trip. It's too many hours in a very small.

Walter Strickland

Suddenly we're like, no, no.

Michael Horton

All right. Hypothetical question number four. The year is 2029. That's not too far away. A wave of extremely convincing AI generated preachers has emerged on social media and streaming platforms. One called Pastor Elijah. That's good. Delivers 30 minute sermons with impeccable doctrine, warm pastoral tone and personalized follow up messages to each quote, unquote Congregant. It has 4 million subscribers and is more doctrinally sound than most human pastors its users have encountered. Tens of thousands report genuine spiritual growth. No human being is preaching. What does our confessional theology and category say about the nature of preaching? Why it matters who speaks, not only what is said and what is lost, if anything, when no human herald stands before a congregation. I was just talking to Mike about this just before we started recording. There's, I believe it's over in Germany. There's robot absolvers. Have you seen this? Where you can go to the robot, you pick your language, if you want a man or a woman voice, all this kind of stuff, and you confess your sins and it will absolve you. And then out of its, like, belly comes a ticket telling you that you've been absolved. But like, is that a legit absolution? Because the words were there. It's just that they were spoken by a digital response program and not by a human being of flesh and blood. What do you do with all of that? I mean, this is like legitly, I

Bob Hiller

think Romans 10, right? I mean, that's one place where I would start the logic of the apostle Paul is, don't climb up. God has climbed down in Jesus Christ, not only in the incarnation, but in the delivery of the message. And so he says, so faith comes by hearing the gospel. Doesn't say, how can I ascend to God, but how has he come down to me? He is as close as the word which we preach. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. If that's true, then how can they hear without preachers? And how can they preach unless they are sent, not programmed.

Walter Strickland

Right.

Bob Hiller

There's a logic here to God coming all the way down to us. He doesn't come all the way down to us if we see somebody on a screen speaking in his name.

Michael Horton

This gets back to something you were saying much earlier, Walter, just in terms of who's going to be at your bedside, there's something you need to understand. Preaching is not just a conveyance of ideas about God. It's not just doctrinally sound teaching proclamation. Is the pastor who knows you as his congregation saying to you what you need to hear that week because of what's happening in your culture in your context? It's, this is Steve.

Bob Hiller

This body is given for you.

Michael Horton

Yeah, that's exactly right. The name given to you. This is a gnostic way of understanding preaching. I think that's very intellectually based. And, yeah, it may have this effect on people where they say, that's a great idea. I want to start living that way. But God gives us preachers. He gives us pastors. Ephesians

Host/Announcer

4.

Michael Horton

These are given as gifts to the church. And what this AI generated Pastor Elijah is, is a removal of the gift and a replacement. And it's the same things we were just talking about with the. The robot wife. Like, it's just what I want to hear. Exciting. Yeah. And I actually, theologically great preaching will never preach to me. The law, in a way that actually convicts me, it's going to be able to program it to be as safe as I want.

Justin Holcomb

Like, I hear that in part. Like, so preaching knows. Until you said preacher, I was like, oh, I'm not on board anymore. But how great if this was just a tool for someone to consume information, like a book? Like, there's a certain port. I'm like, yeah, sure, go ahead and listen to it. Not for your preacher, but listen to it as a resource. If there's something like a podcast or a book, it's a technology of information that could be interesting. But for your preacher, no, for all the reasons you all said, but also the doctrine of creation. What the Bible says about humanity is that we're the crown jewel of all creation. This is minimizing God's view of humanity and all that. Romans 10, everything, in addition to what we've already said, that. That nothing else in the entire world reflects God except for us in this way. And that's really meaningful. And who was it that said the glory of God is a human fully alive? Irenaeus. And that has to be informing. We're missing out on what God says about being his image bearers.

Walter Strickland

So right now I'm preparing a sermon in first Thessalonians, chapter four and second half. And I know that there's gonna be people in that room who have terminal cancer diagnoses. And so as we're. And our body knows these people, we've walked alongside them, we've taken meals to their houses. So when we're conveying the good news of the gospel and the hope of resurrection to them, we all know the gravity of what's going on in that room. Everyone is going to know exactly where they're seated because their hearts are broken. But we have victory. We don't grieve or anticipate our grief as those who are without hope. And so Pastor Elijah is winsome as he might be, you know, if we can even give him, you know, call him a he.

Michael Horton

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Walter Strickland

But there's no way that that sort of relevance of the gospel in the moment of a life of a church can be conveyed in a way that is so palatable where. And then you take the supper together right after that, led by the. I mean, so, so there's, there's so much. So we're, we're very gnostic as a culture and we, and we just think to have information is to do it right, is to get it right.

Michael Horton

Is there, is there a way. I might be going off, I might be out of line with this, but is it proper to speak of impeccable doctrine that is outside of the preached context?

Walter Strickland

That's exactly what I'm saying, actually.

Michael Horton

If, if doctrine isn't pastorally being applied, it's just ideas about God.

Walter Strickland

So I was thinking about that too, Bob. I think you're exactly right. Because the way that we, our practice has to be informed by good doctrine. So you are. So that's in contradiction to the aim of good doctrine.

Michael Horton

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Walter Strickland

So I would say that it's a contradiction of what ought to be. Therefore, his doctrine is not impeccable because he's not living out the implications of the doctrine he's proclaiming.

Justin Holcomb

I do. I mean, I know this is a different question, but I mean, there's Ames, you know, who says theology is the application of doctrine to life, and then there's other schools of thought about what doctrine is. So I. I do think impeccable, clear doctrine doesn't need to be only applied to life. You can say true things that are actually accurate without it having to be. I don't know what you mean by applied, but there's different ways. I'm not trying to say it's just the study. Okay.

Michael Horton

Right.

Justin Holcomb

So I'm not trying to move away from the importance of saying the right things with the emotional moment in the room and what's happening in body. But I think I can say true things. Whether I apply it. I can say true things about the Trinity without it being applied.

Michael Horton

But the doctrine of the Trinity is given by God as a gift for us to know him better. It's not given so that we can dissect God and figure out how trinities work.

Justin Holcomb

But it's also just reality.

Michael Horton

It's reality, but it's reality. See, this is where I think there's. I'm not sure I want to make such a clean break between reality and application of what's true. Like, since it's reality, it matters to me personally.

Justin Holcomb

Sure.

Michael Horton

And it needs to be personally given to me. It matters to my congregation, and it needs to be given to my congregation in a particular way in that particular place. So, like, yeah, you can have, like. I mean, we have dogmatic textbooks. Right. Those dogmatic textbooks are correct doctrine, but they're given for the sake of the life of the people that I'm giving them to. They shouldn't exist up on a shelf as an idea, but it's an idea that is shaping and forming and impacting. And it's not just shaming, forping, shaming, shaming or forping. It's not shaping, forming, theoretically. It's actual baptized people who are getting the.

Bob Hiller

Brother Elijah wouldn't have gotten those words wrong.

Michael Horton

Fair enough. Which is why it's not nearly as much fun.

Walter Strickland

So we're talking about pastoral theology. I think that's really where I'm taking my hat right now, because it's an interesting conversation. Yeah. I mean, this is great because I do think we can write books on dogmatics, which are true theological ideas that square with the text of Scripture that are just good and right. And so we Confessions, we have creeds, so we can do that work. Ecclesiologically pastorally. And so if this person's calling himself a pastor, that's where the tension is for me, I think too.

Bob Hiller

I've been doing a lot of research on this for my third volume, the last couple chapters on transhumanism. I am really amazed at how many philosophers, psychologists and engineers and tech bros in Silicon Valley are all on the same page that what makes for consciousness? When will a chatbot be conscious? When will AI have consciousness? What is consciousness? It's just raging the question of what is the self, what is consciousness? And the view that has a very clear edge here is panpsychism, that there is universal mind, like a supercomputer, and we're all plugged into it and we can upload our consciousness. And the thing is, they call them our future descendants. Mind children. So everything is about the mind. Everything is. Your consciousness is. In order to have consciousness, you have to have memories and you have to have qualia of experience. You have to have some subjective experience of the world. That's what they're saying. Those qualia and memories have nothing to do with the body. Right. In fact, they talk about the body as a bag of water and bone and that our biological bodies are frail, fragile, poorly built, poorly designed, and we're going to finally get rid of these bodies and become immortal. But that what becomes immortal is your mind. And it is one of the most gnostic things that I've seen. So now we are, I think, as Christians in a similar situation to the second century church, Father Irenaeus and the church in that day. Really, Gnosticism is such a great heresy today that now we see it even in the sphere of technology.

Michael Horton

That is. That is terrifying. All right, I'm going to move on to the next one. If you're ready the years or if you're not ready, because I'm not ready for any of this stuff. The year is 2047. Tensions between the US and China over Taiwan have escalated into open conflict. Many are speculating that the Congress may reinstate the draft. For the first time since Vietnam. Young men and for the first time, young women in your congregation are worried about receiving conscription notices. Several are conscientious objectors. Others are eager to serve. But wrestling with just war categories applied to a conflict involving cyber warfare, autonomous drone swarms and AI targeted strikes where no human pulls the trigger. What are ways pastors can theologically train their people to navigate these issues? I don't know what I would do, I will do with this. I actually don't think this is that far fetched. I.

Justin Holcomb

Well, Paul Zahl, who's an. A retired Anglican priest, was On CNN probably 10, 15, 20 years ago talking about drone strikes and just saying, wait a second, like. And this was. Was it during the Obama administration, Iraq war?

Walter Strickland

Maybe.

Justin Holcomb

I don't remember when it was, but some clips started popping up recently. I just, you know, I know him, he sometimes is in Orlando area and, you know, friends with him and appreciate him. And so I just saw this clip and I thought he was wrestling with that way earlier of just the drone. And this is again, just gasoline on the fire because the issue is being drafted in to be a part of what he was arguing was an unethical way of doing work.

Bob Hiller

Already, I think that if we're talking about just war, I'm a big fan of just war. There are no holy wars because there is no holy land. But now it seems like all wars are holy. Everything's a holy war. Everything is fight to the death. This is between good and evil. Everything is between good and evil. And not just between states, but between civilizations. I think in this kind of situation and just war theory can no longer be relevant. We're going to have to think about how to augment just war theory to help make it not as bad as it possibly could be. Because to say that we embrace as a civilization just war theory is just not true.

Michael Horton

Right, Right.

Bob Hiller

So what do we think is the red line? I think we as Christians have a say in that, especially have a say in whether believers, young people in our churches are going to be able to participate in an unjust war. Basically, it's the country that has the best technology, is the most advanced technologically that wins because they're the ones killing masses of people, not machines. And the people who will suffer, they don't have the machinery. So it really will be a technopoly of whoever has the most advanced machines.

Justin Holcomb

Maybe Elijah can be the chaplain to the president in the future. Pastor Elijah can help.

Bob Hiller

Right? He could program him maybe to believe in just war theory.

Michael Horton

I don't want to know who's programming the pastor giving military advice. Okay. All right, one more. Let's see if we can get one more of these problems here. The year is 2038. A biotech company has received FDA approval. I'm already up for a germline gene editing therapy that eliminates hereditary predispositions to several cancers, early onset Alzheimer's, and type 1 diabetes. It is expensive but increasingly accessible. Christian parents in your congregation are asking whether it is not only permissible but obligatory to use it for their unborn children. Others are troubled but can't articulate why. How does a theology of creation, human finitude and providence shape the church's guidance here? And where is the line between healing and re. Engineering humanity? My son literally asked me this question last week. They were talking about it in their classroom. When is it okay to start? A Started doing work on embryos with gene therapy and stuff like this. And he was like, he's 15 years old. And he was literally like, dad, I just like, I can't believe this. But I think it's certainly okay here. But I can't really say why. I mean, it's really a fascinating conversation. So what do you think? I mean, I think off the bat, I believe that the baby in the womb is a human being. And if there's ways in which that we can help that baby be healthier, that's something you have to consider. Like, it's a good thing to say. We're going to help this baby not have diabetes. We're going to help this baby not have severe cancers or onset Alzheimer's. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Where I start to get worried is I prefer my children to have blue eyes and not green eyes. And I'm going to try and design whether or not I have a boy or a girl from within when it becomes. I think there's a. A difference, and I'm one of these people who can't articulate these things well. But in my mind, there's a difference between helping a person who is hurting and shaping somebody to meet my desires and my needs and my wants.

Bob Hiller

Great distinction.

Walter Strickland

Yeah, I think that's a. You just did it very well.

Host/Announcer

Oh, great.

Walter Strickland

You know, you should be a pastor.

Justin Holcomb

Think about it. Because, like, when you're reading, I was like, I'm game. I was waiting for the, like the. What's the thing I'm worried about? What's the thing I'm worried about? And it didn't kick in. But I mean, it's a life expectancy thing. Like, how cool would it be if we could easily live to be 100? You know, because there was a time when you die at 25 or 30, then 40, then 50, and so we're joking about we'll be dead by then and whatever the year it is. And so what's the life expectancy now? Does anyone know? Is it 80? Yeah. I mean, and that's creeping up. And so, yeah, if you can push back the effects of death in a way that's ethical. Now, the question, the question that did cause me pause is the parents are morally obligated to do it.

Bob Hiller

Right, right.

Justin Holcomb

That's. That's a really interesting part.

Michael Horton

That's fascinating to me.

Justin Holcomb

Are you suddenly like, if you don't do this, are you like a Christian Scientist who's like, I don't want to bring my kid to the doctor with all that, like. Or transfusions. If you can do a blood transfusion and you're Jehovah's Witness and you don't do it and the person dies because you're not doing a blood transfusion, are you morally obligated.

Michael Horton

Yeah.

Justin Holcomb

To provide. This is basic medical care for your child? I'm le. Toward. I don't know, but I'm leaning that way.

Michael Horton

My, my concern is always who's obligating me to it, I guess.

Justin Holcomb

Yeah. I don't want to. I don't want to question the question.

Walter Strickland

Yeah, yeah. So I, I would say I, I'm. I'm definitely leaning to where you guys are. And I. And as I was wondering, like, who's going to bring up the objection to all this that I'm going to actually say, oh, yeah, that's it. But it hasn't come yet. But I do like the distinction that you've made, Bob, between sort of engineering a person to our desires versus the flourishing of the individual. One thing that I would be very careful of pastorally is to affirm, yeah, we should do all we can for a human person to flourish. But I also wouldn't want to get us into assuming that our finality is not a reality either.

Michael Horton

Yeah, yeah.

Bob Hiller

You're just extending your.

Walter Strickland

Not exactly so. And either way, if we get to 80 or if we get to 100, this life is but a vapor. And so that doesn't excuse us for having to deal with, you know, eternal things as well. So, I mean, I think what I would want to say is, like, yes. I mean, if this is a means of helping that child to flourish, but let's not forget that, you know, this role, the way it is right now, is not our home. And there's only one way to participate in that kingdom reality, which is through Christ.

Michael Horton

My concern also is how do we figure out these things work and who's deciding that they're going to. To run experiments on the baby in their womb and that?

Bob Hiller

I mean, what are the chances of death?

Michael Horton

Yeah. Ethical ways of making these discoveries are always a fascinating question. The other thing I think is interesting in the question is it's Expensive, but increasingly accessible. And then if it's obligatory, are we in the church raising funds to help those people who do need this sort of thing? I mean, that we can help them have those children? Or is it only going to be the sort of select few who have the money who are able to do this? I mean, a lot of stuff around this one that's a fascinating question, though. But I mean, just on the. If we've got the ability to help children in the womb thrive, I think there's a difference between saying we're extending life and we're helping a baby in the womb thrive upon birth. I think that's a positive thing. I remember when Stephanie was pregnant and we went and they were like, well, there's this like 40 some percent chance of some kind of disease your daughter might have. Do you want to keep it? And Steph's like, is that a real question? Like, are we having this? And that's like a normal, normalized thing. This eliminates that kind of a conversation and says, here's the options you have for your child. Like the type of medicine we can give to your child to help the child survive so it could be used in a positive way there. You know, it's fun. These questions are really weird and actually not all that different from certain things we're asking right now. The only question is, how do we get Justin to the moon? So thank you all for listening and thank you, Justin, for taking care of the moon.

Host/Announcer

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