Super Bowl, AI, Jesus, and more

I don’t know if any of this has any connection. It’s more of an observation of current things than anything else.

The Super Bowl is this Sunday. It’s the American Civil Religion’s High Holy Day event of the year. It’s easy to pick on of course, from a theological perspective. There will be plenty patriotism on display for some reason which really has nothing to do with the game. There’s lots of money on display too. So much money invested in one game because so many eye balls will be watching. There’s lots of money to be made of course off of the game. America’s quiet idol, money, is always lurking about for such things. But we don’t like to talk about idols of course.

This year there’s talk about a “Christian” commercial — something about Jesus being like us. Some ridiculous amount of money spent on ads. I’ve seen articles on how your church can benefit off the ad and prepare for the response from the ad. I’ve seen articles debating the ad. No offense, but really? Super Bowl ads are not inexpensive. I can imagine how that money could have been used to just be Christ-like and shown how Jesus is actually just like us — you know, feeding people, caring about people, housing people, etc. We didn’t need an ad to talk about it. And ad that will be forgotten by Monday, or Tuesday at best.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is on the rise and people are asking — what kind of impact it will have on churches. Good question. Will it replace pastors? Will it replace sermons? Will churches change?