Something's Coming

When it comes to pondering the pace of technological advancement, I like to look at an example from my own family. My grandfather was the first person in my family to ever fly in an airplane. When he did that, he was training to be the pilot. When he was born, his family owned a Model-T pick-up. His death came just months before the sales of the first iPhone. The house he was born in had a party-line telephone. By the time he was in the nursing home, the first fibre optic lines were being laid for commercial use. 

My grandfather was one of the people in my life who I believe was the living example of what has been called, “the Protestant Work Ethic.” That idea that when you work, you are working for God, and that God is pleased with your hard work. I remember the way it was taught to me in church, and its influence has often caused me to identify myself with what I do for a living. “I am a pastor/preacher,” as opposed to anything else. We hear it in the sermons of pastors from all over the theological spectrum. Even Joel Osteen’s prosperity Gospel has obligatory homages to the idea of a strong, Christian work ethic.

Unfortunately, something is coming, and it’s not good.

Back at the end of March, I came across an article that talked about the coming AI (Artificial Intelligence) revolution. The article focused on the response of certain members of the government to the coming breakthroughs and their plans for how to respond. According to the article, the response was not great. What struck me while reading the article, however, is how “not ready” the Church is to the same change in the fortunes of its members. While the Church in America never had a really good answer to the changing fortunes of regular people as they lost their jobs, we at least found someone to blame them on. They were shipped overseas. Of course that is what happened, because there was even a short-lived sitcom about it called, “Outsourced.”

Unfortunately, that’s not where the majority of the jobs went. It turns out that most of the jobs that people lost in manufacturing weren’t sent abroad for cheap labor. Instead, the company had a robot built who could do the job faster and for less money than a person could. In the end, technology took away the jobs of working-class people, not low-wage labor in foreign countries. The Church has not really handled this well, and has not offered those without jobs a new way too see their world. Instead, we talk about “bringing back” jobs that never left. I remember speaking with my family about how so-and-so was going “bring back our jobs.” What’s funny… no one in my family ever worked those jobs, and they never left. 

When the AI revolution hits, it’s going to get worse, and what will we say then? 

Will we just push the same Protestant Work Ethic?

Maybe the church should find a new way to talk about how we find our worth as human beings. For too long, we have said that the value of an individual is found in what they produce. Sure it is rewarding to create something and work with your own hands, but our value as beings created in the image of God is not predicated on what clock we punch, or the salary we take home. The day is coming when more jobs will be lost to technology, and those jobs aren’t going to come back, no matter who you vote for. Simply, they will cease to exist, just as previous manufacturing jobs cease to exist. When that happens, the Church needs to have an answer. 

For much of my time in ministry, there have been different discussions focusing on the idea of relevance. In fact, there is an entire Christian magazine devoted to that discussion. How can the Church be relevant when the thing people believe gives their lives meaning is simply gone? While we have made nods toward meaning found in our lives with God, we move in a milieu where true meaning is found in economic terms. 

But I don’t remember Jesus saying, “Blessed are the industrialists.

Or, “Blessed are the pipe-fitters.”

Or, “Blessed are the employed.”