Megachurches and Authoritarianism

So here's a completely non-controversial take:

Megachurches have primed Christian America for authoritarian rule, and have contributed to the collapse of republican virtues.

My church is very much not a megachurch.  We're a little community church, and thriving as a small church pastor requires letting go of the idea that you have more authority than your lay leadership.  Formal authority is meaningless in the little church.  What matters is care, relationship, and a willingness to be discipled by the Christians around you...and that includes pastors actually listening to and learning from the gifts and witnesses of their co-workers in Christ.

My church is also Presbyterian.  Being Presbyterian means a bunch of different things, but on a practical and functional level, it means that the beating heart of the church is lay leadership.  The Elders who are elected into leadership of a Presbyterian congregation make that church what it is.  My task, as a pastor and Presbyterian Teaching Elder, is to proclaim the Word, administer sacraments, and support my fellow Elders as they guide the church.  I am, to use the small "c" catholic ideal for the soul in the formal position of leadership, a servus servorum dei -- a servant of the servants of God.

I ain't the one in charge. That's not to say my role isn't important to the well-being of the congregation.  But I am not the "unitary executive" of my congregation.   

That has always been the Presbyterian vision.  It was so fiercely a part of Presbyterian identity that it was a potent source of radically antimonarchist sentiment.  Presbyterians, back when we were a significant force in American life, were always the foes of kings and tyrants, those who would deny power to the people and claim it all for themselves.

There's a reason the American Revolution was called "The Presbyterian Rebellion" by the supporters of King George.  For Presbyterian pastors who forget this truth, and imagine they can rule their churches like a king or a CEO, well, you're gonna get reminded of that real danged quick. 

But the Presbyterian age is waning.  

Our numbers are in decline, and not just in my withering branch of the tradition.  Taken as a whole, the Presbyterian tide has ebbed in America.  Taken all together, liberal and conservative flavors combined, we are less than half of the four million total souls who considered themselves Presbyterian at the midpoint of the last century.  

In our place have risen nondenominational corporate churches, ones where the pastor is conceptualized a a CEO.  Those leaders are explicitly entrepreneurial, and they quickly become the central focus of the life and the mission of their churches.  They are the face of the brand, so to speak, and the final authority on all things.

Many of these corporate-scale churches do the good work that their size enables, and many of those pastors work hard to maintain a humble servant heart.

But.

But many do not, and following the Face on the Jumbotron can become profoundly dangerous to the soul of the church.  Driven by the More is More ethic, Pastors devolve into celebrity influencers, chasing more and more followers and more and more influence.  They become the sole authority, the whole power, and the source of all truth.  Congregants in such gatherings can become pastor-focused, not Christ focused, trapped in a parasocial relationship with a single charismatic authority.

This cultic enthrallment is dangerous for personal discipleship, and is just as dangerous for the spiritual integrity of the Pastor in the High Pulpit.  As Karl Vaters put it in his excellent DESIZING THE CHURCH,

You cannot build your brand and develop your spiritual maturity at the same time.  They are heading in different directions.  That doesn't mean you can't promote your church, an event, or a ministry.  But promoting ministry for the betterment of others is very different from promoting your identity for the glorification of self.  (DESIZING, p. 84)

From that, it's not hard to see how this now dominant model of church life has impacted the political predilections of American Christians.  We have been trained to see authority as vested in a single figure, one who is centered as the source of all authority.   

And just as the power of bishops and cardinals once affirmed the divine right of kings, so now the power of the CEO pastor and the Christian celebrity influencer "blesses" a new breed of authoritarian. 

With that expectation reinforced from the heart of a politically compromised faith, the people cry for a king, and AmeriChrist, Inc. is all too happy to oblige.

Don't Replace the Creatives. Replace the CEOs.

What do you talk with AI about?  I talk with AI about how it could most effectively replace the global elite. 

All of that money, all of that resource, all wasted on a parasitic class of yacht-capitalists who add no value.  Replace them with machines.  All of them.  The machines would do a better job, and do it for nothing.

Here's a sample:

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BelovedSpear
In our last conversation, I asked for a review of ways generative or general AI could be utilized in the role of CEO of a corporation. One of your replies suggested that AI was limited by its knowledge base, and could not thus anticipate new circumstances. Anticipating probabilities, in a Bayesian sense, requires a deep engagement with all relevant priors. Given that LLMs and GPTs can have access to knowledge significantly exceeding the capacity of any one human being, and could thus have a greater predictive capacity, I question that premise. Can you elucidate?

ChatGPT
Certainly! While it's true that large language models (LLMs) and GPTs can access a vast amount of information, their knowledge is based on pre-existing data up to their last training cut-off. They don't have real-time awareness or updates on events that occurred after that point. This limitation can impact their ability to anticipate new or rapidly changing circumstances.

Bayesian reasoning involves updating probabilities based on new evidence or information. While LLMs can make use of contextual information and infer relationships within their training data, they lack the ability to incorporate real-time data or understand events that have occurred since their last training session. This makes them less effective in situations where up-to-date, context-specific knowledge is crucial for accurate predictions.

Additionally, the quality of predictions depends on the nature of the task. LLMs might excel in tasks that require language understanding and generation, but their predictive capacity is constrained by the nature of their training data and the inability to dynamically adapt to new scenarios.

In summary, while LLMs have access to a vast amount of knowledge, their predictive capacity is limited by the static nature of their training data and the lack of real-time updates, making them less effective in anticipating new circumstances compared to human intuition that can quickly adapt to changing situations.

BelovedSpear
So, to your response, the failing isn't inherent to LLMs or GPTs, but in the limitation of the dataset. By extension, a LLM or GPT that was not constrained by a time delimited dataset and had access to real-time updates would have vastly improved predictive capacity, and could potentially serve more effectively in that capacity.

ChatGPT
Yes, that's a correct interpretation. The limitations in predictive capacity are not inherent to LLMs or GPTs themselves but are primarily related to the nature of their training data and the lack of real-time updates. If an LLM or GPT had access to a continuously updated and comprehensive dataset that included real-time information, its predictive capacity could indeed be significantly enhanced.

In such a scenario, the model would be better equipped to anticipate new circumstances and adapt to changing situations, making it potentially more effective in roles that require dynamic decision-making, such as that of a CEO navigating a rapidly evolving business environment. Continuous learning and access to up-to-date information would be key factors in improving the model's ability to make accurate predictions.

BelovedSpear
Thanks so much for your insights! Should I share this information with the Board of OpenAI? ;0)

ChatGPT
You're welcome! While I don't have a direct line to the Board of OpenAI, sharing insights and perspectives can be valuable in any organization. If you have thoughts or feedback, it might be worthwhile to communicate them through appropriate channels, whether that's through OpenAI's official communication channels, forums, or other established means. It's always good to contribute to discussions and provide input to help shape the future development and understanding of AI technologies.