I bumped into a friend at Waterstones the other day. My friend had just bought a book and was still recovering from reading the very first line in the preface: ‘This book has been written entirely by a human being without any help of Artificial Intelligence’. We both briefly reflected on the state of the world we live in, in which such disclaimers are now apparently necessary, and each of us went on our way, but I carried on thinking about how far the use of AI has infiltrated our language and communication.
Do you remember the recent embarrassment of Bill Oliver, a Canadian politician, who read out a public speech that was supposed to be his own, but forgot to edit out the prompts and editing instructions left in it by the AI that had actually written it? Someone else has recently told me how they’d met a member of the clergy who cheerfully confessed to having their sermons written entirely by AI. Apparently it writes better sermons! And it may even be true, but I have resisted trying it so far, for the reasons I will explain shortly. When I opened a new ‘Word’ document to start writing this one, Copilot, the Microsoft AI assistant that is now built into the software, instantly asked me to describe what I would like it to write for me, so the temptation is there with every blank sheet! The same assistant, by the way, keeps trying to convince me that a 10-page PDF document is a long read and offering to summarise it.
Just to be clear, I am not saying all this is by definition bad, and please do tell me if you use AI, especially if you are having a good experience with it! But these things just make me wonder about the value of the words we use – things we read, write and say. If anything, AI has better grammar than a lot of us, because we no longer necessarily think to check our ‘should haves’, ‘definitelys’, apostrophes and other things. And the more we are exposed to carelessness towards our language, the more careless we are with our own words. For example, the things that people say to each other online are often truly shocking. For a while, there was this unspoken understanding that this only happens online because there are no consequences, but no one would dare to do the same in person. Mike Tyson has apparently said, ‘Social media made you all way too comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it.’ How true! Except disrespectful and abusive language is now creeping into the real public spaces too. Then there is populism in politics and words being thrown about to make a sound but not to mean anything, but I am not even going to get started on this. What I am trying to say, in a rather ranty way, is that we don’t seem to have much value or respect for our words anymore. We delegate writing our own words to AI and trust it to read the words of others for us, we use words lightly and carelessly and are rarely concerned with whether they are even used properly and correctly. And yet, throughout this massive cultural shift in our attitude to language, words have retained the same power they have always had. ‘Words kill, words give life; they’re either poison or fruit – you choose’ – this is what the book of Proverbs says and this is still true today. What has changed is we have taken these mighty instruments and decided to use them as if they were toys.
Luckily, to remind us of the power of the word, we have our Bible readings today. The passage from Nehemiah is set at the time when Jerusalem was rebuilt following the Israelites’ return from exile in Babylon. The law of Moses is read out by the Water Gate, in a public place, instead of the Temple, as was customary. Moreover, the book is read to all who could understand, including women and presumably children who were old enough, which, again, was not customary – it would normally only be read in the presence of men. The effect this reading and its interpretation has on people is overwhelming: they first start weeping and then rejoice at having heard and understood the word of God. Words, the same words you and I read in the first five books of the Bible are powerful enough to bring such emotions! This should not surprise us though, because for centuries, the Bible and the words taken from it have been powerful enough not only to cause emotions but to save and destroy lives. For example, back in the 18th century, many of those who defended slavery and those who campaigned to abolish it used the very same Bible to defend their arguments, and both had plenty to say. Women have been both diminished and empowered through the words of the Bible. Many Christians are guilty of using Biblical passages almost like a whip, pulling words out of context and using them to lash their opponents. And the reason they do this is because they know the word is powerful enough to really hurt. In many such cases, the question whether the Bible should be used in order to hurt others, sadly, is rather secondary. The bottom line is, the words contained in the Bible are truly mighty, and the pinnacle of their power is the words that Jesus speaks, the words that are quoted and repeated by many who have never even read the Bible and don’t have much time for Christ. Their power transcends the limits of the book they are written in; as Jesus says in the Gospel reading, ‘my words will never pass away’. The whole creation can collapse but the words spoken by Christ will still ring in the silence of the empty universe – such is their power.
And yet, Jesus does not speak some alien dialect no one understands; He uses the same words his contemporaries used so they could easily understand when He spoke – the same words we use today, be it in a different language. The power, it seems, is in every ordinary word, where it is dormant until it is revealed in a speech or a text inspired by… By what? What we say can be inspired by love and then it will be restorative and life-giving. Or it can be inspired by hatred and instead burn and destroy. It can be inspired by indifference and will do a lot of damage by its sheer carelessness. The choice, as Proverbs 18 says, is ours. Power is an intrinsic aspect of language and is not going anywhere if we disregard it and pretend it is not there, like we have been doing. Verbal abuse, laziness in writing and populist speeches distort and misdirect the power that could have been used for good.
Jesus shows us how this same power can change the world for better. ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’, ‘Father, forgive them’, ‘seek and you shall find’, ‘do to others what you would have them do to you’, ‘I am the resurrection and the life’. These words once uttered by him are life-changing and life-giving. And once he spoke, there were others who walked in his footsteps and understood the revolutionary power of the word: ‘Lord, our hearts are restless until they rest in you’, ‘All shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well’, ‘I have a dream’! The power of these words endures because of what inspired them: love, faith and hope.
On this Bible Sunday, we are reminded of the power of the word and our responsibility to use our words well. Archbishop Cranmer in today’s collect tells us that one word of God can give us hope for eternal life. Jesus shows us that words endure. However we use our words, let us remember what they can do. Whenever we listen to others using theirs, let us be attentive to what they are trying to do. But above all, let us always be mindful of what inspires the words in and around us and what releases their power: is it goodness? Is it Christ? Is it love? Or is it anything else? Amen.
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