New feature: Sermon Assistant
Sermon Assistant is an AI-powered tool that helps preachers overcome creative block and makes it easier to create materials to help the congregation better engage with the message. There are two parts to Sermon Assistant.
The Illustrations Generator suggests several short sermon illustrations you can use to explain doctrinal or other concepts. The illustrations aren’t intended simply to be copied and pasted into your sermon but rather to help overcome creative block by stimulating fresh ideas.
The Discussion Questions Generator takes a completed sermon and creates a series of discussion questions based on the sermon that could be used in a church bulletin or small group study. The questions could help ensure the hearers understand the sermon's message and theology, or they could help them apply the sermon to their own situations. Pastors have told us that writing appropriate questions could take them 30 minutes or longer – now, it can be done in just a few seconds!
Sermon Assistant is available to some users today via our early access to Logos Pro subscription. It will be more widely available later in the year. It's available on desktop, web, and iPad.
For more information about the Sermon Assistant, visit our support page.
Comments
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I subscribed earlier today and have started using the sermon assistant. So far the illustrations it provides is too brief to catch people's attention. ALso, when I click, "More Results," the new results are blank.
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Shefelton, Marc Edward said:
I subscribed earlier today and have started using the sermon assistant. So far the illustrations it provides is too brief to catch people's attention. ALso, when I click, "More Results," the new results are blank.
did you read this carefully- The Illustrations Generator suggests several short sermon illustrations you can use to explain doctrinal or other concepts. The illustrations aren’t intended simply to be copied and pasted into your sermon but rather to help overcome creative block by stimulating fresh ideas.
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Shefelton, Marc Edward said:
I subscribed earlier today and have started using the sermon assistant. So far the illustrations it provides is too brief to catch people's attention. ALso, when I click, "More Results," the new results are blank.
I share that view. The AI-created (?) illustrations have only a few sentences and are therefore not to be used for a sermon. It lacks depth.
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I tried the questions generated by the AI twice in a row for the same sermon - and got an error message.
Unfortunately, something went wrong. Please try again later.
The third attempt yields a result, but I am not satisfied: often the questions are closed questions and therefore does not help for discussion, e.g.
Do you find it difficult to humbly accept the sovereignty of God?
Do you find it difficult to share the burden of your life with Jesus and obey him in everything?
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On mobile, one needs to be able to scroll. Currently this seems to be missing.
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The questions generated by Gemini are looking really good. I asked it to give me discussion questions on a Piper sermon and got the following.
Discussion Questions for "A Final Prayer" by John Piper
Focus on the Sermon's Structure:
- How does the structure of the sermon, with its shift from speaking about God to speaking to God, affect the message?
- Why do you think Piper felt the need to explain his decision to pray throughout the sermon?
Content and Theology:
- What are the main points Piper emphasizes about the person and work of Jesus Christ?
- How does Piper define "penal substitution" and why is it important to him?
- What are some of the benefits of salvation that Piper encourages the congregation to embrace?
Reflection and Application:
- How does this sermon challenge listeners to consider their own faith and relationship with God?
- What is the call to action at the end of the sermon?
- How might this sermon be relevant to people who are not familiar with Christian beliefs?
Additional Discussion Prompts:
- Some people might find the focus on sin and condemnation to be off-putting. How would you respond to that perspective?
- Piper mentions his daughter's concerns about the format of the sermon. What are your thoughts on the effectiveness of prayer as the main element of a sermon?
- How can Christians share their faith with others in a way that is both passionate and respectful?
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Mark Barnes (Logos) said:
Sermon Assistant is an AI-powered tool that helps preachers overcome creative block and makes it easier to create materials to help the congregation better engage with the message. There are two parts to Sermon Assistant.
I've been imagining how Logos was going to incorporate AI into the software. I thought the behavior would be like having a local ChatGPT, using the library and responding with that devilish naturalness (literally:). It seems to me that what they offer is very little. And is it by subscription? I did a brief test:
ChatGPT 3.5 Prompt: How does the story of Jesus cleansing the temple challenge our understanding of the nature of God and His presence?
Response from ChatGPT
The story of Jesus cleansing the temple challenges our understanding of the nature of God and His presence in several ways. This incident is recorded in the Gospels, such as in Matthew 21:12-13, Mark 11:15-17, and John 2:13-17. Respuesta de chat gpt
1. **Holiness and Righteous Indignation:**
Jesus' actions in cleansing the temple demonstrate a righteous indignation against practices that were inconsistent with the holiness of God's house. The temple was meant to be a place of worship, prayer, and reverence for God. Jesus, by cleansing it, emphasizes the importance of maintaining the sacredness and purity associated with God's presence.2. **Challenge to Ritualistic Practices:**
The incident challenges a purely ritualistic understanding of God's presence. Jesus critiques practices that reduced worship to mere external rituals without a genuine connection to God. His actions highlight the need for sincerity and a true heart of worship rather than just conforming to external religious customs.3. **Accessible Relationship with God:**
By cleansing the temple, Jesus emphasizes the concept that God's presence is not confined to a physical location or a ritualistic system. Instead, He points towards a more personal and accessible relationship with God. This challenges the notion that God's presence is limited to specific sacred spaces and rituals.4. **Prophetic Role of Jesus:**
Jesus' actions in the temple align with the prophetic tradition in the Old Testament, where prophets often challenged religious practices that had deviated from God's original intentions. In this way, Jesus, as the incarnate Son of God, challenges the status quo and calls for a return to the true essence of worship.5. **Focus on Mercy and Justice:**
Jesus' cleansing of the temple underscores the importance of mercy and justice in God's nature. The sellers and money changers were exploiting worshippers, turning a place of prayer into a marketplace. Jesus' actions emphasize the need for justice, fairness, and compassion in the worship of God.In summary, the story of Jesus cleansing the temple challenges us to rethink our understanding of God's nature by highlighting the importance of genuine worship, the accessibility of God's presence, and the alignment of our practices with principles of justice, mercy, and holiness.
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EDUARDO JIMENEZ said:
I've been imagining how Logos was going to incorporate AI into the software. I thought the behavior would be like having a local ChatGPT, using the library and responding with that devilish naturalness (literally:). It seems to me that what they offer is very little. And is it by subscription? I did a brief test:
ChatGPT 3.5 Prompt: How does the story of Jesus cleansing the temple challenge our understanding of the nature of God and His presence?
This example is probably more directly related to Smart Search as opposed to the Sermon Assistant
And, using your query there, it does return some interesting suggestions for articles to explore. And this demonstrates one of the differences I see between the approach Logos is taking and how a chatbot would function. Logos is seeking to identify articles in your resources (or in the case of the All Search, their entire catalogue whether you own the books or not) that discuss the question raised in the search string.
So it isn't trying to come up with its own answer to questions but to point to articles that discuss it
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Graham Criddle said:
This example is probably more directly related to Smart Search as opposed to the Sermon Assistant
All I did was to take Mark's question and ask Chatgpt directly and compare the results with what Mark got in his example. It seems to me that the answer I got from Chat has more content than Mark's example. Smart Search or Sermont Assistant, I don't think the term is that important.
Many programs have supposedly integrated AI into their systems, but in reality there is no such integration. You don't get more than what you get by making promts directly to ChatGPT.
In my opinion the most useful thing would be to apply AI to Logos searches, restricted to each Lgos user's libraries (and suggested resources in their store), without having to resort to extensive and complex search constructs using braces, brackets, parentheses, *, /, @, etc.
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I’m afraid I’m missing something
EDUARDO JIMENEZ said:All I did was to take Mark's question and ask Chatgpt directly and compare the results with what Mark got in his example.
I think Mark’s screenshot is showing an AI-generated question from a sermon, not showing the results of asking the question
EDUARDO JIMENEZ said:In my opinion the most useful thing would be to apply AI to Logos searches, restricted to each Lgos user's libraries (and suggested resources in their store), without having to resort to extensive and complex search constructs using braces, brackets, parentheses, *, /, @, etc.
And this is what Logos are trying to do in their All and Book Smart Searches
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Feedback
I copied Galatians 1:6–10 as plain text into a sermon. Then I generated Questions based on Galatians 1:6–10. I copied the questions and asked ChatGPT if there were any duplicates, no duplicates. Then I asked it to arrange the questions semantically. It gave a result resembling an outline as follows:
This could be a very usefull addition to the Sermon Assitant. It not only provides questions but serves as a guide to investigate the Biblical Text according to a defined Study Plan. If this kind of AI features are implemented I will be hooked on a subscription.
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EDUARDO JIMENEZ said:
Many programs have supposedly integrated AI into their systems, but in reality there is no such integration. You don't get more than what you get by making prompts directly to ChatGPT.
Integration of AI can't the compared to prompts into a chat bot. AI is much more than the large language model of a chat bot. In the case of Logos search, AI is used to prioritize the results so that the most meaningful results appear first. It is not based on number of matches, frequency in context, etc. as in a normal search but rather is based on the "meaning of the text" as determined by AI.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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I am loving the boost of AI in illustrations. I even find that it can appropriately quote scripture to back a point which is great. Is there a way to "teach" the AI to use my preferred Bible version when doing so?
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Pastor Don Carpenter said:
Is there a way to "teach" the AI to use my preferred Bible version when doing so?
Not for the user at this point, but it is well worth asking Logos to do so.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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I have a workflow I'm comfortable with using Microsoft Word as my primary sermon editor, so I don't use Sermon Builder. It would be great to be able to access these features outside of the Sermon Builder. Maybe separate Sermon Assistant from Sermon Builder? Or provide access that is not fully integrated into Sermon Builder?
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The change to the way the Sermon Assistant generates questions (in Logos Bible Study 33.0 Beta 3, 33.0.346) has eliminated its usefulness to me. Before, it would generate questions based on the sermon text; now it just gives boilerplate responses to what I type in the idea box.
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Gregory Lawhorn said:
The change to the way the Sermon Assistant generates questions (in Logos Bible Study 33.0 Beta 3, 33.0.346) has eliminated its usefulness to me. Before, it would generate questions based on the sermon text; now it just gives boilerplate responses to what I type in the idea box.
Gregory, I hope my clarification in your other thread helps.
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The AI feature is a valuable addition to Logos and serves a useful purpose. One area that could be improved is the text length limitation in the AI summary, which renders the tool less effective for topics with longer texts. Having the option for the AI to summarize only selected text instead of the entire section would greatly enhance its usability.
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When prompted to generate illustrations in Spanish the results come back in English.
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I'm really excited where this tool and the implementation of AI into Logos could go. I'm a youth minister. I love that "youth" is a selectable audience for discussion questions. Is there a way to generate discussion questions solely from a selected bible text (or any resource, really) outside of a sermon document? Even if it's only aggregating my own library's resources of available questions.
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I was brought to this forum when I clicked "Feedback" on the Sermon Assist feature. Here are my thoughts and questions...
- Questions ... so far, this is the best of the three Sermon Assist AI features. If I were using the Sunday sermon as material for a small group study later in the week, this would be a tremendous help. It's amazing how well it analyzes the content of the sermon and generates good questions.
- Illustrations ... I feel these are average at best. I was hoping (1) that just as the AI search analyzes your books and gives results, this feature could utilize the "sermon illustration" books in our library to provide illustrations so that it would function more like the "Quotes" feature and provide actual illustrations from our library. If it fails to find any, then it could generate some ideas. (2) Also, it would be nice to have the option to highlight a section of the sermon or use the entire sermon as the "Questions" feature does and have it suggest illustrations without typing in a prompt.
- Application ... This is a good start, and I hope it is developed further. I noticed that currently, when you check the various applications, it's pretty much the same content other than the location "in the workplace, at home, at church, at school, etc." Again, allow it to analyze the entire sermon like the Questions section, and instead of generating questions, have it generate applications or action points.
Thank you for the work that's been done so far, and I look forward to future enhancements.
Chris H.
0 - Questions ... so far, this is the best of the three Sermon Assist AI features. If I were using the Sunday sermon as material for a small group study later in the week, this would be a tremendous help. It's amazing how well it analyzes the content of the sermon and generates good questions.
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Has the questions feature been disabled? Or is there something wrong with mine? Right now it only shows the "new" outlines feature, and the applications.
I was rather enjoying the questions generated as starters towards turning them into better questions.
Sarcasm is my love language. Obviously I love you. 0 -
On the sermon assistant it would be real good if I could highlight a certain part the text that I want assistance with and get results just from that section if that is what I need at at that time.
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Just a comment on the audience and theme selections options. It would be more obvious which choices I have made were the check mark itself toggled on or off. The background colour behind the selected text is too faint to be stand out to me.
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I agree with you Ian
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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This seems to be the only extant thread in the Forums, started by a Faithlife employee, that is for feedback about the functioning of the new Logos Pro AI features ... it's nominally about Assistant. We need similar threads for each of the new AI features ... Search and Sidebar Summaries, in addition to Sermon Assistant. I posted elsewhere, under Suggestions, that we really need a new CATEGORY for "AI Features".
Anyways ... while doing some testing with Pro this morning, I decided to see if I could get either the Search or the Assistant to correctly identify the three places in Acts where Peter was present to witness the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on three incremental people-groups (2:38 Jews, 8:17 Samaritans, and 10:44 Gentiles ... the completed "use" of the Keys of the Kingdom, btw).
I was totally unsuccessful. I tried several variants of:"When was Peter present in Acts, to see people get baptized with the Holy Spirit?". I used other words such as the Holy Spirit "coming" or "falling", or the use of the Keys (more debated issue of course) ... but none of the hits to any of the searches, or to any of the Assistant requests for Serious Biblical Illustration to Adults, yielded any more than one or two of those instances. I have a large 14k+ library that includes many Theologies and Commentaries which potentially could have addressed this.
PLEASE let me know a specific Smart Search query, or Assistant Query, that yields clear mention of all three of those events in Acts ... and does so within, say, the first 20 "hits" in the Search, or the first 5 tries with Assistant.
If there is no such query, then please IMPROVE the AI so that it correctly identifies those three. Thanks.
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Redeeming the time (Eph.5:16+Col.4:5) ... Win 10, iOS & iPadOS 16
Jim Dean0 -
In the Ai Sermon Assistant, on the iPad I was unable to scroll down.
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Hi Rev. Sharon,
Thank you for your report and sorry for the inconvenience. As you mention, Sermon Assistant has a bug that prevents scrolling on touch-specific devices. We have a fix lined up and it should be working properly once our next stable version of the app is released (v. 34).
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Rick G. said:
Is there a way to generate discussion questions solely from a selected bible text (or any resource, really) outside of a sermon document? Even if it's only aggregating my own library's resources of available questions.
Not yet. But it's something we're very keen to do.
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Are there plans to allow follow up questions through a chat box to the outline assistant? This would prove to be helpful in refining it to a person's contextual needs.
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I kind of like it so, it would stop us from having AI do our sermon on its own. When it comes to idea I find it benefiting to ask questions in different ways or forming the "ideas" differently. it would also benefitting to field different ides and questions
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Illustrations may be average but I have gotten stuff that works well in the body of the sermon . all the features you see may be developed for certain parts of the sermon. but what is important is that whatever AI spits out gets your own brain moving
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Is there a way to put questions directly in the question hand out and not be part of the sermon?
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The latest addition of "outline" for a text that a message is being crafted is very helpful. The suggested outline Ai offers allows for a lot more research of the passage and leaves a lot of room for the Holy Spirit's leading in crafting the message. Again...knowing it's a suggested outline give a lot of options in crafting a message. Way to go!
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Mark Barnes (Logos) said:
The Discussion Questions Generator takes a completed sermon and creates a series of discussion questions based on the sermon that could be used in a church bulletin or small group study.
I don't use Sermon builder for sermons, I use it for building small group lessons. Usually my studies are on Bible books, not topical, and are verse by verse or by passage section. As part of our studies we incorporate a methodology for learning to study the bible, teaching observation, interpretation, correlation, and application skills. If there are any questions about what those categories are many How to Study the Bible books in Logos have adequate definitions.
Today I tried out the Sermon Assistant and it's question generator to see if it would be something that I could use for my small groups studies.
As suspected and by design, I found the question types to be selected, and those questions generated mostly applicational in nature, which is fine since the pastor has already prepared and exposited the observations, interpretations and correlations in his sermon.
I would like to have this same tool available where we could select for a verse or set of verses question types; observation interpretation, and correlation, as well as application types, and have AI generate questions appropriate to those types.
This would be helpful because, sometimes...many times, I need suggestions in forming questions in a way that would be more concise or understandable to the students than what I planned or had written. Thinking of a question is one thing, forming it on paper understandably is something else.
Secondly, a second set of eyes, even AI's would be helpful in possibly seeing thoughtful ideas for questions I had missed in my own study
Slightly off topic;
As far as AI in general is concerned. My personal opinion is, if it is confined within the Logos ecosystem I do not have a problem with using it for searching, for suggested books or thought jump starters, for summaries and the like, it can be helpful and I can take it or leave it's results just like what I read in some of the books in the system. So far I have found it particularly helpful in searching in Logos.
Too soon old. Too late smart.
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[Y]
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Some feedback specific to the Verbum edition of this tool:
1. The name "sermon" should be changed to "homily" throughout the tool, and in the instructions given to the AI bot.
2. The AI bot should know that it is preparing a homily from a Catholic perspective in the Verbum edition, to be able to adjust its language and emphases. For example, in one outline it gave me it invited me: "in this sermon, consider diving deeper into the doctrine of justification by faith in Christ alone as a basis for our assurance of eternal life." While I could make that phrase work as a Catholic without too much difficulty, it isn't something a Catholic would say, and if the bot knew it were preparing a Catholic homily is something it would have expressed differently this idea.
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Another feature I wish that this had, which would apply to anyone preparing a homily or sermon from a Lectionary... I wish there were an easier way to input the passages from the Lectionary day. For example, the readings from the Catholic lectionary for today are:
First Reading: 2 Timothy 1:1–3, 6–12
Response: Psalm 123:1b
Psalm: Psalm 123:1b–2f
Gospel Acclamation: John 11:25a–26
Gospel: Mark 12:18–27Typing all of these into the AI Sermon Assistant is rather difficult, and in the case of the first reading, I actually needed to add it twice, as it skips some verses.
One idea that might have applications in other areas is if we could select the text with the verse references and right click and choose an option to "Copy verse references", where it would create a format we could just paste directly into the field and it would work. And a function like that could be useful in other areas as well. (it would take the same information that is used to create a Passage List, and just format it and put it in the clipboard).
Another option could be to add an option in the Lectionaries themselves to copy the verses in a format that works. Or to open up the Sermon / HOmily Assistant with the verses from this liturgy already loaded.
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The AI generator seems to be very "Reformed Biased and Heavy" is there any way to change it to another tradition like "Lutheran"
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Rev. Robert Sundquist said:
The AI generator seems to be very "Reformed Biased and Heavy" is there any way to change it to another tradition like "Lutheran"
Welcome to the forums. No, it is fed from Logos resources and represents the general Logos bias. One can manipulate it a bit by using Lutheran vocabulary. Beyond that it is a requirement that the user use Logos results with a recognition of the bias. When it is available, the Verbum version may be closer to what you want.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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MJ. Smith said:Rev. Robert Sundquist said:
The AI generator seems to be very "Reformed Biased and Heavy" is there any way to change it to another tradition like "Lutheran"
Welcome to the forums. No, it is fed from Logos resources and represents the general Logos bias. One can manipulate it a bit by using Lutheran vocabulary. Beyond that it is a requirement that the user use Logos results with a recognition of the bias. When it is available, the Verbum version may be closer to what you want.
But isn't Verbum heavily Catholic biased?
xn = Christan man=man -- Acts 11:26 "....and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch".
Barney Fife is my hero! He only uses an abacus with 14 rows!
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xnman said:MJ. Smith said:Rev. Robert Sundquist said:
The AI generator seems to be very "Reformed Biased and Heavy" is there any way to change it to another tradition like "Lutheran"
Welcome to the forums. No, it is fed from Logos resources and represents the general Logos bias. One can manipulate it a bit by using Lutheran vocabulary. Beyond that it is a requirement that the user use Logos results with a recognition of the bias. When it is available, the Verbum version may be closer to what you want.
But isn't Verbum heavily Catholic biased?
Actually not. MJ will probably explain that it's more geared towards ACELO churches (Anglican, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, Oriental), but unless Logos trains or prompts the AI explicitly towards use of a larger canon and different recognition of church fathers, there is no relevant difference between the two. In those cases where the AI considers the user's library, there might be differences, but those would be within Logos as well.
Have joy in the Lord!
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My Logos Library is already set to prefer my Lutheran resources. By “no” I infer that you mean that I have to train the AI to give it a more Lutheran response. So I bought a Parrot who because of time, circumstance, and volume was more reformed. Hooray for the reformed being more prolific, maybe too prolific. Now I have to train my Parrot. I will avoid having my Parrot breed with Verbum. Whereas I have all of that entire collection, the suggestion reflects a poor understanding of what a Lutheran is. The impolite characterization that a Lutheran is just Catholic light is almost as uniformed as suggesting that a Lutheran is a one and a half point Calvinist. But thanks for giving me an answer. Train my reformed Parrot. I’ll give Polly some crackers and wine with real presence in it and set its habitat in Wittenberg and see how it changes. The papers I will have to change in the meantime will be the normal life of Parrot ownership. Thanks for the fun thread.
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Rev. Robert Sundquist said:
By “no” I infer that you mean that I have to train the AI to give it a more Lutheran response
You are unable to train the Logos use of AI.
Rev. Robert Sundquist said:The impolite characterization that a Lutheran is just Catholic light is almost as uniformed as suggesting that a Lutheran is a one and a half point Calvinist.
I would not consider Lutheran as Catholic light. My paternal Grandmother was Finnish Apostolic Lutheran, half the small town in which I was raised was Finnish Apostolic Lutheran, my daughter-in-law is an ECLA minister ... It did not occur to me that my suggestion would be misinterpreted but I understand why it was. As you are new to the forums, you are not aware of my push for more materials, tagging, tools geared towards the ACELO churches (high Anglican, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, high Lutheran, and Oriental Orthodox churches). This group have more in common with each other than with the Reformed-Evangelical churches that represent Logos (original) primary market. As you are LCMS, I would assume you are not high Lutheran. As my experience is with liberal and pietist Lutherans, I will admit to ignorance of your slice of the Lutheran pie, and apologize for offending you.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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MJ. Smith said:Rev. Robert Sundquist said:
The AI generator seems to be very "Reformed Biased and Heavy" is there any way to change it to another tradition like "Lutheran"
Welcome to the forums. No, it is fed from Logos resources and represents the general Logos bias. One can manipulate it a bit by using Lutheran vocabulary. Beyond that it is a requirement that the user use Logos results with a recognition of the bias. When it is available, the Verbum version may be closer to what you want.
Maybe we can get an official comment on this, but I don't think it's this simple. A lot of the type of response that an AI gives you is based on the prompt. For example, ChatGPT or Claude are perfectly capable of giving answers that are geared towards Catholics, Lutherans, or just about any other Christian group, as long as it knows that is what the user expects.
I was of the idea (maybe incorrect) that the AI that we are using is not an in-house AI trained and run by Faithlife. That would be incredibly expensive and difficult for a company the size of Faithlife. Rather, they are sending the petitions and context to ChatGPT or some similar service, using their API.
That means they can solve these difficulties by simply adjusting the prompt. They could allow users to choose a theological tradition and simply mention that in the prompt (invisibly to the user). ChatGPT or Claude and most other large models would adjust without any difficulty.
Even if it were a locally trained model, it should still be possible. It would be a fine-tuned model based on Llama or something like that, and would include bothe the general knowledge of that model as well as the enormous library of Faithlife, which inludes enough of each tradition that it should be able to respond from the perspective of any of them, if the prompt is well done and the model is correctly fine-tuned.
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Fr Devin Roza said:
I was of the idea (maybe incorrect) that the AI that we are using is not an in-house AI trained and run by Faithlife. That would be incredibly expensive and difficult for a company the size of Faithlife. Rather, they are sending the petitions and context to ChatGPT or some similar service, using their API.
That means they can solve these difficulties by simply adjusting the prompt. They could allow users to choose a theological tradition and simply mention that in the prompt (invisibly to the user). ChatGPT or Claude and most other large models would adjust without any difficulty.
This is correct. What I meant is that we, as users, cannot "train" the AI. We live with the Logos prompt results ... and ask Logos for changes.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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MJ. Smith said:
As you are LCMS, I would assume you are not high Lutheran. As my experience is with liberal and pietist Lutherans, I will admit to ignorance of your slice of the Lutheran pie, and apologize for offending you.
How are you using "high Lutheran"? (Meant as a sincere question, not argumentative.)
Pastor, Immanuel Evangelical-Lutheran Church (LCMS), Alexandria, VA
Vice President, The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (East-Southeast Region)
Author of (Dis)ordered: Lies about Human Nature and the Truth That Sets Us Free
Personal website: Esgetology
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Christopher Esget said:
How are you using "high Lutheran"?
I use high Lutheran as a parallel to high Anglican (Anglo-Catholic) to describe Lutherans who worship in a high-church style i.e. more formal, more embodied, more ritualitic style. Put another way, high Lutherans have retained more of the Catholic/Eastern Orthodox style than many other groups of Lutherans. Just as with high Anglicans, this frequently also means their theology is historically conservative i.e. closer to the Catholic/Eastern Orthodox theology than other groups.
wikipedia said:High church Lutheranism is a movement that began in 20th-century Europe and emphasizes worship practices and doctrines that are similar to those found within Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Anglo-Catholicism. In the more general usage of the term, it describes the general high church characteristics of Lutheranism in Nordic and Baltic countries such as Sweden, Finland, Estonia and Latvia. The mentioned countries, once a part of the Swedish Empire, have more markedly preserved Catholic traditions.
Background
The terms high church and low church were historically applied to particular liturgical and theological groups within Anglicanism. The theological differences within Lutheranism have not been nearly so marked as those within the Anglican Communion; Lutherans have historically been unified in the doctrine expressed in the Book of Concord. However, quite early in Lutheranism, polarities began to develop owing to the influence of the Reformed tradition, leading to so-called "Crypto-Calvinism". The Pietist movement in the 17th century also moved the Lutheran church further in a direction that would be considered "low church" by Anglican standards. Pietism and rationalism led not only to the simplification or even elimination of certain ceremonial elements, such as the use of vestments, but also to less frequent celebration of the Eucharist, by the end of the era of Lutheran Orthodoxy. There has been very little iconoclasm in Lutheran churches and church buildings have often remained richly furnished. Some monasteries also continued as Lutheran after the Reformation. Loccum Abbey and Amelungsborn Abbey in Germany have the longest traditions as Lutheran monasteries.
In old church orders, however there was much variation which could now be described as "high church" or "low church". One example of the more Catholic ones is the Swedish Church Ordinance 1571. The Agenda of the church order of Margraviate of Brandenburg (1540) contained unusually rich provision for ceremonial usages. The legacy of Brandenburgian Lutheranism was later visible in Old Lutherans' resistance to compromise in the doctrine of Real Presence. Other church orders following closely to pre-Reformation rites and ceremonies were Palatinate-Neuburg (1543, retaining a eucharistic prayer) and Austria (1571, prepared by David Chytraeus).
An interesting fact is that William Augustus Mühlenberg, father of the Ritualist movement in the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, was originally Lutheran and came from a Lutheran family.
In Europe, after long influence of Pietism, theological rationalism, and finally, 19th century German Neo-Protestantism, a ground for 20th-century High Church or Evangelical Catholic Movement developed. The terms "High Church" (Evangelical Catholic) and "Low Church" (Confessing Evangelical) began to be used to describe differences within the Lutheran tradition. However, this terminology is not necessarily as characteristic for a Lutheran's identity as it often is for an Anglican.
Sometimes there is a distinction made between Nordic style Lutheranism and German style Lutheranism, with the latter being more influenced by pietism and the former having both retained and later also revived more of its pre-Reformation liturgy and practices and therefore being more high church. Examples of this are well-preserved church interiors, apostolic succession, and a clear episcopal structure. Although the name Nordic is used, it is actually mostly applicable to Sweden and Finland, and to a lesser extent, to Estonia and Latvia because those countries were part of the Swedish empire and were therefore the jurisdiction of the Church of Sweden. The other Nordic countries of Denmark, Norway, and Iceland were under the influence of Danish rule in which the German form is dominant.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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MJ. Smith said:Christopher Esget said:
How are you using "high Lutheran"?
I use high Lutheran as a parallel to high Anglican (Anglo-Catholic) to describe Lutherans who worship in a high-church style i.e. more formal, more embodied, more ritualitic style. Put another way, high Lutherans have retained more of the Catholic/Eastern Orthodox style than many other groups of Lutherans. Just as with high Anglicans, this frequently also means their theology is historically conservative i.e. closer to the Catholic/Eastern Orthodox theology than other groups.
I thought that might be the case, but wasn't certain. The LCMS is actually rather mixed in this area. Some of us are "high Lutheran," i.e., highly devoted to the traditional Western liturgical form, with the 16th c. reforms. That is generally accompanied by the traditional (pre-Vatican II) lectionary, a sacramental theology, and appreciation of the fathers. There are others who have embraced "contemporary worship." I'm not sure if it's the plurality, but there is a "middle church" group that uses a hymnal, clergy wear vestments (but minimal—alb and stole), and communion may or may not be celebrated every Sunday. It's not possible at present to speak of the LCMS as having a unified approach in this regard (although I believe the Synod is quite theologically united on the contentious issues of the day).
Pastor, Immanuel Evangelical-Lutheran Church (LCMS), Alexandria, VA
Vice President, The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (East-Southeast Region)
Author of (Dis)ordered: Lies about Human Nature and the Truth That Sets Us Free
Personal website: Esgetology
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