An academic study recently explored how churches might use “social robots” for tasks like greeting, information, or simple duties—raising questions about meaning, connection, and what we lose vs. gain.
What role should technology play in faith spaces (worship, community, outreach)? Are there things a robot could help with—or things it should never try?
Has your church used more tech during or after COVID? What worked, what felt off?
It shows how isolated and insular people are if they are considering a robot is more suited to ‘ meet and greet’ than people.
The church as a body is supposed to be a family.
Where people meet and talk etc etc.
There are uses for it, we use the Internet for a church Web site, broadcast on it and YouTube services, we have several WhatsApp groups as well as a Web site for the numerous rotas, committee’s that are required to run the church.
It social media etc is a tool, but one that helps people to serves, it doesn’t replace people.
Christianity was always supposed to be about relationships, us with God and each other. Organizational systems demonstrate mechanical properties that seems antithetical to relationships. Making church more automated would seem to be making a bad situation worse.
Can you site the study to which you are referring? I can find three similar academic studies, but none in the USA; one from 2019 in Germany, one from 2020 in Asia, and one from this year conducted in the UK at a large functioning church which is also a popular tourist attraction. They each had slightly different objectives, which I won’t comment on here. Still, your queston is poignant.
Considering the use of robotics/mechanics in a religious organization, to perform various functions, has been an accepted practice since the first clock was hung on the wall in the narthex. In as much as religious leadership has allowed the “church” to adopt the character of a business, an organization, or an institution, it has readily embraced many of the same tools and automation apparatuses as any secular organization or institution. Religious organizations now even have HR departments, a tacit admission that humans are seen as resources; fungible raw materials that affect the bottom-line. I assume anthropomorphic robotics fit nicely within this kind of operation.
The Body of Christ is something else entirely. It is the collective “imago dei”, the image of God; a representative of Holy Spirit God in earthly, bodily form. The true fellowship shared within the body of Christ is similar to the unity found among the members of a human body. The systemic unifying factor of a unique human being is non-physical, something usually referred to as a soul. The systemic unifying factor of the unique Body of Christ is The Holy Spirit of God Himself. We find fellowship with one-another because we share the same Spirit of God.
The periodic meeting of believers for mutual edification, prayer, teaching, fellowship, and remembering the broken body and shed blood of our savior is a spiritual union, a symbolic representation of the multi-faceted body of Jesus; “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, …” (Matt.18:20). The very Holy Spirit that we come together to share in, and manifest, is not enhanced in any way by the inclusion of a machine, but is obviously abridged in all its purposes. The introduction of a machine into a function where a human is designed to bear the image of Jesus obviously testifies of an artificial union in the body, a dire misunderstanding of the purpose for spiritual gathering. If I were subjected to being greeted, counseled, prayed with, or taught by a machine I would consider myself to have not been greeted, counseled, prayed with, or taught at all. The essential unifying Spirit of the interaction would be completely missing.
The adoption of mechanics, robotics, automation, or other forms of efficiency enhancing practices are evidences of the emergence of an institutionalized organization, possibly replacing or obfuscating the testimonial living organism we were designed to be.
My morning rant, for what it’s worth
Love in Jesus; Unity in His Holy Spirit
KP