loading . . . I Did Not Come to This Kids Party for an AI Sermon Recent conversations around artificial intelligence (AI) have left in me in various quagmires at get-togethers and parties. Few people can define AI regardless of their loudness or hand waving gestures—how exactly do you define AI is usually my incredulous retort—which only leads to fire and brimstone hurled squarely in my direction. These conversations devolve quickly since the conversant declares they have all the answers of where I am wrong and what I should be doing, even when the few words that are expelled from my lips have nothing to do with AI.
_I asked you for a napkin Dave._
As the droning dullness of their words begin to travel and echo through the air, drawing people from around the room to the commotion, I soon come to the realization that this isn’t a conversation, but more appropriately a sermon.
Sermons are designed to inculcate doctrinal order in a crowd of listeners and are a disordered generalization of concepts (Spencer, 2004). The AI conversant, so deeply involved in the usage of these mystical text generators and their agents, is happy to lift their view into the realms of preaching, taking cues from the _artes praedicandi_ or the closest tech luminary’s own preaching and texts with from whom they worship seemingly unflinchingly.
This positioning may seem sacrilegious—sermons are based in sacred religious text, what people hear in church from the pews, you shout with a pitchfork in hand citing Phelps—yet the structure of these conversations around AI follow the same formula. _Sermones ad status_ are directed at specific people—me, the will-not-put-aside-the-ethics-about-LLM-AI heretic—with a mixing of sacred texts _e proprium sanctorum_ —an AI company’s release of their latest “study”, lacking empirical rigor with no peer review or reproducibility, taken as the word—against the backdrop of the latest in social commentary that fits their perspective—to not use AI is to be left behind.
The sermons as delivered to me—too often when my glass is empty, the bar blocked by this preacher of probabilities and patterns—are neither unique nor interesting. There’s the “it’s just a tool” sermon, where software developer hypocrisy meets irony; the “it just made the whole product in 15 minutes” sermon, delivered by someone who has never written let alone shipped software before in their life; the “it’s going to make everyone efficient” sermon, as told by a manager or executive who is relishing in the layoffs they soon plan to announce. The structures of these stories follow deductive preaching—the task of the preacher to proclaim and herald the truth as reported by their chosen scripture (Barth, 1991)—forming this truth in proposition and justified by these “proofs” (Scambler, 1944). In the field of homiletics such an approach makes the preacher the messenger and the congregants as the receivers of this truth.
_I did not come to your AI tent revival Dave, it’s little Timmy’s fourth birthday._
Heretic you shout, quoting Sangster with your flaming torch in hand—this is little more than an _address_ not a sermon, for a sermon is a more akin to a sacramental act, a person speaking _from God_. You clearly have not met Dave or his ilk; AI is their God and they the heralds of the word from their questionably acquired training set and their CEO apostolates. There is no need for these preachers of parameters to be clever in their approach—their handle of prose, like their LLM, is not that of Chaucer by any stretch; _nay, lat hym telle us of no ribaudye!_ —the task, as Anderson would contend, is simply to spread the AI word.
_We’re trying to sing happy birthday Dave._
The makeshift congregation now sees their mistake and begins seeking exists via local, real truths—oh the kids spilled red punch on the snow white rug, I must spend hours now helping our gracious host clean it, so good to see you—the preachers’ assiduous conviction driving beads of sweat down their increasing stressful forehead wrinkles, as they layer _auctoritas_ into constructed _distinctiones_ , their voice beginning to crack, their phone beginning to rise into the heavens upon an extending selfie stick— _are you streaming your own sermon right now from a kid’s birthday party Dave?_ —to deliver their summary, their _peroratio_ , to deliver us—the only way they and the corporations they worship can—to our AI salvation. Exhausted, their deed done, amazed at their own topical approach delivered to us—eager minds lacking principles and foresight of the future, open thine eyes!—they await our conversion, our seeing of not their light, but _the light_ , our credit card ready to be put into the offering plate so that their church may expand their token buy to help destroy a small town via data center expansion.
_I just came for the cake, Dave, and now I’m drunk at a kids birthday having to deal with your bullshit._
The quagmire is clear; to engage with the preachers is to legitimize not only the sermon but rather the dominant hierarchy that the viewpoint attempts to crystalize. That hierarchy is not one of “the AI fulfills your needs” but rather the external force that AI is is inevitable and places a radical demand on your life—you may not want to use it, but its placement in applications you use places demands on you. The sermon is no different; it places a radical demand for you to engage, with someone who is either ill-informed or worse, well-informed and willing to seek gains at your expense. To approach with empirical evidence and eye towards solid rhetorical argument is the party goers fool’s errand—never will you see the non sequitur used in such numbers in the preachers retort—all while being trapped in a conversation you do not want to be in.
_Iffffii yourreee AIiiii is sooo SmartT Davvvee whyyy didn’t ittt see the futuure of yooou stainned in punchh and rumM—SUUSSSAN what kindd of rumm is this, it’ss really goood—ohhh aiiiii doesn’t work like that, welllll laaaa-di-daaaaa Daveeee._
I never said I had an answer. Just quagmires. And a bill to clean Susan’s rug. Sorry Susan.
### Selected References (you made me research sermons, Dave, SERMONS)
Anderson, K. C. 2009. Choosing to Preach: A Comprehensive Introduction to Sermon Options and Structures. Zondervan.
Barth, 1991, Homiletics, 49–50; Robinson, Biblical Preaching.
Fletcher, A. J. 2005. The Lyric in the Sermon. In T. G. Duncan (Ed.), A Companion to the Middle English Lyric: 189–209. Boydell & Brewer.
Pieterse, H. J. C. 2010. Grounded theory approach in sermon analysis of sermons on poverty and directed at the poor as listeners. Acta Theologica, 30(2).
Sangster, W. E. 2020. The Craft Of Sermon Construction. Read Books Ltd.
Scambler, T. H. 1944. THE ART OF SERMON CONSTRUCTION.
Spencer, H. L. 2004. Sermon Literature. A Companion to Middle English Prose, 151–174.
Spencer, J. M. 1989. Protest & Praise: Sacred Music of Black Religion. Fortress Press.
6.2 The Pardoner’s Prologue, Introduction, and Tale | Harvard’s Geoffrey Chaucer Website.https://chaucer.fas.harvard.edu/pages/pardoners-prologue-introduction-and-tale, May 21, 2026. https://justinribeiro.com/chronicle/2026/05/21/i-did-not-come-to-this-kids-party-for-an-ai-sermon/
