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Showing posts from January, 2021

Stay Connected: Why Life Only Works When You’re Connected to Jesus

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by Bart Denny Central text: John 15:1-11 If you’ve ever stepped on a LEGO in the middle of the night, you already know—they’re small, but they matter. But here’s something else about LEGO bricks that’s just as important: A LEGO brick by itself doesn’t do much. It’s not broken. It’s not defective. It looks perfectly fine sitting there on its own. But it never becomes what it was designed to be… unless it connects. And that simple truth is exactly where this message begins. Recently, our church kicked off a new sermon series titled Created to Connect with a message called Stay Connected. Using both Scripture and a familiar childhood image, he unpacked a powerful reality: Your life only works when you stay connected to Jesus. The Problem Isn’t Activity—It’s Disconnection Most of us don’t feel disconnected because we’re doing nothing. We feel disconnected because we’re doing too much… without the right connection. You can be busy. You can be productive. You can even be religious. And still...

Pastoral Leadership and an Ethic of Artificial Human Intelligence Enhancement

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A paper from a class: Ethics in Christian Ministry Leadership and Education (CLED 815), Liberty University, Rawlings School of Divinity by Bart L. Denny, Th.M. December 14, 2020 You might find this a strange article, but I believe pastoral leaders will soon have to deal with the possibilities explored here not as science fiction, but as a medical reality our people are considering. Cybernetics—the melding of electronic and computer systems with the human nervous system—seems to hold the genuine possibility of healing diseases with a neurological basis.   However, many futurists dream of far more than the restoration of normal functioning; they see a human race on the cusp of forcing its own “evolution,” with the melding of the human mind and artificially intelligent computer systems. The desired result is a cybernetic transhuman, with intelligence far beyond normal human cognition and perhaps even the ability to attain immortality. Such an eventuality smacks of humanity’s desire to...