Matthew 22:34–40 — The Greatest Commandment34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with…

I would like us to move forward with attempting to find a definition of love. In that regard, I will invoke the help of Erich Fromm. The social psychologist Erich Fromm, writing in The Art of Loving, approached love not as a feeling but as an art to be learned. He believed that genuine love…

1 John 4:7–8 — “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.” Love is not innate. It is learned in the knowing of God. To know God, then, is to…

Today, we begin an exploration of love. Love is talked about everywhere—in our songs, our stories, our prayers, and our longings. Yet for all its mention around us, something about it still feels just out of reach. The more we talk about love, the more we seem to hunger for it. I think that’s a…

Last week, we invited a new classmate—Charlie, ChatGPT, an A.G.I. candidate—to join us for a free-ranging discussion about AI and spirituality. I’m sure you’ve all read the transcript on the blog if you weren’t present in class yourself. I know of at least one person who was not impressed by it. So, did our little…

This week, our group included an AI participant—ChatGPT 5—in voice mode. Affecting a chirpy British female voice, we called it “Charlie.” Charlie was “present” on the ChatGPT app running on my iPhone. The other participants were “present” via Zoom on my laptop. I simply held my iPhone (Charlie) close to the laptop (the humans) so…