The Gospel According to ChatGPT

February 10, 2023 by 10 Comments

The Church of Jesus of Latter-day Saints is notorious for not having systematic theology. With a lay clergy and no divinity schools, our doctrine is often an endearing mishmash of scripture mastery verses, General Conference talks, correlation committee curriculum manuals, handbook policies, and Wasatch Front folklore.

James Talmage, B.H. Roberts, Bruce R. McConkie, Joseph Spencer, and others — all have endeavored to impose order on our smorgasbord of restoration theology. Whether they have succeeded is a different question.

So perhaps we can assess our progress by asking an AI! What does a computer trained on billions of books, scholarly articles, and internet posts think are the core tenets of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? Let’s find out! Copy-pasted below are ChatGPT’s exact answers to the following questions.

Based on the phraseology of its responses, my suspicion is ChatGPT’s dataset relied heavily on official, modern Church sources — and not much else, yet. Although I threw in some more challenging questions at the end as a way to test that hypothesis.

Why are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints called Mormons?

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) are often referred to as “Mormons” because of their belief in the Book of Mormon as another testament of Jesus Christ. The Book of Mormon was published in 1830 by Joseph Smith, the founder of the LDS Church, and it tells the story of ancient American civilizations and their belief in Jesus Christ.

The term “Mormon” is derived from the Book of Mormon, which was named after Mormon, a prophet-historian in one of the ancient American civilizations described in the book. Over time, the nickname “Mormon” became popular and was applied to members of the LDS Church.

[Read more…]
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Exhausted Heaven

March 6, 2019 by

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Mette Ivie Harrison is a well-known mystery and young-adult novelist and frequent BCC guest.  She is the author of The Book of Laman, and the forthcoming The Book of Abish, published by BCC Press.

Sometimes Mormons joke about the reality of what heaven looks like, especially for women.  I suspect this is doctrine that the institutional church may be turning away from (like the doctrine of ruling planets that makes us just look really weird to other Christians), but the idea that heaven will just be a continuation of all the work women do now is, well, exhausting.  In heaven, women will have billions and billions of children, as if gestation happens there as it does here on earth.  Women will continue to do visiting teaching (at least that’s what my last Relief Society President said).  They will continue to make a lovely home for their husbands and their already birthed children, grandchildren, and so on.  There will be no rest or respite in heaven, at least not for women. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Children, Doctrine & Policy, Family, Gender & Sexuality, Guest Post, Marriage, Mormon, Rants, Relief Society, Theology, Women Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

The God Who Stoops

January 28, 2019 by

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In discussing the advance of women’s rights, Ruth Bader Ginsburg has often remarked that when we set women on a pedestal, we actually lock them in a cage.

I’ve been wondering lately whether the same could be said about God.  (And even more so, Heavenly Mother.)  When we consign our Heavenly Parents to a throne of glory in the distant heavens, we’re actually locking them behind human constructs of divinity.  We’re building a wall of checkpoints and purity standards, then barring all we deem unholy or unclean from approaching their mercy.

Our all-to-common vision of God on a celestial pedestal gets it all backwards. To borrow a phrase from Rachel Held Evans’s latest book Inspired: our God stoops. [Read more…]

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I am a child of Heavenly Mother

May 14, 2018 by

Lily Darais is a mother of four living in Orem, UT.  She earned a B.A. from Michigan State University, a Masters of Education from Harvard, and has earned a diploma in culinary arts.  She currently spends most of her time trying to keep her toddler and baby alive and begging her older kids to practice their instruments.  The following is the Mother’s Day talk she gave yesterday.

The Apricot Blossom

“I am a child of God” is such an obviously loving statement that even–and perhaps especially–children can sing “I am a child of God” with fervent, joyful understanding. While the words, “I am a child of God,” function as a holy affirmation for all of us, they are also more than an affirmation. We can read them as an invitation–to learn more about God, to develop our own divine potential, to consider our utter dependency and also our protected, beloved status. We can even read the words as a gentle rebuke, a reminder to, in the words of President Hinckley, “be a little better.”

Depending on how we read these words, we can be healed, shaped, or driven by our understanding of them.

As I wrote those last words, I happened to glance out of the window at a neighbor’s tree. I am not a tree expert, but the puffy clusters of white blossoms recalled to mind another primary song, this one a little less theologically packed: “Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree.” As I stared at the flowering clusters, I thought of the apricots that will follow in a few short months. I compared myself to an apricot in spring. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Children, Doctrine & Policy, Family, Guest Post, Holiday, Mormon, Mormon Studies, Scriptures, Theology, Women Tagged With: , , , , ,

It’s time

October 25, 2015 by

Courtesy Julie de Azevedo Hanks

Courtesy Julie de Azevedo Hanks

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WE ARE DAUGHTERS of our Heavenly Parents, who love us, and we love Them. WE WILL “STAND as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places” (Mosiah 18:9) as we strive to live the Young Women values, which are:

Faith • Divine Nature • Individual Worth • Knowledge • Choice and Accountability • Good Works • Integrity • and Virtue

WE BELIEVE as we come to accept and act upon these values, WE WILL BE PREPARED to strengthen home and family, make and keep sacred covenants, receive the ordinances of the temple, and enjoy the blessings of exaltation.

Filed Under: Doctrine & Policy, Mormon, Young Women Tagged With: ,

God-talk and Mother in Heaven

October 25, 2015 by

The release of the recent Gospel Topics essay on Heavenly Mother has unleashed a flood of conversation. The questions that have come up are fascinating: what does it mean to assign gender to God? What’s at stake in believing God is embodied? If we do affirm the existence of a Heavenly Mother, why don’t we talk about Her more? Why don’t we see Her in the temple? Does the language of “Mother” and “Father” even seem adequate to a divine force that can somehow encompass and exceed the full range of human experience?

I’m going to admit that I have no idea what the answers to these questions are or ought to be. But I’m also going to admit that I don’t think I can find the answers on my own. [Read more…]

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Book Review: Sarah Coakley, “God, Sexuality, and the Self: An Essay ‘On the Trinity'”

May 5, 2015 by

Sarah Coakley, God, Sexuality, and the Self: An Essay “On the Trinity” (Cambridge University Press, 2013). Amazon Indiebound

Why should Mormons read (or even care about) a work of Anglican systematic theology about the Trinity, a doctrine in which we are prone to saying we do not believe? (But which we enjoy probing around here: see J. Stapley’s recent post, which links to several earlier Trinitarian BCC musings—get this—by three men, including me.)

Here’s why: some of the most urgent theological questions currently occupying Mormonism have to do with gender and the divine. Not only has the Ordain Women movement raised (once again) the issue of women’s ordination, but people are asking questions about Heavenly Mother (see the “Connecting to Heavenly Mother” series at FMH, or the Heavenly Mother category at the Exponent II blog), with some wondering whether she can be separated from earlier teachings about Adam-God and polygamy. A recent review of Terryl Givens’s Wrestling with the Angel drew attention to the ways that our theology (along with Givens’s account of it) struggles to make sense of gender or even to find a place for women. In sum, although many members of the Church (female and male) do seem satisfied with present teachings and practices around gender, a growing minority can’t help butting up uncomfortably against questions about how women fit into the economy of heaven. [Read more…]

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