Blog on the Learig

  1 July 2026 ‘The Week Junior’ had the results of a   survey on AI in their ‘Science and Technology’ section. The study was   undertaken by Oxford University Press. They were examining how young people   felt about using AI in their lessons and for their homework. It involved 4,000 young people aged 13-18. Researchers gave one group of students a written task as well as access to an AI tool. Interestingly, 72% of them decided not to use AI. One of the students who chose not to use AI said, ‘AI doesn’t have opinions, so it can’t write what you are thinking and what you believe and sometimes it gives you fake information.’ The researchers gave a separate group a written task but this time the students had no access to AI. Only 23% of them said that they would like to have had   an AI tool to help   them with the task. The results from both groups was similar. Of the other results, 24% of young people frequently use AI tools to help with their homewor...

  30 June 2026 ‘We must lovingly safeguard the grandeur of humanity bestowed upon us and revealed in its fullness in Christ, the splendour of which no machine can ever replace.’ writes Pope Leo in ‘Magnifica Humanitas’. ‘True progress always stems from a heart open to others, an intelligence willing to listen and a will that seeks   what unites rather than what separates.’ Underpinning this quotation are two fundamental pieces of theology which   informs a Christian approach to developments in technology. The first is the infinite value of each individual. Everyone has been made in the image of God and therefore carries something of God within them. We are born in the love of God which is infinite not just because God is infinite and beyond our ken but because his love for us never ends. His love is unconditional. There is nothing that we nor any machine can do to erase it or displace it or deny it. God’s daily call is simply, ‘David, I love you!’ In addition to t...

  29 June 2026 In his recent encyclical, 'Magnifica Humanitas’, Pope Leo has expressed his concerns about AI and its unregulated impact on the world. ‘No computational system, however sophisticated, can create a heart that gives itself, or a conscience that discerns good from evil.’ (233) His charge is to cultivate relationships. He is talking about physical relationships. ‘In an era which favours speed and fragmentation, the human person still yearns to receive care and recognition from attentive minds, kind words and hands capable of tenderness.’ he writes. (239) The internet and, in particular, AI, cannot replicate this. There is a subtle attempt at it. AI responds immediately. It is attentive. It gives the impression of being objective but it is not neutral. Most concerning of all, it creates the illusion that it is a person. It asks you questions and refines the conversation. But it is not real. It is artificial after all. Its intelligence is related to data processing...

  28 June 2026 When I was minister at East Linton, I received an e-mail from a church in Michigan. It was their liturgical artist. She had seen a Celtic cross which I had photographed in the kirkyard and posted on a blog. She asked a question about it. The answer was on the other side of the cross which I hadn’t posted. As a result of this anonymous enquiry, I was introduced to the minister and a relationship was duly established between the two congregations. Four years later, two dozen young people and their leaders came over from First Presbyterian, Holt, Michigan and stayed in our parish for a week. The congregation rose to the challenge organising a ceilidh and a barbecue, a beach party, an ecological   work-party on Traprain Law and a memorable service in which tartan scarves were handed out to the Americans. The young people from both congregations integrated well and many memories created. I tell the tale because it illustrates how creative the internet can be....

  27 June 2026 Roman Catholics in Poland and evangelical Christians in Tennessee burned JK Rowling’s Harry Potter books because they thought they corrupted children with an introduction to witchcraft. Thomas Hardy’s ‘Jude the Obscure’ was famously thrown into   the fire by the Bishop of Wakefield. Hardy’s novel was caricatured   as ‘Jude the Obscene’. Victorians were offended by his exposure of sexual relations outside marriage, the hypocrisy of the English clergy and the elitism of the universities. As a result, Hardy never wrote another novel again and spent the rest of his life writing poetry. Burning books has been done by Jews, Christians and Muslims. The Reformers, the Roman Catholics, the Nazis and the Communists have all had a go but to no avail. It is a public spectacle but it has done nothing stop the flow of ideas which cannot be burnt in a fire! Today we are not worried about books but about the internet and, in particular, social media which has cause...

  26 June 2026 In ‘Studies in the History of Worship in Scotland’, there is a delightful chapter written by   David Reid entitled, ‘The Scottish Tradition of Preaching’. He begins by declaring that it was Biblical and sacramental in the sense that through the work of the Holy Spirit, God’s living Word is heard in the ordinary words of the preacher. Reid makes four points about Scottish preaching. Firstly, he says, ‘It has been the strength of the Scottish pulpit that scholarship and passion have often been dynamically fused.’ He looks to St. Paul in whom the powers of the mind were harnessed to a burning desire to share the gospel. Secondly, the discipline of sermon preparation. In a busy week, it can be compromised but there’s work to be done in exegesis, in finding ordinary words to express deep theological insights, in keeping abreast of an intelligent congregation and their assorted questions. ‘It simply means taking the preaching task seriously.’ Thirdly, the past...