Between Babel and Pentecost: What Kind of Future Are We Building?

Between Babel and Pentecost — Article 1 of 5

By Matthew J. Skolnik

Scripture: Genesis 11:1–9 · Genesis 12:1–3 · Acts 2:1–47. Additional context: Genesis 1; Genesis 9; Genesis 10.

A pastor announces that she will not use artificial intelligence. She has read about the electricity and water consumed by data centers, the labor involved in developing AI systems, and the enormous concentration of power among the corporations building them. She worries about technology that can produce a convincing sermon without faith, a compassionate response without compassion, or an appearance of wisdom without understanding. She believes that caring for creation, protecting human dignity, and preserving the integrity of pastoral ministry require her to refuse this technology. Her decision is not necessarily born of ignorance or fear of change. It may arise from a serious commitment to Christian discipleship.

What should we say to her? Perhaps our first responsibility is to listen. Her concerns are substantial, and the church ought to be asking many of the same questions. We should resist the temptation to respond immediately with arguments about efficiency, innovation, or technological inevitability. Environmental degradation, exploitation, and the erosion of human relationships cannot be dismissed simply because a new technology offers promising possibilities.

But imagine another pastor, equally concerned about creation care and human dignity, who reaches a different conclusion. Serving a small congregation with limited resources, this pastor finds that carefully using AI to test ideas or prepare questions can contribute to more thoughtful ministry. The pastor also understands this choice as an expression of stewardship. The two pastors share theological commitments but differ about how to embody them.

Neither pastor’s sincerity settles the ethical question. The benefits experienced in one congregation do not erase costs elsewhere; the presence of those costs does not automatically settle every question about possible uses. Faithful people can attend to the same obligations and reach different conclusions.

We may want to decide immediately which pastor is right. Yet the more demanding work is to consider what happens when care for creation, justice, human relationships, and the responsibilities of ministry pull us in different directions. How do we accept responsibility for powerful technologies that we neither fully understand nor control?

These are not questions we can answer simply by deciding whether artificial intelligence is good or bad. They require us to examine the purposes our technologies serve, the responsibilities we bear, and the kind of people we are becoming as we respond to them. Two biblical stories may help us begin. One concerns people who seek to secure their future through an extraordinary construction project. The other concerns a community whose future is transformed by a gift they cannot manufacture. Babel and Pentecost are not stories about artificial intelligence, but they have much to teach us about human ambition, divine promise, and the life of the church.

The World We Are Trying to Secure

The story of Babel begins with people who share a common language and possess the knowledge and resources to accomplish something remarkable. They settle in the land of Shinar, develop building materials, and organize a great construction project. Their ambition is impressive: a city and a tower reaching toward heaven. Nothing in the narrative requires us to conclude that making bricks is inherently sinful or that human cooperation is contrary to God’s purposes. The more interesting question concerns what the builders hope their achievement will accomplish.

In Genesis 11:4, the people declare their intention to make a name for themselves so that they will not be scattered across the earth. Their ambition is connected to recognition and security. The tower represents more than technological ingenuity; it embodies an effort to establish a permanent center around which the people can organize their identity and protect themselves from an uncertain future.

This desire becomes particularly interesting within the larger narrative of Genesis. Humanity receives the blessing and commission to fill the earth in Genesis 1:28, and that commission is repeated after the flood (Genesis 9:1). Genesis 10 describes peoples spreading across territories and languages, while Genesis 11 presents people determined to prevent their dispersal. Biblical interpreters have understood Babel in different ways, emphasizing pride, resistance to God’s purposes, the desire for security, and the dangers of concentrating power. These interpretations need not exclude one another, and we should resist reducing the story to a single moral lesson.

What becomes apparent is that the builders seek to establish their future through their own collective capacities. They believe that sufficient coordination, ingenuity, and power will allow them to secure what they fear losing. God interrupts the project, and the future they imagined cannot be established simply through their own accomplishments.

Churches know something about this temptation. We can devote extraordinary energy to preserving buildings, maintaining programs, defending inherited structures, or developing elaborate systems of governance. These efforts may serve important purposes, but they can also become ways of avoiding the uncertainty involved in faithful ministry. We may begin to imagine that sufficiently strong institutions, carefully constructed policies, or innovative programs will guarantee the church’s future. What began as a means of serving God’s mission can gradually become an end in itself.

Artificial intelligence raises similar questions on a much larger scale. Its development is driven by economic competition, scientific research, political ambition, and national security interests. Enormous resources are concentrated in institutions capable of developing increasingly powerful systems, while the people affected by those systems often have limited influence over their purposes. The promise of greater efficiency, productivity, and knowledge exists alongside the possibility of greater dependency, inequality, and concentrated control.

We must ask whether technological progress is being organized around human flourishing or whether human flourishing is becoming subordinate to the pursuit of technological power. The answer cannot be determined merely by examining what a technology is capable of accomplishing. We must also examine the human desires and institutional ambitions shaping its development. Babel does not tell us that artificial intelligence is sinful. It does something more demanding: it invites us to examine what we are trying to secure through the things we build.

Whose Name Are We Making Great?

There is a striking literary connection between Babel and the story that follows it. The Hebrew word translated as name is *שֵׁם (shem). At Babel, the people seek to make a shem for themselves (Genesis 11:4). Immediately afterward, God promises to make Abram’s shem* great (Genesis 12:2). The repetition invites us to consider the difference between a name pursued through human achievement and a name received within God’s promise.

The word carries an additional resonance within Jewish tradition. Many Jews reverently refer to God as HaShem, meaning “the Name,” rather than pronounce the divine name. This later practice should not be read back into Genesis 11 as though the builders were literally attempting to claim God’s name. Nevertheless, it reminds us that language about names can carry profound associations with identity, reputation, and authority (My Jewish Learning, “What Is Hashem?”). The question emerging from Babel concerns not merely what human beings are capable of accomplishing, but the significance and authority they assign to their accomplishments.

Abram’s calling introduces a different possibility. Unlike the builders of Babel, who seek security by remaining together, Abram is called to leave familiar territory and enter an uncertain future. God promises to bless him and make his name great, but the promise is not directed toward Abram’s private security or reputation alone. He is blessed so that he may become a blessing, and the horizon of that promise extends toward the families of the earth (Genesis 12:1–3).

Here the theological question changes. Rather than asking only whether human beings should develop powerful technologies, we must ask what our remarkable capacities are ultimately for. Are we organizing them primarily to secure our own significance, influence, and comfort? Or are we receiving them as gifts through which we might serve others?

The Confession of 1967 offers a particularly relevant expression of this responsibility. It describes human life as both a gift and a task, connecting human creativity with the protection of natural resources, the pursuit of justice and peace, and the common welfare (Confession of 1967, §9.17). Later, the confession speaks of the “fruits of technology” as gifts entrusted by God for the welfare of families and the larger human community (Confession of 1967, §9.46). It recognizes human ingenuity without granting it unlimited moral authority. Our capacities are to be exercised for the good of others, particularly in a world marked by poverty and exploitation.

This is a remarkable theological resource for our present conversation. The confession does not require us to regard technological development as inherently corrupt, nor does it suggest that every technological advance should be embraced. It places our accomplishments within the larger responsibilities of stewardship, reconciliation, and justice. The question is not simply what we can produce, but whether what we produce contributes to the flourishing of God’s creation and the well-being of our neighbors.

John Calvin offers a related warning. In his Institutes of the Christian Religion, he writes that the human mind is, “so to speak, a perpetual forge of idols” (Calvin, Institutes, I.11.8, trans. Henry Beveridge). His concern is our capacity to manufacture objects of trust and devotion, granting our own creations a significance and authority they do not deserve. We can make an idol of technological progress by imagining that greater intelligence, efficiency, or computational power will eventually resolve the deepest problems of human existence. But we can also place excessive trust in familiar institutions, inherited practices, or our own certainty about what faithfulness requires.

The difference between Babel and Abram invites us to reconsider the fundamental question. Perhaps faithfulness is not measured primarily by whether we possess or reject a particular technology. Perhaps it is revealed in the purposes we serve, the responsibilities we accept, and the people who are blessed or burdened by our decisions. That insight does not settle every ethical concern. The costs of AI remain real, and the fact that a technology can serve a worthy purpose does not justify every means of producing it. But it changes the question we bring to our decisions: what faithfulness requires in relation to its possibilities, consequences, and the people affected by its use.

A Future We Cannot Manufacture

The story of Pentecost begins with another gathered community, but the circumstances are markedly different. The disciples are in Jerusalem, waiting for the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise. They are not attempting to secure their future through a monumental undertaking or establish their significance through a collective achievement. They are waiting for a gift that cannot be produced through their own abilities.

When the Holy Spirit comes upon them, the disciples begin speaking in other languages. People from many regions hear them proclaiming God’s mighty works, each in their own language. Some respond with astonishment, others struggle to understand, and still others ridicule what they witness. Even this extraordinary event does not eliminate the human responsibility to interpret what is happening (Acts 2:1–13).

It is tempting to interpret Pentecost as the simple reversal of Babel, as though God restores the linguistic unity lost in Genesis 11. But Pentecost offers something more interesting. People do not abandon their languages and adopt a single common tongue. Understanding becomes possible without requiring difference to disappear. The Spirit enables a diverse gathering to encounter God’s work without making everyone the same.

This distinction matters for congregations that sometimes confuse unity with uniformity. We may imagine that our churches would function more effectively if everyone shared the same theological assumptions, cultural expectations, or preferences about ministry. Yet Pentecost does not portray the elimination of difference as a prerequisite for Christian community. Peter interprets the event through the prophet Joel, announcing that the Spirit is poured out upon all flesh. Sons and daughters, young and old, and people whose social standing might ordinarily deny them authority are included in the promise (Acts 2:14–21).

The Confession of Belhar provides an important theological companion to this vision. Emerging from the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, Belhar insists that Christian unity is both a gift and an obligation. It affirms that differing languages, cultures, backgrounds, and gifts can become opportunities for mutual service and enrichment (Confession of Belhar, §2; Book of Confessions 11.2). Its historical context also warns us that appeals to unity can conceal structures of exclusion and unequal power. Genuine reconciliation does not require marginalized people to surrender their identities for the convenience of those who possess authority.

Artificial intelligence can create meaningful opportunities for communication across differences. Translation tools may help congregations welcome neighbors who speak another language. Accessibility technologies may increase participation among people who encounter barriers to conventional forms of communication. AI may help church leaders examine assumptions about people whose experiences differ from their own. These possibilities deserve attention, especially in smaller congregations whose financial limitations make specialized resources difficult to obtain.

Imagine a congregation using translation software to begin conversations with neighbors who do not primarily speak English. The tool may remove an obstacle that once made even an introduction difficult. But the next question is not merely whether the church can translate its worship bulletin or invite families into existing programs. Will it listen when neighbors suggest a different kind of gathering, want to share in decisions, or offer gifts of leadership the congregation has not yet recognized? Welcoming people into plans we have already made is different from allowing relationships to reshape those plans. Translation may open a conversation; it cannot decide what mutual belonging requires.

But artificial intelligence is not the Holy Spirit, and efficient communication is not the same as communion. A machine may translate words while missing cultural meaning. It may generate compassionate language without exercising compassion. It may make information available without addressing the inequalities that prevent people from participating fully in community life. Pentecost is not fundamentally a celebration of communication technology. It is the story of the Spirit empowering diverse people to participate in God’s work.

At Babel, human beings attempt to secure a future through their own extraordinary capacities. At Pentecost, the church receives a future it could not manufacture. The community that emerges does not owe its existence to the ingenuity of its leaders or the sophistication of its methods. It is brought into being through the grace of God and empowered by the Holy Spirit.

This is good news for a church that often feels anxious about its future. We do not have to save the church through technological innovation. Neither do we have to preserve the church by resisting every technological development. The future of the church does not ultimately depend upon our ability to master change or prevent it. Our calling is to bear faithful witness to Jesus Christ, trusting that the Spirit continues to gather, equip, and send the church into the world.

That trust does not release us from responsibility. It frees us to exercise responsibility without imagining that everything depends upon our success. We can evaluate new technologies carefully, acknowledge uncertainty, establish boundaries, correct mistakes, and even reject practices we conclude are harmful. We can also explore possibilities that may help us serve more faithfully. We do not have to control the future in order to participate responsibly in it.

What Happens After Pentecost?

The story of Pentecost does not end when the crowd hears the disciples speaking in different languages. Acts 2 continues with Peter’s proclamation, the response of those who hear, and the emergence of a community devoted to teaching, fellowship, breaking bread, and prayer. The believers share material resources and attend to one another’s needs. The Spirit’s work becomes visible not merely in extraordinary communication but in the ordinary practices of a transformed community (Acts 2:42–47).

This offers a demanding standard for evaluating technology in the church. It is not enough to ask how much work a tool accomplishes. We must also attend to the relationships, practices, and shared responsibilities through which congregations are formed. An efficient organization is not necessarily a faithful community; greater productivity may or may not deepen worship, discipleship, generosity, and care.

The Brief Statement of Faith calls the church to “unmask idolatries in Church and culture” and to hear those whose voices have been silenced (A Brief Statement of Faith, Book of Confessions 10.4). Our discernment must therefore ask not only how a technology benefits people we know, but also whose work, resources, and well-being it depends upon. Those questions deserve sustained attention rather than a passing acknowledgment.

Not every use of AI can be justified by a worthy purpose; principled refusal may be faithful. Yet refusal does not release the church from understanding how these systems affect neighbors who did not choose them. Our obligations continue beyond the decision to use or reject a particular tool.

Living Faithfully Together

Perhaps the most important question is not what AI will someday accomplish, but what kind of people and congregations our responses are helping us become. Christian formation requires more than defending a preferred position: it requires examining our desires and practices in the light of the gospel.

The two pastors with whom we began may never agree about using AI. One may continue to refuse it out of concern for creation and human relationships; the other may use it selectively in service of ministry. They need not abandon those convictions to practice attentive listening, mutual accountability, and shared responsibility for the consequences of technological change.

Babel reminds us that human beings can organize extraordinary capacities around the pursuit of security, control, and significance. The call of Abram reminds us that our gifts are intended to become blessings beyond ourselves. Pentecost reveals the Spirit empowering diverse people to participate in God’s work, while the community that follows demonstrates that genuine transformation becomes visible in shared life, generosity, worship, and care.

Our calling is not to master every new technology or withdraw from a changing world. It is to follow Jesus Christ and seek the flourishing of the people and creation God loves. Between Babel and Pentecost, we will disagree about what to build, improve, limit, or refuse. Yet we can keep asking whose name our accomplishments serve, whose lives our decisions affect, and what kind of community the Spirit is calling us to become.

Questions for Reflection and Conversation

1. The convictions we bring. Which concerns about artificial intelligence arise from your deepest theological commitments? How might those commitments lead faithful Christians toward different practices?
2. Babel and security. Where do you recognize the desire for control, security, or recognition shaping our use of technology? Where might those same desires appear in congregational life?
3. *The meaning of shem.* How does the contrast between Babel’s desire to make a name and God’s promise to Abram change the way we understand human achievement and responsibility?
4. Creation and justice. What environmental and human costs are we willing to accept for technologies we already use? How should we decide which costs are justified, which must be reduced, and which are unacceptable?
5. Pentecost and community. What is the difference between making communication easier and strengthening genuine participation in a community? What can technology contribute, and what can it never provide?
6. Shared responsibility. How might Christians who disagree about using AI work together to protect human dignity, care for creation, and help their congregations exercise faithful discernment?

A Practice to Try: Examining a Technology Theologically

Choose one technology your congregation already uses. It might be livestreaming, online giving, social media, email, a church management system, or artificial intelligence. Invite a small group or your Session to examine the technology without first voting on whether it should be retained or rejected.

1. Babel — Power and security: What are we hoping this technology will accomplish, and are we asking it to provide something no technology can guarantee?
2. God’s promise to Abram — Blessing: Whom does the technology serve? Who benefits, and who may bear costs that are easy to overlook?
3. Pentecost — Participation: Does the technology help people participate more fully in the congregation’s life, or does it create new forms of dependence, exclusion, or inequality?
4. The community in Acts — Shared life: How does the technology affect relationships, worship, generosity, discipleship, and care for neighbors?

Conclude by identifying one concrete practice your congregation might strengthen, change, limit, or discontinue. You do not need to resolve every disagreement to take a faithful next step.

Faithful discernment is not a verdict we reach once. It is a practice we cultivate together.

Sources and Further Reading

Inline citations throughout the article identify the exact section or chapter where each historical or confessional claim is grounded. Scripture references are given by book, chapter, and verse.

• John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, I.11.8 (trans. Henry Beveridge), on the human mind and idolatry.
• The Confession of 1967, §§9.17 and 9.46, on human capacities, stewardship of natural resources, technology, and the common welfare. Linked source is the PC(USA)’s 2002 inclusive-language edition; paragraph numbers correspond to the confession.
• The Confession of Belhar, §2 (Book of Confessions 11.2), on unity, reconciliation, language, culture, and shared life.
• A Brief Statement of Faith (1991), Book of Confessions 10.4, on confronting idolatry, listening to marginalized people, and pursuing justice.
• My Jewish Learning, “What Is Hashem?”, explaining the later Jewish reverential usage of HaShem for God.
• Principal biblical texts: Genesis 11, Genesis 12, and Acts 2, with Genesis 1, 9, and 10 as literary context. Scripture links open the Church Commons Bible Reader with The Shared Word Translation (TSW) available.