Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street. Labor Day is, for most Americans, about cookouts, a long weekend saying farewell to the summer. For Christians, however, it can also be an opportunity to honor the uniqueness of human beings and add context to the meaning of our work. The very first Labor Day parade took place in 1882.
It was really the brainchild of unionist and socialist. It brought attention to unsafe working conditions, long working hours, child labor, and other issues emerging from the Industrial Revolution. In 1894, the U.S. Congress passed an act making the first Monday of September an official holiday. Labor Day is about acknowledging the rights of workers.
Christians can agree with Samuel Gompers, the first president of the American Federation of Labor, when he stated that laborers are more than mere producing machines. In a cultural moment like ours, where people feel so disconnected from the productivity of their work, In the midst of what is a larger crisis of meaning across our culture, there's more that can be said about the importance of human labor. Our labor ultimately finds meaning in the fact that God first labored as he created the world and human beings. Adam and Eve were tasked by God with the job of cultivating and caring for the earth. Thus our work derives dignity as we reflect the work of our Creator.
Put differently, works a mark of human exceptionalism. We don't merely toil, we work, and the difference carries significant biblical implications. The best human technologies are those that reduce the toil that has corrupted human work since the fall. Our best inventions restore, but they do not replace the dignity that God intended only for humans in their work. Though marred by sin, work remains a good and noble part of who we are and can serve God's redemptive purposes.
In fact, much of modern history involves Christians embracing a vision of human work, not reduced to drudgery, but inspired by the redemptive possibilities of blessing others across economic and class lines. The emphasis on the dignity of human work is increasingly important today as we encounter artificial intelligence. It's tempting to either elevate AI in word or in deed to the status of image bearers or to reduce image bearers to the status of AI. We're all growing far too comfortable with humanizing AI, such as talking to our preferred chat bot as if it's a real person and a friend. And we already devalue humans based on what they can or cannot produce for us.
As Psalm 135 teaches very clearly, we will see ourselves in the image of whatever it is that we worship.
So to maintain the meaning that's inherent to human work, we have to be clear on the purpose. Of technology, especially as it becomes more and more impressive. Technologies can help humans, they can heal humans, they can enhance humans, and they can even replace humans. The first two purposes are legitimate uses that can serve human exceptionalism, but attempts to enhance and replace humans are today driven by committed purveyors of transhumanism and post-humanism. We will need incredible discernment if we're going to navigate between these radically different potential uses of technology, especially when it comes to artificial intelligence.
Recently, Dr. John Lennox observed a distinction between what he called narrow AI, a computer system that does one thing that's normally done by humans, only faster and better. An artificial general intelligence, which matches or exceeds human capabilities across virtually all cognitive tasks. The latter is what is increasingly desired and what is also increasingly feared. We should pray that Christians operating from a Christian worldview will find ways to lead restorative work in AI innovation.
And we'll have to understand the temptations of AI in light of our larger crisis of meaning. We work because we're made in the image of a God who works. To strip work from people is to strip meaning from them and to dehumanize them. Part of honoring human exceptionalism is to honor work. Even if Labor Day has dubious origins and has been reduced to just another day of leisure in recent decades, still it offers the rare opportunity to reflect and to champion the truth about people.
In fact, the leisure we will enjoy on Labor Day is also a notion that has massive philosophical and theological meaning. It's a break from what Joseph Piper called a culture of quote-unquote total work. When we work, we mimic and image God. And when we rest, we also mimic and image God. At its best, AI can only mimic and image us, and it cannot rest.
For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street with Breakpoint. Today's Breakpoint was co-authored with Andrew Carrico. If you're a fan of Breakpoint, leave us a review wherever you download your podcast. And for more resources or to share this commentary with more people, go to breakpoint.org.
