THE THEOLOGY OF A NAME

Why CrossAIHub

"For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified."
— 1 Corinthians 2:2 (KJV)

A small Christian family making teaching for other families — Bible open, hymn sung, tools used with care.

The name is a sentence.

Cross · AI · Hub. The Cross is the centre. The Hub is the gathering. The AI is the tool that helped us build the gathering. The Cross is named first because everything else depends on it. The Hub is named last because gathering is the work the Cross makes possible. The AI sits between them — because that is the order of importance.

Three voices that shaped our thinking.

Augustine, on Egyptian gold.

In On Christian Doctrine, Augustine writes that when Israel left Egypt, they took with them the gold and silver they had earned over centuries — and used it to make the furniture of the Tabernacle. Egypt's gold became the Lord's. Augustine concludes that Christians may take what is true and useful from the world, separate it from what is corrupting, and put it to the service of the gospel.

AI is, in this old sense, Egyptian gold. We take what is useful — the drafting, the translation, the accessibility — and we set down what is not — the manufactured visions, the fake voices, the slipped doctrines. The gold is put to the use of the Tabernacle.

C.S. Lewis, on the abolition of man.

Lewis warned in 1943 that technology untethered from the moral law becomes a way of making humans into objects. The warning is not against technology, but against using technology to forget what humans are. We take this seriously. Our use of AI must keep the human at the centre — the writer, the listener, the brother, the sister. AI is a tool serving persons. It must never be a tool that replaces them.

Wendell Berry, on the affection of the maker.

Berry teaches that a thing is well-made when the maker has affection for it and for the people who will receive it. We try to make each piece of this site with affection. The AI helps with the drafting and the searching. The affection has to come from people. It cannot be automated.

A small confession.

We considered for a long time whether to put "AI" in our name at all. Some Christians will be wary on the first hearing. Some will assume the worst. We considered hiding the tool and presenting the work as if no AI had been involved.

We decided against it. To hide the tool would be to deceive. We would rather be transparent and lose some readers than be polished and lose the household's integrity. So the name says what it means. The Cross is first. AI is named because it is named. The Hub is what we are building, by the Lord's mercy.

If the tool ever shapes the message, we set it down.

This is our promise. The Cross is fixed. The Hub is the gathering of brothers and sisters in Christ. The AI is replaceable. The day it starts to be the message instead of carrying the message, we will set it down. We have not yet had to. We trust the Lord to make it clear to us if and when we do.

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The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.

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