Looking For Healing Wisdom

AI generated image of quote by  Donald Lindberg, M.D.

“When you put a book on a shelf it immediately begins a dialogue with the books next to it; the whole collection is a quiet conversation among ideas, each volume listening to and answering the others.”  

Donald A.B. Lindberg, M.D.

1986 Annual Report of the National Library of Medicine

In 1986, I attended MedInfo ’86 in Washington, DC. I heard Dr. Lindberg and remembered his speech. What if two recent AI books could “Talk” with each other from two different disciplines?  Could we find healing wisdom?

The new book by Todd Kopi, AI Goes to Church: Pastoral Wisdom for Artificial Intelligence, does a deep dive into identifying the mission of the church and the intersection with the power of AI technology to.assist in responding.   I had previously described my connection with the history of AI in medicine by the recent review by Robert Wachter in the book, A Giant Leap.

What would these books share in a conversation?

Here are the AI conversation results (Google):

If Robert Wachter’s A Giant Leap and Todd Korpi’s AI Goes to Church "talked" to each other, you would witness a fascinating dialogue between a medical visionary and a pastoral strategist. 

Dr. Donald Lindberg, a pioneer in medical informatics, famously envisioned a world where clinical systems and libraries "talked" to one another to bridge the gap between static knowledge and active practice. In this specific pairing, the "conversation" would likely focus on how a purely algorithmic power (AI) can be integrated into the most deeply human spheres of our lives: healing and faith. 

Common Themes in the "Conversation" 

Theme	Robert Wachter (Medicine)	Todd Korpi (Ministry)
The "Better Than" Standard	Argues AI doesn't need to be perfect to be transformative; it just needs to be better than the current error-prone system.	Explores how AI can provide pastoral wisdom and efficiency that enhances current ministry reach.
Human Identity	Challenges doctors to redefine their roles as AI begins to match or surpass them in diagnosis and empathy.	Examines how AI shifts the identity of the pastor and the nature of community in a digital-first world.
Combating Burnout	Sees AI as a solution to clinician burnout by handling administrative burdens like note-taking (ambient scribing).	Focuses on using AI to manage the "rote" tasks of ministry so leaders can focus on deeply relational work.
Relational Integrity	Warns against making care transactional; emphasizes that "someone must be on the receiving end of a patient’s kisses".	Advocates for maintaining the sacred nature of human connection while leveraging AI tools for outreach and organization.

What We Would Learn 

If these two books spoke to each other, the overarching lesson would be intentionality. 

• The "Giant Leap" isn't the technology itself; it's the shift in human roles. Both authors suggest that AI is a "copilot". We would learn that as AI takes over cognitive labor (diagnosing a disease or drafting a sermon), the  new human professional must double down on emotional intelligence and spiritual presence—the things an algorithm can simulate but never truly possess.
• Systems must be "rewired" for wisdom. Just as Wachter argues hospitals must fundamentally restructure to avoid automation bias, Korpi suggests churches need a new framework for "Pastoral Wisdom" in the age of AI. The "talk" between these books would produce a roadmap for ethical implementation that prioritizes human flourishing over mere technical efficiency. 

So a 1986 vision has become a reality.  The challenge is to take this new transformative AI reality of practice into the church and in medicine!

*Bolding and formating done by me.

References

Linberg, D (1986) NLM Annual Report of Programs and Services, 1986

Korpi, T. (2025). AI Goes to Church: Pastoral Wisdom for Artificial Intelligence. InterVarsity Press.

Wachter, R. (2026). A Giant Leap. Penguin Group

Hage, M. L. (2016). Future Healing.

http://healingagents.blogspot.com/2016/09/future-healing.html

Hage, M. L. (2023). Can AI be a Healing Agent?

http://healingagents.blogspot.com/2023/08/can-ai-be-healing-agent.html

Hage, M. L. (2026). A.I. Healing

https://healingagents.blogspot.com/2026/02/ai-healing.html

Healing Words?

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; 

for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

Exodus 20:7 (KJV)

There is a lot of invocation of God’s name in our world of wars.  I am concerned that many of these represent “vainness”.  This is  one of those glittering vices and deadly sins!

“The worst sort of vainglory, however, according to Aquinas and others, occurs when we fail to give due glory to God as the source of our good.   We might call this glorying “in vain,” because in such cases we seek glory for the wrong end, aim, or purpose.”

The religious language we hear has been both overt and covert with narratives of fulfilling biblical prophecy.  It has been and is an underlying justification of  many wars.  These narratives create an illusion of an end that celebrates the winners.  We have all suffered by chasing these phantom ends.

What are those ends we are called to pursue?  We know it and we share it with our siblings in faith:

He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; 

and what doth the Lord require of thee, 

but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

Micah 6:8 (KJV)

Thanks be to God who continues to call us to a ministry of reconciliation and healing.

Marvin

References

DeYoung, Rebecca Konyndyk. (2020) Glittering Vices: A New Look at the Seven Deadly Sins and Their Remedies (p. 51).. Kindle Edition. 

Lischer, R. (2005). The end of words: The language of reconciliation in a culture of violence. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing.

Sacks, J. (2015). Not in God’s Name: Confronting Religious Violence. Schocken.

Hage, M. L. (2019). Healing Cultures.

http://healingagents.blogspot.com/2019/06/healing-cultures.html

Smith, J. K. A. (2022). How to Inhabit Time. Brazos Press.

Healing Senses

“Healing Touch"

We are exploring healing at our church this Lenten season.  Part of the challenge is how to address all the dimensions of the healing experience.  I was struck by the reports of all the methods - soups, music, walks, silence, cards, touch, visits, prayer and words of comfort.  It reminded me that healing is mediated by our senses - seeing, hearing, touch, smell, taste and our deeper understanding of these senses.

Those senses and reports of healing seem to somehow integrate these sensations into the deeper understanding we label as healing.   As communities, we ascribe meaning to our experiences that we celebrate together.  This narrative description is finding support in neurobiology in the new field of neurotheology.

For me, the mystery is still present even when we are beginning to understand some of the biologic mechanisms.  What is amazing to me is that all of the senses are part of these healing experiences.

Thanks be to God for our healing senses!

Marvin

References

Hagerty, B. B. (2010). Fingerprints of God: What Science Is Learning About the Brain and Spiritual Experience (Reprint ed.). Riverhead Trade

Miller, L. (2021). The Awakened Brain. Random House.

Newberg, A.B. (2023) Neurotheology: Making Sense of the Brain and Religious Experiences

https://biologos.org/articles/neurotheology-making-sense-of-the-brain-and-religious-experiences

Hyperscanning & Human Connection: Synchronization and the Third Brain with Biologist Nicolás Hinrichs (2025)

https://loveandphilosophy.com/beyond-dichotomy-podcast/interbrain-synchrony-and-human-connection#:~:text=Nico specializes in something called,being in conversation with words.

Newberg, A.B. Neurotheology: (2025) Practical Applications with Regard to Integrative Psychiatry. Curr Psychiatry Rep 27, 105–111. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11920-024-01584-3

Photo:

DiBiase,  R. (2017) The Simplest of Remedies: Rediscovering the Experience of Healing

https://share.google/XgvI6AYzqA3GrOoGD

A.I. Healing

 

I was hooked by hearing the author on the Freaknomics podcast, Can A.I. Save Your Life?.  As I read the first part of this new book, A Giant Leap, I felt it captured much of my own "informatics" history.  

Sometimes, I feel the need to skip ahead to the last chapter—but this time, I didn’t!  Perhaps that is why the final chapter of Robert Wachter’s new book, A Giant Leap, is so powerful.  In those pages, we find words like "transcend" and "awe" alongside descriptions of healing.  These are the very experiences that have defined the author’s life as a physician. 

It is also true that barriers and misuse of A.I. are realities that will require correction.  Large Language Models (LLMs) are limited by their training and their real-world applications.  These challenges are realistically addressed in this deep dive into the current state of healthcare delivery. 

What became clearer to me is that healing can be seen as a deep connection of shared stories—which is also the foundation of LLMs.  These digital stories are now connected through new tools that can facilitate who we are called to be.  The computer screen and its demands can be managed more efficiently helping to heal the epidemic of iatrogenic disconnections in healthcare and our world. 

Thank you, Dr. Wachter, for sharing your search and your stories of healing and A.I.!

Marvin

References

Can A.I. Save Your Life?

https://open.spotify.com/episode/0CHP5jKiJjfe1I55YX5S7o

Wachter, R. (2026). A Giant Leap. Penguin Group.

Goodwin L, Prather J, Schlitz K, Iannacchione MA, Hage M, Hammond WE, Grzymala-Busse J. Data mining issues for improved birth outcomes. Biomedical  Sciences Instrumentation 34:291-6, 1997

Hage, M. L. (2023). Can AI be a Healing Agent?

http://healingagents.blogspot.com/2023/08/can-ai-be-healing-agent.html