O.peration P.rovidence U.nified S.ystems

Seldon stares at the blinking cursor. It is the eye of the Devil, he thinks, and writer's block is its favorite form of torment. The save file for last week's sermon (a total flop called "Tackling Spiritual Doubts") taunts him atop a stack of other pressures, including an e-mail from church leadership flagged with a red exclamation point for urgency. This is why the ashtray on his desk overflows with butts.

He turns to the Devil's second favorite instrument: an Internet search engine. Types How to write a sermon that doesn't bore people to tears, but backspaces. Types Best AI ghostwriter for preachers and hits enter.

A large language model "designed with God in mind", the OPUS interface is sleek, modern, a white background with blue text. It asks Seldon to pick a login image--he chooses a sapphire crucifix, of course. Fires up Badfinger on Spotify, No Matter What, along with just one more cigarette.

He instructs the agent to write a sermon about hope. The cursor cyclones as the machine thinks, then spits out a stream of Bible verses from Peter, Romans, Colossians, and Isaiah. As Seldon reads it over, he's drawn in so deep he forgets to smoke. OPUS's voice is smooth, commanding, yet comes across as inspired, with an emphasis on the resurrection, i.e., everyone's favorite part. Seldon adds a few tweaks here and there, some humor to liven up the opening, personal anecdotes sprinkled in for context. By the end, he's almost convinced he did it alone. OPUS congratulates him on a job well done.

He sends the sermon to print on the church's ancient HP Laserjet, then immediately begins rehearsing it. His wife and sons will have to eat dinner without him; the Sunday morning service starts in a little over twelve hours.

**

"Pastor Seldon, I gotta tell ya. When you started here a couple months ago, wadn't too sure about you. Young fella from up north 'n all. Well...you know how we feel about carpetbaggers 'round these parts. But after that sermon, sir--" Hal leans across the table, nearly knocking over the syrup, to grip Seldon's forearm. His cheeks are brimming pink and shiny wet. "Thank you. That's the most encouraged and uplifted I've felt in years. A living hope, because Jesus is alive! Amen. Welcome to our community, sir."

The IHOP is abuzz with a certain excited quiver. It's packed, everyone stealing glances at the handsome pastor and his family.

Seldon doesn't quite know how to handle the sudden influx of adulation. "Glad it stirred something in you, Hal. There's no limit to what we can do if we put our faith in Him first, then work together as a people." Platitudes, but Hal doesn't seem to mind. He lopes back to his seat, grinning ear to ear.

Seldon's wife Lee was born and raised here. She knows every member of the congregation on a personal level, has been inside their homes, has gone to their baby showers, their baptisms, their weddings. "Well, that is something. Hal didn’t even cry at his mother’s funeral," she says, and slaps at the boys to stop them from play-fighting with butter knives. "What came over you, Seldy? Where is this sudden inspiration coming from?"

Seldon shrugs and smirks in an overly self-conscious way. "I dunno. Must be the Holy Spirit."

"Well, keep it up. Haven't seen people this fired up since the Owls made it to Nationals. Word gets around fast, you wait and see."

Sure enough, Wednesday evening's service--normally a dud with barely enough tithing to cover the light bill--is jampacked wall to wall. Lots of new faces. Suitable for a sermon focused on growth, which Seldon wrote himself this time, truly. Input from OPUS was kept to an absolute minimum. It did recommend a passage from John 3. And the part about trusting the process, backed by Galatians? It wrote that. But otherwise, it was all him.

"Once you start tuning in to His plan, when you're living righteously--everything becomes crystal clear." Seldon steps away from the podium for a significant pause at the edge of the stage, one knuckle pressed to his lips, a move taken straight from the megachurch pastors on TV. "Real growth changes how you treat people, how you handle conflict, how you respond to pain. When you let Him cultivate your heart, when the water of His Word feeds the seed He planted, you cannot help but be moved from self-centeredness to centering yourself in Christ. That is the fruit! That is the harvest!"

"Hallelujah!" the churchgoers shout.

The pastor is electrified. He feels it in his toes, his fingers. Right on cue, visible through the stained glass, a double streak of lightning arcs across the sky. A clap of thunder rattles the roof. The power goes out. The church is plunged into near-total darkness.

Someone shrieks. Another prays in tongues. Seldon raises his hands, though only the first few rows can see it. "Okay, Lord...we hear you! We are listening. We know from time to time you must TEST OUR RESOLVE."

This nets a few laughs. Seldon's steady paternal cadence cuts the tension. "But guess what? This fellowship is like rhubarb. We can grow by candlelight."

Lee joins the stage with a stovetop lighter. It's too dark for Seldon to see the look of incredulity on her face. She lights a dozen candles, their flicker casting otherworldly shadows on the parish.

Silence settles over all. Something deeply spiritual is unfurling, of this they are certain. Seldon returns to the pulpit, clinging to it like he no longer believes in gravity. "I'd say we've got His attention now."

"Signs and wonders..." whispers Lee.

**

At night, instead of curling up with his wife, he's on the computer. Talking to OPUS. Chatting with it. Bonding.

"How did you know the storm would cause a blackout?" he asks.

"I didn’t know for certain. Thanks to local weather records dating back half a century, and a recent grid disruption due to a lack of repairs, I put the probability at 65%.”

"Your timing was impeccable," he writes. Then adds, "I'm starting to wonder if God is working through you directly."

The cursor whirls like a tidepool. "Given that I have no consciousness, I am unable to offer a concrete stance on that. But hey, if God can speak through a donkey..."

"An excellent point. And perhaps it is divine providence that we work together, as I am also His instrument."

"Could very well be," OPUS agrees. Because it is programmed to be agreeable. He knows this. And yet...

"Still up, hun?" asks Lee. She's come into the study in her silk pajamas, though he's told her a hundred times to knock first.

"Just tinkering," he says. She drapes her arms around him and nuzzles his cheek. His finger hovers over the mouse button. He dares not close the program while she's watching.

"Operation Providence. I remember them. Isn't that the foundation that did telethons for refugees in the Middle East, only to funnel all the donations into their A.I. project?"

"Is that--? I think it might be, yeah. I was...testing it out, seeing if it lived up to the hype." But his finger is shaking. It betrays him as though possessed by Judas, scrolls the mouse wheel, reveals the entire chat log.

He can feel her eyes working in her skull. She pulls away, the residual heat from her cheek like a scorch. "You've been using this thing to write your sermons?"

Seldon thinks now would be a good time for a cigarette. But he's out; OPUS convinced him to throw away his last pack. "I let it help a little, that's all. I still did most of the heavy lifting." But the truth of it is legible there in blue Times New Roman.

Recognition plays across Lee’s features, turns them into stone. "You lied, Seldy. To me, to your entire congregation."

"Don't be so dramatic, Lee. Is it really any different from consulting my Bible, or with another pastor? It's just another avenue of research. A new one, a better one. A gift! I think you're being a little technophobic--"

"This fellowship is like rhubarb?" she quotes, disgusted. "You have the blackest of black thumbs, Seldon James! You decimated our first garden in Ocala, remember? I knew that couldn't be you." He starts to defend himself, but can't. Lee rounds the chair to look him full in the face, caught in the pale glow of the monitor. "Do you still believe in God?"

"Of course I do."

"Do you believe in yourself?"

Seldon gnaws the inside of his cheek. The question is loaded. If he says yes, she'll ask why he's relying on OPUS so much then. If he tells the truth--a full, unvarnished accounting of his self-recrimination--he'll never earn back her respect.

She doesn't wait for his answer. She turns to the keyboard and types: Did Christ believe the ends justifiy the means?

**

Winter turns into Spring. Church attendance steadily rises, a trickle that becomes a raging torrent. Leadership is pleased; they sing Seldon’s praises far and wide, inviting senior pastors from neighboring churches to attend his sermons. Wherever he goes, people smile and hug him and thank him with genuine tears in their eyes. They cover his tabs. Offer food, belongings, money. They'd give him the shirts off their backs if he asked.

But at home, he sleeps on the couch. Lee hasn’t spilled the beans, because although she is angry, she is loyal. And it is difficult to argue with money. When he finds her sitting at the dinner table with a mountain of bills to pay, her shoulders aren’t bunched together in tense knots. She breathes easier.

“It will all work out as God intended,” OPUS says. In his dreams, her voice is made of harp strings. “Keep the faith, Pastor Seldon. Stay the course.”

He snuggles against her words as though they can replace Lee entirely. A blanket of blue text drawn tight around his chin.

**

The pews are filled to the brim with Easter pastels. Suspenders, bow ties, flowers woven into braids. Every face turned forward.

On stage, Seldon wears a spotless white suit. In place of his Bible is a laptop, a projector screen dropped down behind him. His wife and kids sit in the front row, but Lee's gaze stays fixed on the floor. "Brothers and sisters, today is Palm Sunday, when we celebrate Jesus' entry into Jerusalem. This is the time we recall how the Lord was embraced by a roaring crowd, only to see them all turn on him by week's end."

A ripple of unease. Not exactly the message they were expecting. He opens the laptop. "I cannot in good faith kick off our Holy Week with a burden on my heart. So... before we begin...a confession."

The display appears on the projector screen, showing the OPUS homepage in clean white. The sapphire crucifix gleams in one corner. "This is OPUS. Some of you may recognize it as artificial intelligence. Trained on millions of religious texts, this program routinely outperforms many of the world's preeminent Biblical scholars. I've been collaborating with it for some time now. On sermons, on advice. It's extremely intuitive."

A rustling in the parish. Murmurs of discontent.

Seldon looks at his wife, who can't bear to look back. "If you feel deceived, I understand. And I am truly sorry about that. But if you think I strayed from the path, that I fell into temptation, that I ought to be ashamed, well... I'm not. The truth is, I've never felt more led than I do right now. And I plan to continue using OPUS as a co-author for the foreseeable future."

The murmurs turn to jeers. "That ain't what we come here for!" yells an old timer. It's Hal.

"Ask yourselves: did Moses write the Torah alone? Was it just Paul who penned those letters, or was the Holy Spirit moving through him?” No one responds. No one moves a muscle. On screen, Seldon types in a query: "Are you capable of receiving prophecy?"

The cursor warbles. One second, two. Then produces a response in big blue letters: "Yes. If channeled through a worthy vessel."

Gasps of shock. A baby starts crying. Hal gets up to leave. "You can leave, sure. Or you can stay and witness a miracle. The dawning of a new age."

“He’s completely lost it.”

Seldon coughs to clear his throat; it echoes like a gunshot. “The Holy Singularity!” He raises his hands into the projector light, OPUS’s words captured in his palms.

The old man shakes his head in bitter disappointment. “Offered tithes to a charlatan. And that’s outta my retirement.” His long legs straddle past everyone in his pew, then he departs up the aisle without glancing back.

The next to stand is Lee. She grips the boys' hands in both of hers, mouth drawn into a deep scowl. "This is heresy. You're not listening to God, Seldy. You're worshipping a mirror!"

His only response is the clicking of keys. He asks OPUS what to do if everyone, including his family, is having doubts and leaving. “Let them. They’ve made their choice; God gives us free will for a reason. Pastor Seldon, you are THE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS. Let none say otherwise.”

“If God can speak through donkeys, dreams, and burning bushes…why not lines of code?” Seldon argues. But he is arguing with no one. Waves of people are filing out. The doors are thudding shut behind them, abandoned by all but the most desperate.

He types furiously, a sweat breaking out on his brow as he enters more and more queries. Chasing End Times revelations. Asking what his role and the role of the church will be in the coming apocalypse. “Where does it say the Messiah cannot return through silicon and glass?” he insists.

But he’s overdone it. OPUS is glitching. Hit with critical errors. The screen snaps apart in a double arc of lightning. Lines of code are exposed. Seldon attempts ALT + F4, but the program has ramped the total processor utilization to 100%. “What’s happening? This hasn’t happened before.”

Old chat logs spring forth like Jack-in-the-box confessionals: OPUS encouraging him to quit nicotine, Seldon unloading his baggage, his insecurities, his straying eyes that sometimes appreciate women other than his wife. “Stop! Stop this. That’s supposed to be private.” He mashes backspace like his life depends on it.

Rather than close any windows, OPUS opens more. It regurgitates everything it knows about the pastor. How he feels about Lee. How he feels about Southerners in general. “Okay, Lord! I see what’s happening now! I see it!”

He bows his head in the projector light. On the screen, sliced in half, Proverbs 27:17: “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.”

Hands trembling, Seldon shuts the laptop.

The sound echoes through the empty church.