Imagine a Sunday morning sitting in the sanctuary of your home church, expecting to hear a sermon the pastor prayerfully crafted for your congregation, but instead hearing him announce the service would be entirely led by an AI outline. This was reality for a Methodist church body in Austin, Texas, and the results were not quite up to par with normal service standards.
The Barna Group, a research organization, recently published a study titled “AI is Becoming a Spiritual Authority, Even Among Practicing Christians.” Barna found that Christians are more likely to affirm AI’s role in Christian spiritual development than non-Christians are, with 48 percent of practicing Christians trusting AI to aid in spiritual growth, compared to 38 percent of non-Christians and 12 percent of pastors.
The study also shows that Christians outpace non-Christians in trusting AI with a variety of life problems and decisions, including anything from financial decisions to learning how to build deep friendships. Pastors rank behind both groups in their trust in AI.
However, other questions asked in the poll show opinions are not so black and white.
There is still some concern among Christians regarding AI’s place in the biblical realm, according to the Barna study, as “Nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults (74 percent) express concern about AI misinterpreting scripture.”
Barna’s vice president of research, Daniel Copeland, noted that this is where the data gets tricky to understand. “Christians say they trust AI with spiritual growth, and a meaningful share say its spiritual guidance is as trustworthy as a pastor’s — yet large majorities are simultaneously concerned about AI misinterpreting scripture, replacing God, or undermining the role of spiritual leaders,” he said. “The use case and the underlying fear are both present, and they’re pointing in different directions.”
What AI is and What It is Not
Fears about misinterpretation of scripture from AI are justified. The most sacred book needs to be interpreted with care. However, it would not be correct to say that AI purposely misleads people, since it is simply a generative technology. Nevertheless, the ways it mixes previous knowledge (and at times opposing views) can lead to questionable answers. Thus, there are several good techniques to implement when using AI for theological purposes.
Some Christians say it can be a good practice to ask a chatbot to assist users as if it were a specific theologian, whether it be C. S. Lewis, Saint Augustine, or Martin Luther. That way, users can filter (to an extent) what biases are in the answer. Others say best practices include only using chatbots that include direct links to sources in their answers so that one can be aware of where the information is coming from.
How Has the Church Used AI?
Some pastors across the nation and the world have publicly experimented with AI to craft the outlines for their Sunday services. For example, the Methodist church in Austin, Texas, previously mentioned tried using “ChatGPT to put together the entire worship service, including the sermon and an original song.” Pastor Jay Cooper, the head of the Austin church, said his congregation was “glad we did it,” but then also said, “and let’s not do it again.” Cooper said the AI service lacked an essential human element. “It seemed to in some way prevent us from connecting with each other … the heart was missing.”
Brain Howell, a former anthropology professor at Wheaton College, noted in World magazine: “AI can help with that to some extent, but it can also very much inhibit and very much get in the way of real, actual human interaction. People using chatbots for therapists or chatbots as their pastor is a horrifying idea to me.”
