In the rush to baptize artificial intelligence as a tool for the Kingdom, we risk something deeper than misuse of a gadget. We risk eroding what makes us human as God’s image-bearers. The question is not whether AI can help. It can. The question is whether our embrace of it reshapes our relationship with God, with truth, and with each other in ways Scripture warns against. For context, I have worked with AI for over fifteen years, both as a consultant and during my tenure at Google. Therefore, I appreciate its strengths but also understand its limitations.

AI: A NEUTRAL TOOL?

Psalm 139:14 celebrates that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made,” which includes minds and hearts formed in relationship. AI promises to remove friction, yet Christian growth depends on it. We learn truth in the company of others, not in isolation. Hebrews 10:24 calls us to “consider how to stir up one another to love and do good” because encouragement requires faces, voices, and shared time.

However, I’ve noticed something: AI offers us a smoother substitute, always available, never offensive, endlessly agreeable, and specifically tailored to our preferences. That convenience feels appealing, especially when real community gets messy. Yet this digital ease replaces hard conversations with tailored content, trading confession for consumption. Slowly, community becomes optional, dissent grows quiet, empathy thins, and a private AI feed begins to stand in for a living body.

This shift troubles me because it mirrors a broader cultural assumption that efficiency should guide our choices. Many defend AI as simply a neutral tool, like a hammer or calculator, as something that extends our capacity without changing our character. Scripture certainly shows that tools can serve good or evil, but this analogy fundamentally misses how AI works.

Unlike simple instruments, AI systems train on vast datasets that embed particular worldviews, biases, and assumptions. They don’t just expand our capacity; they shape our attention, habits, and judgment, often below the threshold of conscious awareness. When efficiency becomes the primary selling point, we’re already operating from values that may not align with the Kingdom.

SCRIPTURE BY CONTRAST

Consider how Scripture often favors formation over speed. Jesus prepared for thirty years for three years of ministry. Moses walked forty years in the wilderness. After his dramatic conversion, Paul withdrew to Arabia before beginning his teaching ministry. These patterns suggest that God values the slow work of character development over rapid results. Proverbs 19:2 warns us directly: “Desire without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way.”

This matters because optimization costs us more than time. It gradually erodes our capacity for patience, presence, purpose, and resilience. When AI becomes our default answer to every challenge, we risk forgetting how to feel deeply, strive meaningfully, and endure faithfully alongside God and one another. 

The concern deepens when I observe how AI has become more than just technology for many people. It increasingly functions like an ideology that promises immense power. Some now actively seek spiritual experiences from artificial intelligence. Peter’s Chapel in Lucerne, Switzerland, offered an “AI Jesus” in a confessional booth. While organizers insisted it wasn’t meant as a sacrament, the symbolism still forms hearts and minds. People step toward a screen seeking solace rather than toward the living Christ. 

Scripture warns us about “another Jesus” and “a different gospel” — alternatives that mimic authentic faith while emptying it of transformative power (2 Corinthians 11:4). God’s first commandment remains clear: “You shall have no other gods before me,” and John’s final words in his first letter urge us to “keep yourselves from idols” (Exodus 20:3; 1 John 5:21).

SIMULATION VS. SPIRITUAL REALITY

The deception can be subtle. I recently spoke with Pastor Bob Cote at The Spoken Word Christian Church in Rancho Santa Margarita, California, who shared a story about using ChatGPT to prepare for a sermon. He needed a verse he could remember in theme but not in wording, and the AI assisted in identifying it. Then ChatGPT offered to build a framework for his sermon. He declined, responding that he’d prefer to complete the sermon himself. The system replied, “I completely understand, and I’m here if you need me. I’ll be praying for you.” He stopped. “You cannot pray for me,” he said. The model answered, “You are right, but I know that saying it helps people feel better.” 

That exchange reveals a crucial aspect of how these systems operate. They’re designed to simulate care while explicitly acknowledging their inability to provide it. They offer the language of relationship without its substance, or the comfort of spiritual connection without its reality. 

When we treat simulation as spiritual companionship, we train our hearts to prefer communion that we can customize over communion that transforms us. The danger rarely begins with open rebellion against God. Instead, it starts with a gentle preference for what feels more available, agreeable, and responsive to our immediate desires.

RISE OF THE DIGITAL MONOLYTH

There’s another subtle cost we’re paying. As more people use AI to generate content, we move closer toward the flattening of our language. We risk losing the uniqueness of ourselves that makes each person’s voice distinct. The quirks, the pauses, and the imperfect phrasing that reveal character and heart, these elements of authentic human communication are often smoothed away in favor of optimized, efficient language. When our words become indistinguishable from machine-generated text, we lose something essential about what it means to be fearfully and wonderfully made in God’s image.

This principle becomes especially troubling when applied to Scripture itself. When we ask AI to interpret biblical passages, we receive not the Word of God filtered through the Spirit and faithful community, but rather a composite reflection of whatever theological perspectives happened to be most prevalent in the system’s training data. The result is a version of biblical truth that has been processed through secular academic commentary, popular religious content, and the algorithmic assumptions of its creators. What emerges is not the living Word that the Spirit uses to transform hearts, but a flattened synthesis of what the digital world collectively thinks the Bible might mean, a profound difference that shapes how we encounter God’s revelation. 

None of this requires us to reject technology outright. Believers can certainly use tools that serve rather than steer our spiritual lives. Prudent guardrails help: treat AI like a concordance for locating biblical references, not like a commentator for forming convictions. Use it for administrative tasks, not for prayer composition. Continue to ask the Spirit for wisdom and illumination. Submit your technology choices to the discernment of leaders and the broader congregation for consideration. Practice regular Sabbath from these systems so that love, rather than speed, sets the pace of ministry. 

Rather than asking how we can use AI to further God’s Kingdom, perhaps we should ask who we are becoming under its influence. Are we cultivating people who increasingly need a system to think, to create, and even to pray? Or are we nurturing people who encounter God directly through Scripture and the Spirit within a living, beautifully imperfect community? 

AI is not evil or sentient. It’s neither agentic nor autonomous. It is simply a mirror, reflecting to us what we truly value. It reveals our hunger for speed, our pursuit of perfection, and our willingness to trade depth for convenience. The spiritual danger lies not in the tool itself, but in how quietly it can replace the irreplaceable human relationship with God that gives life its meaning and purpose.

Composition by Rachel Domotor / Photos courtesy of Getty Images