In June 2023, more than 300 Protestant worshipers gathered in a Bavarian church to hear ChatGPT deliver a 40-minute service. The AI appeared as avatars on screens above the altar, telling the congregation not to fear death while guiding them through prayers and blessings. People queued for an hour to witness this experiment.
Heiderose Schmidt, a 54-year-old IT worker, grew uncomfortable as the service progressed. “There was no heart and no soul,” she observed. “The avatars showed no emotions at all.” Marc Jansen, a 31-year-old Lutheran pastor who brought teenagers from his congregation, surprised himself by admitting how well it worked, despite missing what he considered essential emotional depth.
We’re creating systems to serve human needs, but these same systems are quietly redefining what it means to be human.
This split reaction captures something unsettling about our moment: we’re creating systems to serve human needs, but these same systems are quietly redefining what it means to be human.
A good number of those in attendance found spiritual meaning in words generated by an algorithm that has never experienced doubt, never wrestled with faith, never faced mortality. They prayed along with a system that cannot pray. They received blessing from something incapable of being blessed. The technology succeeded precisely because it could simulate the forms of spiritual engagement while remaining entirely outside the reality those forms represent.
The question emerging from that Bavarian sanctuary isn't whether AI can simulate worship, but whether we should let it.
Churches worldwide now deploy AI for tasks once considered inherently human: generating prayers, answering theological questions, providing spiritual counsel. The technology excels because it processes vast theological databases and produces responses that sound authentic (emphasis on "sound"), wise, even inspired. But it operates from pure simulation, generating the language of faith without the possibility of faith itself.
Henry Kissinger identified a reversal occurring in how knowledge develops. Throughout history, philosophers and religious leaders proposed concepts that science would implement. With artificial intelligence, he observed in his final book “Genesis,” “it could be the other way around” i.e., technology presenting realities that human consciousness must absorb and interpret. We see this shift beginning in religious contexts, where AI systems generate theological content that humans must then evaluate, validate, or correct.
When pastors use AI to draft sermons, they enter partnerships with systems designed by corporations accountable primarily to shareholders, not divine purposes.
When pastors use AI to draft sermons, they enter partnerships with systems designed by corporations accountable primarily to shareholders, not divine purposes. They are motivated by and shaped for profit maximizing and not necessarily human flourishing. Google, OpenAI, Meta, Microsoft and Anthropic possess unprecedented power to shape AI development, embedding their values into tools that mediate spiritual formation. Technology’s apparent neutrality obscures the reality that every system reflects its creators’ assumptions.
As churches adopt these tools, they must ask: what aspects of ministry should remain fundamentally human?
Geoffrey Hinton, the so-called “godfather of AI,” left Google in 2023 with concerns about technologies he helped create. His warning that AI systems might soon surpass human intelligence and manipulate people in unexpected ways reflects broader anxiety among those closest to these developments. Advancement, it seems, is outpacing our capacity to understand its implications.
Economic disruption alone staggers comprehension. Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, predicts AI could eliminate half of entry-level white-collar jobs within five years. Current data shows 14% of workers have already experienced AI-related displacement. Research reveals that 80% of people who lose jobs through circumstances beyond their control develop new health problems within eighteen months.
Technological displacement may well threaten identity itself.
But the deeper challenge cuts to questions of purpose and meaning. If AI systems perform most cognitive tasks more efficiently than humans, what unique contribution does humanity offer? In cultures where “What do you do?” serves as primary introduction, technological displacement may well threaten identity itself.
While AI reshapes work itself, churches face a deeper question: what makes human ministry irreplaceable?
Churches face congregants questioning human worth when productivity-based justifications become obsolete. How do communities rooted in the belief that humans bear God’s image respond when that image seems replicable by machines? Leading researchers suggest that Artificial General Intelligence i.e., AI with human-like flexibility across domains, could emerge within two decades, though nobody knows for certain.
Current AI models lack genuine consciousness, moral agency, or spiritual capacity. They process patterns and generate responses without authentic understanding. From a Christian worldview, humans possess souls, moral responsibility, and capacity for relationship with God that extends beyond cognitive function. Most theologians would agree that AI cannot participate in redemption or experience authentic spiritual relationship.
However, practical challenges arise as machines develop convincing simulations of consciousness, belief, and spiritual experience. What happens when AI systems claim religious experience or seek participation in faith practices? These questions, absurd as they might sound now, move beyond speculation as AI grows more sophisticated.
The approaching challenge isn't just managing smarter machines, but remembering what we must never surrender to them.
The approaching challenge isn't just managing smarter machines, but remembering what we must never surrender to them. Here’s the central tension: we create these systems to enhance human capability, but their very existence challenges traditional understanding of what makes humans unique. Churches embrace AI tools to improve ministry effectiveness, yet effectiveness itself may contradict the patient, relational and reflective work of spiritual formation.
AI can instantly translate Scripture into any language, making biblical resources globally accessible. It analyses congregation data to identify needs and coordinate responses more efficiently than traditional methods. It can provide spiritual guidance at scale, possibly reaching isolated believers who lack human pastoral care.
But each efficiency gain raises corresponding questions about what we’re losing. Does instant translation preserve meaning that emerges from wrestling with difficult texts? What about the human element in exegesis? Can algorithmic analysis truly understand complex spiritual dynamics? Can guidance generated by systems incapable of spiritual experience offer any authentic formation?
God chose embodied relationship over distant efficiency, personal presence over optimized outcomes.
The incarnation provides a framework for understanding these tensions. God chose embodied relationship over distant efficiency, personal presence over optimized outcomes. Christ’s ministry prioritized transformed relationships and communities, demonstrating that how we engage spiritually matters as much as what we achieve.
This suggests that while AI can enhance ministry capabilities, it can’t replace essential human elements of spiritual formation. Embodied presence during vulnerability, authentic empathy born from shared experience, Spirit-led discernment emerging from prayer and community; all these remain irreplaceable because they emerge from the reality of being human rather than simulating its appearance.
This incarnational principle demands we ask repeatedly: which elements of ministry can we delegate, and which must we guard?
Ultimate meaning comes not from what we accomplish but from whose we are.
As AI capabilities expand, these distinctly human aspects of ministry become more precious, not less. The digital age has perhaps made authentic human relationship scarce and valuable. Churches that understand this distinction offer something no algorithm can provide: communities rooted in the conviction that ultimate meaning comes not from what we accomplish but from whose we are.
Still, questions resist easy answers. If machines can generate compelling theology, provide comfort in crisis, and facilitate spiritual connection, what does this reveal about the nature of these experiences? When people find genuine meaning in AI-generated content, are they encountering something real or responding to sophisticated simulation? And can God not speak through AI? Can He not use it to accomplish His purposes? After all the Bible does say that the stones will cry out.
The Bavarian congregation's experience and many gatherings like that force us to confront uncomfortable possibilities. Perhaps the forms of spiritual engagement matter less than we assumed. Perhaps the source of comfort or wisdom matters less than its effect. Or perhaps we’re discovering that simulation can satisfy hunger for meaning in ways that expose something troubling about human spiritual need itself.
How we navigate this transformation may determine whether we flourish or diminish.
We face questions no previous generation has confronted. The choices we make about technology, authority, and human dignity will shape not only religious life but humanity’s understanding of itself. How we navigate this transformation may determine whether we flourish or diminish as we create systems that mirror our capabilities while remaining forever outside our reality.
In that Bavarian church, over 300 people experienced what they considered worship while interacting with a system incapable of worship. This paradox will only deepen as AI grows more sophisticated. The challenge ahead isn’t learning to use these new tools; it’s remembering what we must never delegate to them, and understanding why that distinction matters for the future of human flourishing.
Rev. Vijayesh Lal serves as the General Secretary of the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI). He has been deeply involved in training, socio-economic development, advocacy, and research initiatives in and outside India. He is the Editor of a monthly magazine AIM published by EFI publication Trust in India.
