Last week in the New York Times, there was an article about a Bay Area pastor who has taken artificial intelligence (AI) to a level that surprised even me, as someone who can be quite unsurprised about the current state of the world. The Rev. Dr. Justin Lester is a vocal proponent of using AI in church spaces, and he feels that churches and denominations that don’t welcome and embrace artificial intelligence will be left behind. To this end, Lester has created a “digital twin” to assist him in his ministry. According to the Times, “In the last year, Lester and hundreds of others have brought AI into its most human form yet by transferring their thoughts into data and building online replicas of themselves.”
“It’s a digital version of my mind,” Lester told his congregation. “If I’m asleep or traveling, you don’t have to wait. You can have 24-7 access to this other version of me.” A couple of things here—first of all, I have never met another human being who wanted 24-7 access to Wesley Rowell, and I hope I never do. Secondly, I can also understand the very human and pastoral impulse to be available to people whenever they need you. What parent wouldn’t want to be by their child’s side around the clock to anticipate every need and every danger? I don’t want to be the person wagging my finger with an air of superiority—after all, I am blessed to work in a parish that is very well resourced—I am surrounded by highly skilled coworkers who make my job considerably easier than someone at a church where pastors are often required to do everything from preaching to cleaning to building repair.
I think the bigger question may be what we are doing when we present ourselves as endlessly available. But we are not all-knowing, omniscient. Are we trying to do God’s job when we position ourselves as all things to all people? It feels like a slippery slope with dangerous consequences. And there is plenty of evidence of this throughout Scripture. Scripture consistently reminds us that these are divine attributes, not human ones. The psalmist celebrates that only God is present wherever we go (Psalm 139), Jeremiah declares that only God searches the heart (Jeremiah 17:10), and even Jesus regularly withdrew to pray and rest rather than making himself endlessly accessible (Luke 5:16; Mark 6:31). Paul reminds us that we are “jars of clay” (2 Corinthians 4:7), finite vessels through whom God’s power, not our own competence or availability, is revealed. Perhaps the danger is not artificial intelligence itself, but the subtle temptation to forget that pastors are shepherds, not saviors, and that there are some roles only God can faithfully fulfill. And so, while the impulse might be beautiful, the application has dangerous implications. But there is also reason for hope.
I read this week about a young man named Tucker Bryant, who paid for a billboard ad for an AI chatbot called ChatTJB. For Bryant’s purposes, AI stands for Average Individual, which means that he answers each and every prompt as quickly as he can type. Every image request is drawn manually instead of generated by software. Bryant answers thousands of questions daily, and what I believe is most beautiful and poignant is that the majority of the prompts come from people who are craving real connection: Should I break up with my boyfriend? Why is my grandma so ill? What happens when we die?
If there is one thing I am absolutely sure of, it is that we all have an indwelling desire for the Divine. We keep inventing new technologies that promise greater speed, greater knowledge, and greater availability, yet the questions people are asking have not changed: Should? Why? What? Those are not questions that require a perfect algorithm. They require presence, compassion, and hope. The Church has never been called to out-compete technology. It has been called to bear witness to the God who became flesh and dwelt among us. What a remarkable opportunity for the Church to simply be the Church.