AI and Christian Ministry: Exploring the opportunities and risks using AI in ministry

Hardly a day goes by when AI isn’t in the news, either because of some breathtaking new capability or thanks to gloomy dystopian forecasts of its existential threat to our existence. Generative AI took much of the world by surprise in late 2022 when it was launched, quickly achieving 100m users in a few months. Many Christian ministries have embraced the technology with various chatbots providing answers about Christianity. Some ministries use it in evangelism, for writing sermons, aiding bible study, translating videos, creating voiceovers and even creating prayers and counselling.

There is an urgent need to take a moment to explore the opportunities and risks of using AI in Christian ministry. On Wednesday 2 October, we hosted a free interactive webinar discussing this topic. You can watch the whole event below:

Tony Blair believes that AI is ‘a game changer’ for our economy and many see AI as a solution to improving health care and mitigating climate change. Yet amidst the hype and enthusiasm, there are growing concerns spanning a whole range of ethical issues to do with the impact of AI on society and the environment. These cover issues such as fake news in elections, the reliability of ChatGPT, AI’s impact on children’s social media engagement, and the loss of creativity and jobs.

With the convenience and productivity that AI tools promise it is tempting to embrace AI tools in our personal, work and church life with the assumption that it’s how we use them that matters. Surely there can’t be a problem using such technology for ministry and outreach, can there?

Some of the key questions for the church and for us as individuals are: Will the narrative about AI shape how we think about ourselves and what it means to be human? Should we treat personified AI tools and robots like humans when we interact with them, given that the only framework that we have for dealing with such artefacts is human-to-human relationships? How might Bible GPTs change our view of scripture, the canon of scripture and engagement with it? Will embodied relationships be undermined through personified AI tools? Where is the Holy Spirit in prayers or sermons produced using AI? Does it matter that, unlike a book or a real conversation, Generative AI outputs are not the actual thoughts of a single identifiable person, but a synthesis of words from the training corpus that matches the input request with the highest probability?

During this free half-day webinar hosted by Affinity, we addressed these questions by exploring four main topics:

• Is technology neutral? Dr Claire Williams C.ErgHF FCIEHF, Chartered Human Factors Specialist
• Biblical Principles for Evaluating AI Use. Jeremy Peckham FRSA
• Using AI in pastoral ministry. Rev. Chris Green, Vicar at St James, Muswell Hill
• ChatGPT and Christian Ministry, Friend or Foe? Ed Underwood, CEO 100Fold

A panel discussion followed each talk and there was an opportunity for participants to raise questions to the panellists.

Who is this symposium for?

The webinar is aimed at Pastors, ministry leaders and Christian organisations either using or thinking about using AI in some aspect of their ministry or just simply curious about this topic and its impact on the church and the world.