The following passage is an excerpt from my new best-selling book, Reclaiming Reality: Restoring Humanity in the Age of AI. You can learn more about the book, listen to the podcast based on the book, and purchase the book at ReclaimingReality.com.
Every great technological shift in history has carried a moral weight—AI is no different, and the Church must rise to meet it. As the world accelerates toward a future dominated by artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and digital surveillance, the question facing Christians is no longer whether they should engage with technology but how they should engage. The old paradigms of blind technological optimism or total rejection are both insufficient.
What is needed is a deliberate, principled, and strategic approach to technology—one that allows for the benefits of modern tools while resisting their dehumanizing and spiritually corrosive effects. To dismiss AI as inherently demonic or to cede its development solely to those who exclude moral and spiritual frameworks from their work is to abandon the call to steward creation wisely. History is littered with examples of technologies that were initially met with fear or suspicion—from the printing press to electricity—but which became instruments of profound good when guided by ethical foresight and human dignity.
If communities of faith withdraw from these conversations, they risk enabling a future where AI amplifies inequality, erodes privacy, and dehumanizes the vulnerable. The notion that AI is incompatible with Christian values often stems from a misunderstanding of both technology and theology. Labeling AI as “demonic” conflates tools with their misuse, ignoring the biblical truth that human hearts, not inanimate systems, are the source of moral failure. Scripture repeatedly calls believers to participate in the world as agents of redemption, cultivating wisdom and creativity in every sphere of life. To reject AI outright is to deny the divine image in humans that empowers innovation and problem-solving. Rather than fearing AI as a rival to human purpose, Christians might instead view it as a tool to reflect God’s care for creation, provided it is governed by compassion, accountability, and justice.
For instance, AI systems that prioritize healthcare access or environmental sustainability could embody the biblical mandate to love neighbors and tend the earth. Conversely, systems designed to manipulate, surveil, or exploit would indeed perpetuate brokenness—but their danger lies not in the technology itself, but in the values of those who control it. Critically, the Church cannot afford to outsource ethical leadership on AI to secular institutions. Christian theology alone offers unique solutions: an unwavering belief in the sacredness of every person, a commitment to the common good over self-interest, and a vision of human flourishing rooted in humility and service. These principles are urgently needed as society grapples with questions about AI’s role in warfare, employment, education, and governance.
Who decides the boundaries of autonomous weapons? How do algorithms reinforce or dismantle systemic bias? What protections exist for workers displaced by automation? These are not merely technical dilemmas but moral ones. If Christians remain silent, they implicitly endorse a status quo where AI serves the powerful at the expense of the powerless. This is not to ignore legitimate concerns about AI’s risks. The capacity for mass surveillance, the erosion of meaningful human connection, and the opaque decision-making of “black box” algorithms all demand rigorous critique. Yet addressing these threats requires involvement, not abdication. The Church’s role is not to curse the darkness but to light a lamp—equipping technologists, policymakers, and ethicists to ask harder questions: How can AI enhance human dignity rather than replace it?
How do we ensure transparency and accountability in systems that affect billions? What safeguards prevent the concentration of AI’s benefits among elites? These discussions must happen in universities, boardrooms, and legislative halls, with people of faith actively contributing rather than passively observing. The path forward hinges on education, dialogue, and moral imagination. Seminaries and churches should foster literacy in technology’s ethical dimensions, empowering believers to engage confidently in public discourse. Partnerships between theologians and AI developers could yield frameworks for “ethical by design” systems. Grassroots advocacy might push for regulations that prioritize human dignity over corporate or government overreach. Above all, Christians must model a vision of technology as a means, not an end—a tool to serve, heal, and unite, never to dominate. The stakes could not be higher. In a world increasingly shaped by algorithms, the choice is clear: either participate in shaping AI’s ethics with courage and conviction, or surrender the future to forces indifferent to the weight of glory inherent in every human life. The call to love our neighbor has never been more complex—or more urgent.
The rise of artificial intelligence has become a lightning rod for apocalyptic fatalism that is steeped in existential dread and surrender to despair. From Silicon Valley boardrooms to church pulpits, narratives of AI-driven catastrophe—job displacement, autonomous weapons, algorithmic tyranny—dominate discourse, fueling a paralysis of imagination. This mindset, while masquerading as pragmatism, is a spiritual sickness. It reduces humanity to passive spectators of progress, ignoring our God-given capacity for wisdom, creativity, and moral agency. This fatalistic outlook thrives in the vacuum left by eroded faith, replacing trust in divine providence with idolatrous fear of machines.
Modern media’s addiction to catastrophe finds perfect fuel in AI. Headlines scream of “existential risks” and “human extinction,” while documentaries depict rogue algorithms reducing cities to ash. This sensationalism serves dual purposes: it drives engagement through adrenaline, and it softens public acceptance of centralized control. When elites frame AI as too dangerous for public hands, they position themselves as saviors—gatekeepers of a technology they’ve deemed ordinary people unfit to wield. The same pattern repeats in politics, where fear of “misinformation” justifies censorship tools powered by AI itself. Meanwhile, dystopian fiction like Black Mirror supplants Scripture for many, teaching generations to view technology as inherently corrupting rather than a potential instrument of stewardship.
Even within the Church, distorted eschatology compounds this paralysis. Some believers, fixated on apocalyptic signs, dismiss AI as a harbinger of the Antichrist’s regime—a perspective that abdicates cultural responsibility. If Christ’s return is imminent, why engage with AI ethics, mentor the next generation of engineers, or shape policy? This defeatism portrays a flawed theology. Scripture never permits passivity; it commands dominion, wisdom, and redemptive engagement. The early Christians didn’t abandon Roman roads because pagans built them—they traveled those roads to spread the Gospel. AI, like all human inventions, reflects the duality of its creators: capable of curing diseases or crafting deepfakes, empowering entrepreneurs or entrenching tyranny. Its trajectory depends not on some autonomous “will,” but on the values of those who guide it. This is where apocalyptic fatalism’s lie collapses—it assumes inevitability, denying humanity’s role as co-creators under God.
Churches should host workshops to help congregants navigate AI’s ethical minefields. Entrepreneurs must create alternatives to Big Tech’s monopolies: decentralized social platforms, censorship-proof payment systems, AI tutors that reinforce biblical literacy. The early Church thrived not by seceding from Rome but by creating a parallel polis—hospitals, trade guilds, schools—that outshone the empire’s decadence. Today’s Christian parallel society might include open-source AI models trained on timeless moral philosophy, CRISPR co-ops where genetic editing serves families with hereditary diseases, and algorithmic charitable aid networks that route surplus food to shelters, bypassing bureaucratic bloat.
At the Cross, the world’s worst crime became its greatest hope. This “resurrection logic” defies apocalyptic fatalism. When AI ethicists warn that machines could deem humans a threat, we counter: technology has no purpose apart from its makers. When transhumanists preach digital immortality, we offer the embodied hope of Easter morning. Our faith declares that no algorithm can predict the Holy Spirit’s work, no deepfake can counterfeit grace, and no singularity can outpace the King who makes all things new. The white pill isn’t naivety—it’s defiance. It’s the farmer planting orchards his grandchildren will harvest. It’s the programmer writing ethical code in a garage. It’s the mother rocking her baby while algorithms scream collapse. We walk not by the flickering light of panic but by the certain dawn of Christ’s reign. Let Silicon Valley’s prophets of doom clutch their graphs. We have the Book, a Cross, and a King. The future belongs not to the fearful, but to the faithful.
