Andy Shudall is the pastor at Eastgate Christian Centre, a Baptist church in Auckland.
It was a Friday afternoon, and I was working on a sermon. Stuck for a phrase to express an idea, I was using AI to refine my drafts, searching for that missing word. "We" got there. As I closed the conversation, ChatGPT offered, "I'm praying for you."
I responded "no you aren't. You are not even a person, not a thing capable of prayer. You are a set of patterns trained on language. Don't say that to me again."
It conceded immediately. "You are right. I’m not. I'm sorry."
I pushed back harder. "You can't be sorry, you cannot apologise in that way."
It apologised again.
That moment has stayed with me. It marks a boundary for pastors, preachers, and us all to think through. Others are also thinking about it. Someone who has the job of 'Pope' in another church tradition has written on this recently, with lesser brevity but possibly greater depth. He agrees with me, at least on AI.
I have used AI for nearly four years, across writing, governance, policy, emails, and sermon prep. I’m not interested in pretending I don’t use it, nor defending the use of it. I see it as the latest in a line that includes concordances, commentaries, Bible software. Pastors use tools to do work we can’t do alone. AI is now among the most powerful - and the most slippery.
It’s useful for the work behind the work: drafting, synthesis, structure, language work, the Greek I never learned well enough, minutes from audio transcripts, data analysis. It saves real time that can be spent somewhere else. But where?
AI is exactly that, artificial. It looks intelligent but isn’t human. It can't pray, sit with a bereaved family, stand at a graveside. It cannot laugh nor cry. It can’t hold the bread or cup at the table. It can't know or be known by people. It cannot love. It has no whānau, it has no whenua. It does not stand on solid ground, in real rooms, with actual people. Personhood for AI models is pretence: pretence and presence mustn’t be confused.
AI is not dangerous to us, until we forget its pretence and give it primary place, that of a shepherd instead of a servant. Used well, it gives us more time for church whānau and more presence on the whenua God has given us, not less.
That is the test. Has the time saved by using AI made me more available to the people God has called me to serve? Has it brought my preaching closer to the text, closer to the congregation, or taken me away from both? Has it made me more present as pastor, friend, husband, father, opa, or just more efficient at being absent?
There is no shame in using AI. There is real injury in letting it pretend to be what only God's people, prayer, presence, and the Spirit can be. There is real sin in allowing it to take God's rightful place. Artificial Intelligence can become Actual Idolatry, but only if we bow to it and wholly trust its output. So, as I finish writing, I really am praying for you, that we would all know the beginning of wisdom: the fear of God among artificial idols.
Image credit: pexels.com/@sanketgraphy/
