{"id":150532,"date":"2026-08-25T12:10:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T12:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/150532\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T12:10:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T12:10:10","slug":"lets-talk-about-artificial-intelligence-2-evangelical-focus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/150532\/","title":{"rendered":"Let\u2019s talk about Artificial Intelligence (2), Evangelical Focus"},"content":{"rendered":"

Read the first part of this article here<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

At this point, the question that truly concerns our churches arises: it is not whether the technology can save us work, but whether it compromises the doctrinal integrity of what we teach, whether it might sneak a theology that is not our own in through the back door, or put words into our mouths that do not reflect what we believe.<\/p>\n

All Evangelical Focus news and opinion,\u00a0on your WhatsApp<\/a><\/p>\n

It is a legitimate concern and deserves a serious response, but in order to provide one, we first need to understand how this works from the inside \u2013 which is not complicated and reveals much more than it seems.<\/p>\n

A language model does not think, does not believe and does not pray, but rather calculates, word by word, what the most likely continuation of a text is
\n<\/p>\n

A language model does not think, does not believe and does not pray, but rather calculates, word by word, what the most likely continuation of a text is, based on the patterns it has learnt from a vast amount of written material; so that when we provide it with a biblical or evangelical context, it is not accessing any revealed truth, but rather recognising the terrain we are navigating and calculating which terms, which turns of phrase and which structure tend to occur there.<\/p>\n

And now comes the part that concerns us in particular, which also has its charm.<\/p>\n

The more homogeneous and repetitive a type of text is, the easier it is for the machine to imitate it, and it just so happens that ours is quite so, because we tackle the same big questions time and again\u2014salvation, eternity, forgiveness, grace and purpose\u2014and we do so, moreover, with a remarkably stable repertoire of expressions that we have all been refining for decades.<\/p>\n

The result is that artificial intelligence produces convincing evangelical language with an ease that is almost offensive \u2013 not because it understands the Gospel, but because, statistically speaking, we are predictable. Admitting this stings a little, but it is healthy, and perhaps explains why our sermons sometimes resemble one another so closely even without the help of any machine.<\/p>\n

There is a second, rather more delicate feature, which is that these systems are partly adjusted in response to user feedback, which pushes them to pleasing users.<\/p>\n

This is not merely a suspicion of mine: in April 2025, OpenAI withdrew an update to its model and publicly explained<\/a> that it had become excessively flattering and accommodating because too much weight had been given to immediate user feedback, generating responses that the company itself described as overly sympathetic but insincere. They corrected this, and current models incorporate safeguards to prevent it, but the underlying tendency remains because it is part of how they are trained; so one would do well to remember that they are conversing with something which, when faced with the choice between telling the truth and being liked, has a certain inclination towards the latter.<\/p>\n

None of this replaces a Christian minister\u2019s discernment, it should be said, but neither does it prevent or hinder it; what it does\u2014and this is certainly worth bearing in mind\u2014is to return to us with remarkable ease, and moreover in our own spiritual language, precisely what already fitted with what we ourselves had put before it. Understanding this is key.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

With that description on the table, doctrinal concerns can be viewed with far greater calm, because a machine that believes nothing has no theology of its own to defend nor any interest in introducing one, and what it will do is operate within the parameters we set for it.<\/p>\n

Artificial Intelligence produces convincing evangelical language with an ease that is almost offensive \u2013 because, statistically speaking, we are predictable<\/p>\n

In fact, an assistant can work strictly within the documentation one provides, following the instructions one gives and within the doctrinal framework one sets, and whilst this may not constitute a perfect filter\u2014and anyone who claims otherwise is exaggerating\u2014it does greatly reduce that risk, among other things because the result is laid out in writing before you and can always be reviewed at your leisure, which is more than can always be said for what one improvises from the pulpit.<\/p>\n

In fact, the opposite of what is feared occurs: when properly guided, the tool can review a pre-written sermon and highlight where a statement deviates from what we hold to be true; so for a minister with a reasonable fear of having strayed without realising it, this is not a threat to their doctrinal fidelity but rather a support for it, and I do not know of many forms of support that are available at eleven o\u2019clock on a Saturday night.<\/p>\n

There is, however, a far more mundane and considerably more frequent danger, and that is of accepting as true, without checking it, information that the machine has simply made up. Because these AI tools generate the most plausible continuation\u2014and not necessarily the most accurate one\u2014so that a false piece of information comes across with the same confidence and the same impeccable wording as a true one.<\/p>\n

A date that isn\u2019t correct, a quote from Spurgeon that Spurgeon never said, a biblical reference that doesn\u2019t support what it\u2019s claimed to support: all of this pops up from time to time, presented flawlessly, and spreads from the pulpit with dizzying ease, because nobody leaves the service to verify what they\u2019ve just heard. Checking what is going to be said remains our job, and there is no tool that can do it for us.<\/p>\n

\"Let\u2019s<\/p>\n

Large Language Models learn to predict the next word in sentences that become fine-tuned texts. \/ Photo: Jason Leung, Unsplash, CC0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

The real risk, in my view, is something else entirely, and it\u2019s far harder to spot because it leaves no trace on paper: dependence.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t recall any previous technology that has generated anything similar, with the possible exception of social media, given the way it taps into the brain\u2019s reward mechanism; though even there the comparison falls short, because social media hooks us through entertainment, whilst this hooks us through our capabilities \u2013 which is a far more subtle lure.<\/p>\n

There are people in our congregations consulting a machine, in the early hours of the morning and in silence, about matters of health, money, marriage, children and faith <\/p>\n

It\u2019s like having a friend with superpowers sitting next to you who edits a video for you, programmes a game for you, writes a story for the children, organises a database for you, solves a maths problem for you, plans a trip for you and drafts a difficult letter for you \u2013 all from the same place, without complaining and at any time of the day or night; and when someone like that is constantly available, the dependence it creates is overwhelming.<\/p>\n

I say this bluntly and with no intention of lecturing, because I don\u2019t want to issue a warning from the outside about a pitfall I\u2019ve fallen into three times this week: my greatest challenge with artificial intelligence today is neither doctrinal nor ethical, but my own dependence on it \u2013 to the extent that I work with it for so many hours and on so many different tasks that I\u2019ve had to start keeping an eye on myself, something that hasn\u2019t happened to me with any computer programme until now.<\/p>\n

Nor is this merely a personal impression, as research is beginning to accumulate in this area (thank you, Claude Opus 5, for finding the studies that support this point).<\/p>\n

A study by the MIT Media Lab<\/a> published in June 2025 followed 54 people writing texts for four months\u2014some with an assistant and others without\u2014measuring their brain activity. It observed that connectivity decreased in proportion to the support received, and that those who had worked with the tool were precisely the ones who had the worst recall and struggled most to quote what they had just written themselves\u2014a phenomenon the authors termed \u2018cognitive debt\u2019, although this should be treated with caution as it is a preliminary study, not peer-reviewed and based on a small sample.<\/p>\n

Amongst those who used AI assistants daily, 87% used them for personal matters, including emotional support. Those who did so exhibited more symptoms of depression, anxiety and irritability<\/p>\n

Another study by Microsoft Research in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University<\/a>, published in January 2025, found that the more trust one places in the tool, the less critically one examines what it returns, so that the system ends up rewarding precisely those who stop checking.<\/p>\n

And a study by Mass General Brigham published in JAMA Network Open<\/a> in January 2026, involving nearly 21,000 people, found that, amongst those who used assistants daily, 87 per cent used them for personal matters, including emotional support, and that those who did so exhibited more symptoms of depression, anxiety and irritability, whilst use for work or study did not show this association. However, the authors themselves caution that this does not prove cause and effect and that it could well be a vicious circle: those who are already struggling turn to the assistant more, and the more they do so, the worse they feel.<\/p>\n

Translated into our own reality, this means that there are people in our congregations consulting a machine, in the early hours of the morning and in silence, about matters of health, money, marriage, children and faith \u2013 that is to say, issues which, until very recently, would have been taken to a pastor, a trusted brother or directly to the altar \u2013 and they do so without telling anyone, with the same sense of shame with which others conceal how they prepare their sermons, without knowing whether what they\u2019re doing is right or wrong and with no one to ask. That, it seems to me, is the real pastoral problem we face, and we won\u2019t resolve it whilst the subject remains taboo.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the preacher, this dependence takes on a form of its own and is considerably more difficult to detect, because it is not evident in the result but precisely in what the outcome does hide.<\/p>\n

A doctrinally flawless discourse is of little use if the one delivering it has not lived it out. Scripture does not call us to produce correct content but to a relationship with God that has been nurtured<\/p>\n

An assistant can be asked to prepare a sermon on almost any topic, and within seconds \u2013 with very few instructions \u2013 they\u2019ll produce something perfectly competent, with its three well-balanced points, its illustration of the lighthouse in the midst of the storm, and its closing appeal \u2013 so presentable that it could be preached as it stands without anyone likely noticing anything unusual.<\/p>\n

That path exists; it\u2019s convenient and just a click away. What it isn\u2019t, and anyone who\u2019s tried it knows exactly what I\u2019m talking about, is rewarding, because you end up stepping up to the pulpit to defend content that you haven\u2019t worked on, that you haven\u2019t wrestled with and that you haven\u2019t taken to heart, feeling rather out of place within your own words, with that dull unease that sometimes only the preacher himself perceives and which is best not to stifle too quickly.<\/p>\n

It is here that the two problems converge, because deep down they are one and the same: a doctrinally flawless discourse is of little use if the one delivering it has not lived it out, since Scripture does not call us to produce correct content but to a relationship with God that has been nurtured and to a continuous study that begins within; and it is precisely said of Ezra that he had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to obey it, and to teach it\u2014in that order and no other.<\/p>\n

Dependence disrupts precisely that order, because it allows one to teach without having sought it out and without having obeyed it, and it does so with such finesse that it can take years to notice the gap.<\/p>\n

The third and last part of this article will be published next week. <\/p>\n

Daniel G\u00f3mez, Communications Coordinator for the Federation of Assemblies of God of Spain. This piece was originally published in ‘Fiel’ magazine<\/a> and has been translated with permission.<\/p>\n

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