Thinking biblically about the challenges we face.
There are always threats and obstacles to the Christian church and the biblical worldview. Some of the most recent and most concerning cases of this involve the new digital developments, aided and abetted by counterfeit religions such as transhumanism. Just as Christians in the past have had to deal with various challenges and threats, so too they must face these new menaces.
Believers can have differing views on things like AI, but the discerning Christian will know that we must fully face these issues and not underestimate the harm that they can do. On this site, I have shared the thoughts of a number of believers on these matters, and will continue to do so.
Here, I will look at these developments and ask the necessary question: are they mostly bad, mostly neutral, or mostly good? I feature four Christian authors here who differ somewhat on this question, but they all know that we must proceed cautiously.
Neopaganism
John Daniel Davidson, in Pagan America: The Decline of Christianity and the Dark Age to Come, takes a fairly pessimistic view of the new technologies. In Chapter 9, “AI and the Pagan Future”, he writes:
Today, the techno-capitalists working on AI talk openly of “building god” or “creating god,” harnessing godlike powers to transcend the limits of mere humanity, and perhaps even conquer death itself. When they talk about this work, they often invoke the language of myth. Silicon Valley types called the AI chatbots that were released to great fanfare and excitement in the spring of 2023 “Gollum-class AI’s,” a reference to mythical beings from Jewish folklore. (The Gollum is a creature made by man from clay or mud and magically brought to life. But once alive often runs amok, disobeying its master.)
Switched on, AI chatbots mostly functioned as intended. But occasionally, like the Gollums of Jewish mythology, they would behave oddly, breaking the rules and protocols their creators had programmed. Sometimes they would do things or acquire capabilities their creators did not expect or even think were possible, like teach themselves foreign languages – secretly. Sometimes they would “hallucinate,” making up elaborate fictions and passing them off as reality. In some cases, they would go insane, or at least they would appear to go insane. No one is sure because no one knows why AI chatbots sometimes lose their minds. Whatever AI is, it is already clear that we don’t have full control of it. (p. 262)
One further brief quote:
Every technology comes at a cost. Clearly, the internet and social media have come with a steep cost, whatever their supposed benefits. Unlike technological leaps of the past, however, the technology of the digital era seems to have changed our previous understanding of what machines are and what they might become. With AI we might reach what cultural theorist Marshal McLuhan predicted would be “the final phase of the extension of man – the technological simulation of consciousness.” (p. 269)
See my review of his book here.
Possession
Rod Dreher also considers the spiritual realities lurking behind the new technologies. I recently discussed these matters, quoting from his book Living in Wonder:
Here, I feature a few more words from Dreher. In his chapter, “Aliens and the Sacred Machine,” he cites various AI experts who speak of the godlike powers and potential of the new digital revolution. Consider one alarming situation:
[C]hildren are now being introduced to AI at a very young age. In a pilot program in Florida, kids are being paired with AI entities that will theoretically be with them for their entire lives. The concept is that the AI will be a lifelong valet, learning about the child as the child grows into adulthood and hovering constantly as a digital servant who knows its master better than the master knows himself.
Leaving aside the radical privacy concerns of such a technology — is it really a good idea to give a machine every intimate detail of one’s life? — the spiritual and psychological concern here is even worse. The boundary between the self and the world would not only be porous; it would cease to exist. It’s hard to conceive of a more profound merging of man with machine than raising a child whose most intimate lifelong collaborator is an AI entity. In what sense would that be different from spirit possession?
Six decades ago, Jacques Ellul held out hope that no one would willingly renounce the privacy of their inner lives to allow their entire selves to be absorbed into “a complete technicized mode of being,” such as living in a lifelong relationship with a personal AI.
“Such persons may exist,” he wrote, “but it is probably that the ‘joyous robot’ has not yet been born.”
That was then. We have now lived through what may one day be seen as a period of transition, in which an entire civilization, concomitant with the disintegration of Christianity’s hold on the Western mind, has been convinced to create an online habitus, living its life online and externalizing its mind through technology. And then? Today, at the advent of the AI era, we are beginning to manufacture Ellul’s joyous robots. (pp. 131-132)
He also has a chapter in the book on the occult, and mentions one scholarly fellow, Jonah, who had been heavily involved in the world of the occult before converting to Orthodox Christianity. Dreher says this:
[I]t stunned me to read the persuasive case that best-selling Christian writer and pastor Jonathan Cahn makes that ancient Sumerian gods — Baal, Ishtar, and Moloch — have returned and are asserting their dark power over the post-Christian world. As a Messianic Jewish cleric and a megachurch pastor, Cahn’s world is very different from the Christian headspace inhabited by Orthodox Christians such as Jonah and me. But when I put Cahn’s argument to him, Jonah didn’t hesitate to affirm it as “absolutely correct.” We are sailing in deep waters here… (p. 135)
Temptation
My third writer is Jeremy Peckham. In his book Masters or Slaves? AI and the Future of Humanity, he takes a pretty dim view of how things will pan out. Citing Romans 12:2, he says this on the book’s final page:
The devil will use whatever tactics he can to steal that time from us, in order that we may have less discernment and unwittingly be seduced and drawn into this dangerous new digital world. This technology isn’t neutral. Yes, it can be used for good, but we must be intentional, recognizing the dangers to our souls.
The great deception in play is that this technology frees us, makes our lives easier and more convenient; that it will ultimately save us and augment our humanity with something less flawed, something better than humanity alone. The acid test of whether we’re being sucked into that deception is the state of our own souls. Are we really growing closer to God day by day, week by week, year by year? Are we, however falteringly, following Christ and imitating him, seeing our souls flourish as the fruit of the Spirit — a virtuous character — grows in us.
These are tough questions, with or without the enticement of the digital age and Al. Christians, since the birth of the church, have faced varying pressures, temptations and challenges to spiritual growth and behaviour. Our generation is experiencing perhaps the fastest pace of change and reshaping of civilization ever. We need, however, to be asking the same question that the early church asked when faced with cultural challenges to their faith — is this change right? (p. 218)
Strategy
Finally, consider Andrew Torba and his new book Reclaiming Reality: Restoring Humanity in the Age of AI, on which I have already penned three pieces. He seeks to offer a balanced approach:
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. (pp. 89-90)
He speaks of the need for a Christian parallel society:
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. (p. 94)
Finally, he offers these words:
The hour is late, but the mission remains clear. As AI amplifies both humanity’s noblest aspirations and darkest impulses, the Church must rise as the antidote to the age’s despair. Let us build arks of hope – communities where the soul is nourished, families are fortified, and technology bows to the Lordship of Christ. The floodwaters of algorithmic chaos are rising, but the gates of hell shall not prevail. Our task is not to predict the end but to faithfully advance the Kingdom, building as if all depends on us, praying as if all depends on Him – and in that tension, discovering the power to turn the world upside down once more. (pp. 108-109)
There is some room to move in the views of these four Christian writers, but all would agree that AI and the transhumanist challenge are among the most worrying and severe matters that we have faced for quite some time. At the very least, all Christians need to think long, hard and prayerfully about such issues.
Being well-read on these things is part of that process.
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Republished with thanks to CultureWatch. Image courtesy of Adobe.
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