Churches across Britain are confronting a difficult question: Can AI deepen faith without replacing the human experience?

In her cosy office beside St James’ Church in Piccadilly, the Rev Lucy Winkett reflects on an event hosted by her parish on two topics that do not immediately appear connected: faith and AI.

What struck Winkett most was the conversation it generated. One attendee, an AI policy adviser for a multinational company, was seated next to an elderly woman who despised AI. Winkett doubts they would have otherwise met. “They had this really lively engagement,” she says. “It was multi-generational.”

Rather than a traditional debate, the event was framed as a “think in” – a space for attendees to reflect on what the rapidly-evolving technology meant to them.

“I call it Google on steroids,” says the Rev Nigel Peyton, honorary assistant bishop at All Saints Nettleham in Lincoln. He feels both anxious and curious about AI, the latter of which convinced him to trial write a sermon using the technology for his congregation.

The first draft by ChatGPT was biblically accurate but dull. When he asked the popular chatbot to redraft it in his own style, Peyton was astonished. “I thought it was more convincing, more nuanced. It also came up with the kind of word length I typically use,” he says.

As a former Bishop of Brechin in Scotland, many of Peyton’s sermons are accessible online and available as source material for LLMs such as ChatGPT. Only after delivering the sermon did Peyton confess to his congregation. To his surprise, it prompted little reaction. 

“I thought ‘blow it’ – why are we trying to write these fresh sermons with an individual approach when people are not really bothered!”

The sermon did later generate discussion about AI. “I think the congregation just didn’t know how to respond to my admission – it was so leftfield,” he says.

Using AI to preach might once have been considered taboo, but it is now a matter of staunch debate across Christian denominations. In late May, Pope Leo XIV published a major teaching (known as an encyclical) which stressed how any use of AI should serve humanity, which he said “must never be replaced”. 

“Christianity is a communal enterprise from the start and that’s why we have physical churches with congregations”

The Anglican Church has no singular framework for AI. The Rev Dr Simon Cross, AI Policy Lead for the Church of England, explains that each of the 42 dioceses are responsible for their own policies. He says the best guidelines “cluster around a set of principles rather than a Ten Commandments, ‘thou shalt or shalt not’ approach”.

Peyton has not repeated his experiment. “I enjoy the creative process, plus an AI sermon will not capture the micro-context and life of that particular congregation, on that particular Sunday, or world events,” he says.

Away from the altar, laypeople are also turning to AI for faith-related matters. The app Bible Chat allows believers to seek spiritual guidance and has over 25 million users. PriestChat offers a platform to ask questions of an AI priest, even encouraging confession. Magisterium AI is Catholicism’s premier answer engine. 

The latter is how Dr Tomislav Karačić, assistant professor in Information Systems at the London School of Economics, arrived at his current research. He first discovered the tool for personal reasons. Once a vocal atheist, he found talking about his conversion challenging. “It was easier to talk to a chatbot,” he explains. “It was a tool I could use to compensate for not knowing enough.” 

Karačić is not alone. In his research, he has interviewed atheists who converted after conversations about faith with ChatGPT.

While inputting a prompt into an AI may help answer spiritual questions, Peyton says it will never truly replace authentic human religious experience. 

“Christianity is a communal enterprise from the start and that’s why we have physical churches with congregations,” he says. “It’s all about being together without losing your sense of being an individual.”

Peyton argues that sharing human experiences is essential, with the loss of loved ones being a prime example. He refers to times when he has entered a church on a simple errand and ended up providing comfort to a visitor, whether by lighting a candle with them or praying by their side. “That is a proper human encounter. You’re not going to get that from AI,” he says.

Where AI requires a deliberate input, a chance interaction with a priest may encourage someone seeking comfort to open up when they otherwise might not. “Good clergy are attuned to that,” he explains. “Your ears prick up and you sense somebody is looking for more.” 

Other issues emerge relating to the ethics of using AI. Cross is steadfast in his belief that “nobody understands quite how costly for the environment some of these tools are”. 

Despite those concerns, Peyton believes that AI can help demystify obscure Christian language. Cross believes a key part of being human is to improve our existence, and it would be foolish to ignore the benefits of AI: “The human capacity to invent tools is a God-given gift as far as Christianity is concerned.” 

AI has the potential to be a handy tool, such as an entry point for curious believers, or an editor for priests seeking to cut down their sermons. But many foundational elements of faith exist in between: making a wedding personal, conducting a thoughtful funeral, welcoming a baby into the life of the church. For Peyton, these moments are essentially human and irreplaceable. “[AI] can help interpret,” he says, “but it won’t answer the question: how do I feel?” 

That sentiment surfaced during the discussion at St James’. Winkett expected the AI experts leading the conversation to wholly champion the technology. “Instead, both said, ‘Don’t forget what it is to be human’… That was really amazing,” she says.

It was a lesson the Church had already taken on board, serving as a space for people from opposing walks of life to meet and connect.