Artificial Intelligence (AI) seems to be discussed everywhere now. From Google Gemini’s race-swapping controversy to prominent authors suing AI companies for illegal uses of their works, everyone seems to have an opinion about the uses and potential misuses of AI. One group that researchers are trying to get involved in the discussion? The Church. The Barna Group, partnering with Gloo, a technology platform utilized for connecting people to local churches, has released a study entitled “AI and the Church” to explore the uses of the new technology within faith settings. The survey was conducted from January 3-4, 2024 and interviewed 278 US Protestant pastors.

Barna cited data that showed that a large majority of pastors (77 percent) believe that God can use AI. Pastors were also more supportive of utilizing AI for what would be “impersonal” tasks, such as using AI in graphic design (88 percent), church marketing (78 percent), and monitoring church attendance (70 percent). Those numbers began to dip when AI’s uses became more personal, such as communication (58 percent) and sermon research (43 percent). Only 6percent supported its use for counseling church congregants. Eighty-nine percent of pastors believed AI would have some sort of impact on human relations, with 56 percent believing the impact would be negative. Pastors were far less likely to think AI would have a positive impact than other US adults (five percent vs 21 percent respectively). The research also found that while most congregants were not concerned about their pastor’s knowledge of AI, 56 percent of those in Gen Z would like to hear from their pastor on how to use AI.

Gloo Chief Solutions Officer Brad Hill believes churches should be exploring the uses of AI more fully. “There is nothing new under the Sun, Ecclesiastes would say, and God is not surprised by AI,” said Hill. He noted that AI has enabled Gloo to connect individuals to churches in a significantly quicker manner, taking a process “from about 3-hours down to milliseconds.” The company is investing $25 million to assist churches in implementing AI. Hill stated that churches need to be having conversations about the new technology. “We’ve really been trying to invite pastors into a conversation that they may or sometimes may not want to have because it’s understandable to the untrained eye that AI just feels like technology, and this is one more thing to learn.” Ashley Ekmay, lead researcher, of the Barna Group agrees. “[AI] is everywhere, it’s in social media – when you get on Netflix, it’s in your home – digital assistants.” Despite AI’s prevalence, the study found that nearly 67 percent of respondents had either no or beginner experience with it. Nineteen percent of church leaders stated they use AI on a weekly or daily basis. However, in a previous interview, David Curry, CEO of Global Christian Relief, cautioned against embracing the technology too quickly, citing how China has used AI’s facial recognition technology to target Christians. “The thing about artificial intelligence, though, [is that] it begins to take case studies and learn and make its own assumptions. So that’s where we don’t know where this is going to lead. It’s algorithms on steroids.”