HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WAFF) – As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly prevalent in daily life, faith leaders across North Alabama are wrestling with how to integrate the technology into religious practices while preserving authentic spiritual connections.

The debate centers on whether AI can bring people closer to the divine or poses a threat to genuine faith experiences.

Jason Helton, media outreach minister at the Madison Church of Christ, has found creative ways to incorporate AI into church programming. His congregation recently used AI-generated imagery to create trading cards featuring biblical characters for a sermon series.

“We put together some trading cards using AI imagery to create scenes to show to our kids, to give them to our children,” Helton said. “And every week after the lesson, they would find one of our shepherds and tell them one thing about the lesson that day, and they get a trading card.”

Modern tools for ancient stories

Helton, who has led discussions on technology and faith for years, draws parallels between current AI applications and traditional teaching methods.

“You and I likely grew up in the era where we had the flannel graph, right? Felt board Jesus, these scenes of Bible scenes where we would see visually what was going on in scripture,” Helton said. “And now we’re just doing that in the 21st century using AI.”

Kirk Nugent, a media pastor at a local church, echoes Helton’s perspective on AI’s potential benefits for faith communities. His church uses the technology to manage interactions with its substantial online congregation.

“We have this large online following, about 4,000 to 5,000 people that watch every Saturday our worship experience,” Nugent said. “It is difficult to make personal connections and keep in touch with them.”

Chatbots and community connection

To address this challenge, Nugent’s church developed AI-powered chatbots to help online viewers who have questions.

“We’ve started to develop some chatbots that allow us to engage with them if they have specific questions,” Nugent said. “It can give them the standard answers and then make sure somebody on our team has the ability to follow up.”

Both pastors emphasize that AI works best as an assistant rather than a replacement for human ministry. While the technology can help create Bible study materials, they stress it should not write sermons.

“Technology is neither good nor bad. It all depends on whose hands it’s in,” Nugent said.

“There’s a thin line between something that makes it efficient and something that becomes a shortcut,” Helton said. “I feel like there’s a consequence to every convenience.”

Both pastors stress the importance of fact-checking AI-generated content before using it in religious contexts.

“You own the product, you own the post, you own the content,” Nugent said. “You can’t say, oh, well, I got that from AI, so it’s got to be right. No, you’ve got to still do the checks.”

Maintaining authentic relationships

Despite AI’s potential benefits, both ministers emphasize that technology cannot replace genuine spiritual relationships or human connections.

“You can’t outsource your relationship with God, just like you can’t outsource your relationship with a person,” Nugent said. “You wouldn’t go to AI to learn more about your wife or your kids. You only learn more about them by spending more time with them.”

Helton warns against viewing AI as a reflection of human creativity rather than humans as reflections of divine creation.

“We run the danger of seeing this technology as something that we have created that is a reflection of us rather than us being a reflection of the creator,” Helton said. “That’s where the danger lies.”

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