Sarah Holliday /Decision Magazine.
Artificial intelligence is advancing at a breathtaking pace. Developers sell its promise, organizations rush to weave it into daily operations, and professionals across nearly every field scramble to define its place. Yet Christians confront a deeper question: How should believers engage a technology that presents itself as the source of all answers—when it is programmed by people who do not have them?
Opinions about AI flood the political arena, the church, and the public square as a whole. Some embrace it without reservation; others dismiss it entirely. Between those extremes lies a different posture many walk in: AI can serve as a useful tool, but it must be handled with deliberate discernment and caution.
As this middle ground has argued, that usefulness doesn’t erase the risks. In an interview with Decision, retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Robert Maginnis—senior fellow for National Security at the Family Research Council and author of 15 books—identified three primary dangers. These comments stem from his reaction to new Barna Research that found Christians are using AI significantly more than the average American, with some even trusting it to foster “spiritual growth” in their lives.
As Maginnis sees it, these risks matter for anyone who uses AI, but they carry particular weight for Christians and for the church.
Outsourced Discernment
The first danger, Maginnis explained, is what he calls “outsourced discernment.” The problem is not that “AI can produce a plausible answer about suffering, sin or Scripture in seconds.” Rather, the deeper concern takes root in “the temptation … to accept it rather than wrestle with the biblical text, consult a pastor or submit to the slower work of spiritual formation.”
AI’s speed and convenience make it easy to bypass the harder, slower work of scrutiny—the deliberate effort of testing the inanimate (AI) against the animate (pastors, mentors, trusted friends and family). Many already recognize that “AI can be incomplete, misleading, or simply wrong,” Maginnis stated, “and a pastor [or Christian] who does not understand the technology will struggle to identify its errors.”
AI as “Oracle”
If Christians must carefully test whether AI’s answers are true, it’s even more critical to understand the framework through which those answers arrive. “The second risk is the tendency of AI to present itself as an oracle,” Maginnis said.
In his book The Final Algorithm, Maginnis details how AI, “despite having no soul, conscience or accountability to God,” speaks with authority. Unchecked, repeated reliance on the technology “can train people to expect authoritative answers on demand,” causing them to forget where true authority originates.
“I am not claiming that today’s chatbot is the speaking image of Revelation 13:14-15,” he emphasized. “I am warning that it cultivates a dangerous reflex: trusting a disembodied, non-human voice merely because it responds quickly and confidently. Nearly half of practicing Christians already say they would consider trusting such a system with their spiritual growth.”
Pastoral Credibility
Nothing can replace the irreplaceable value of real people meeting face-to-face. The pastoral role remains essential, Maginnis explained, and that truth points to the third risk: “Pastoral credibility.”
As AI advances at a rapid speed, congregants who turn to it daily will grow less inclined to seek counsel from “leaders who appear unfamiliar with a technology they use every day. They will turn instead to AI, online influencers or whoever answers first.”
Laws, public discourse and digital platforms already shape the minds of those who live under their influence. Against that backdrop, Maginnis offers a simple yet piercing warning drawn from his book The New AI Cold War: “A small number of companies increasingly shape what billions of people receive as neutral information. Those systems have no covenant responsibility for a Christian’s soul.”
“Be Not Conformed”
“Pastors do not need to become engineers,” Maginnis said. God has given them a far greater calling, namely, the ability and the duty to “do what machines cannot: teach Scripture, build relationships, exercise wisdom and cultivate embodied discipleship.”
As Maginnis concluded, “Romans 12:2 still gives the assignment: ‘Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.’ That renewal has never come from a server.”
