Spirituality & AI, Part VII: Gift-Wrapped Gospel (2)

Last week, we looked at how the Western church, represented by Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Kierkegaard, and Bonhoeffer, viewed and navigated the wrappings and trappings of Christian worship in the light of the communication technology or medium of their times, culminating in today’s age of AI movies as the medium of Scripture. 

In the Eastern or Orthodox Christian tradition, the story has taken a somewhat different path but the same question about wrappings and the core of love remains. So today we are going to examine the eastern tradition, then we will explore the more or less global modern tradition, before drawing some conclusions about faith, hope, and caritas as we barrel into the future.  

In Eastern Orthodoxy, one of the great controversies was over icons—images of Christ, the saints, and the biblical story. In the eighth and ninth centuries, there was fierce debate: were icons holy windows into heaven, or were they idols that distracted believers? The Second Council of Nicaea in 787 settled the question: icons were not to be worshiped, but they could be venerated, honored as windows through which the faithful could glimpse the divine reality.

The argument was deeply theological. John of Damascus (a fascinating character, one of the founders of the Orthodox Church) insisted: because God became flesh in Jesus Christ, matter itself could mediate God’s presence. If the Word took on a human face, then to paint that face in an icon is not to reduce God but to confess the Incarnation. The wrappings of art were justified, because they pointed to love revealed in flesh and blood.

Seven centuries later, the Orthodox archbishop Gregory Palamas promoted the hesychast tradition, which emphasized prayer of the heart, seeking union with God through silence and repetition of the Jesus Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Icons, incense, chant, liturgy—all of these were not spectacles meant to dazzle, but disciplines to quiet the senses and open the soul to God’s love. (For me, I can tell you, Orthodox chant knocks me off my feet even more than Gregorian chant.) Wrappings were acceptable to the hesychasts only if they trained the heart toward humility, repentance, and compassion.

The twentieth century Orthodox theologian Alexander Schmemann warned against reducing worship to propaganda or entertainment. In his book For the Life of the World, he argued that the liturgy is not a show intended to communicate ideas, but an entrance into the Kingdom of God itself. The Eucharist, he said, is the true “wrapping” of the gospel: ordinary bread and wine becoming blessed signs of God’s self-giving love.

And Eastern Christianity also adds an important safeguard. Its tradition of apophatic theology insists that God is ultimately beyond human grasp anyway, and tries to understand God on the basis of what God is not, which is knowable, rather than on what God is, which is not knowable. That humility protects (pretty powerfully, it seems to me) against turning any wrapping—whether a golden icon or a viral video—into an idol that claims to contain God.

The verdict from the East, then, echoes the verdict from the West: wrappings are valid if they form us in love, humility, and communion with God. But the moment they distract us from love of God and neighbor, they have failed.

We’ve traced the story from Augustine to Bonhoeffer, from icons to Reformation hymnals. But what about our own time, when media itself has become the water we swim in? Here, too, the same question applies: do the wrappings carry us toward love of God and neighbor, or do they distract us with spectacle? Several modern voices help us see the stakes clearly.

Marshall McLuhan, the Canadian philosopher of media, gave us that famous phrase: “The medium is the message.” What he meant was that the form in which a message is delivered is never neutral. Radio favors intimacy; television favors charisma; social media favor outrage and quick reaction. And so, McLuhan warned, the gospel cannot simply be “dropped” into a medium unchanged. The medium reshapes how the message is heard and what it means.

For the church, this is both an opportunity and a danger. Use radio, and you might spread the voice of a preacher into millions of homes. Use television, and you might spread the smile of a charismatic leader into those homes. But does the medium serve the message of love, or does it subtly change the message into something else—something shallow, or self-serving?

Neil Postman sharpened this warning. In his book Amusing Ourselves to Death, he argued that when entertainment becomes the default mode of communication, even religion gets bent into entertainment. A sermon becomes a show. Worship becomes performance. The gospel becomes merely inspirational, instead of transformational.

For Postman, the danger was not persecution but trivialization. If faith is delivered in a medium designed for amusement, the risk is that it will amuse without ever converting. Wrappings turn the gospel into a diversion, when it is meant to be a summons.

The French thinker Jacques Ellul drew a different line. He said that words call us to freedom—they require us to think, to respond, to make a decision. Images, by contrast, tend to compel us. They overwhelm us emotionally, bypassing critical freedom.

That is why he feared propaganda, and why he worried that even sacred images could become dangerous when they manipulate instead of invite. For Ellul, the question was whether media leaves space for conscience, or whether it programs us into passivity.

In 1963 the Second Vatican Council issued a decree called the Inter Mirifica, which means “Among the marvels.” It meant “among the marvels of modern technologies,” and was subtitled “Decree on the Media of Social Communication.” It took a cautiously open view, allowing that modern media could serve evangelization, but only if governed by truth, dignity, and the common good. The wrappings themselves were not evil, but they needed discernment and discipline, it said in essence.

The non-Catholic evangelist Billy Graham already operated on that premise. He mastered the tools of mass media: radio, television, stadium rallies. But he also knew the danger of spectacle. So he tied every broadcast to local churches, small groups, and discipleship follow-up. The media opened the door, but community carried people inside.

Fast forward to today: megachurches with giant screens, livestreamed worship, podcasts, TikTok testimonies. These can spread faith widely—but they can also turn discipleship into content consumption and a battle between “influencers” eager for more eyeballs to make more dollars. Once again, the same test applies: do their messages lead into relationships of love, do they leave us as passive spectators, or do they even lead us astray?

Recent scholarship on digital religion, from thinkers like Heidi Campbell, shows that online practices do not replace offline faith. They extend it. People who watch church online often seek connection in person. But the quality of that transition matters. A viral clip may inspire curiosity, but it needs to lead into a real community of love and service, or it evaporates.

From McLuhan to Postman to Ellul, from Vatican II to the livestream age, the lesson is the same: the medium matters. Wrappings are never neutral. They either form us in love, humility, and neighborliness—or they form us into consumers of spectacle.

And that brings us right up to today, when the wrappings themselves are being generated by machines. AI videos, AI sermons, AI simulations. The question for us now is: will these wrappings serve the core of love, or will they become the final distraction?

So far, we’ve seen a pattern that stretches across centuries and traditions. From Augustine to Aquinas, from Luther to Bonhoeffer, from the icon defenders of the East to the media critics of our own time—the lesson is clear: wrappings change, but the plumb line does not. The true measure of any practice, any ritual, any technology, is whether it brings us deeper into love of God and neighbor.

That gives us confidence to look backward and forward. Backward, to see whether humanity has always been drawn to faith in something beyond itself. And forward, to ask the more urgent question: Will humanity remain faithful in the age of artificial intelligence and its simulated realities?

Let’s first look backward.

Human beings are, it seems, irrepressibly religious. Anthropologists have found evidence of ritual and belief stretching back tens of thousands of years. In caves in Europe, we see paintings of animals and hunting scenes, perhaps with ritual meaning. In burial sites from the Stone Age, bodies were interred with tools, ornaments, or food—signs that people expected some kind of life beyond death. In the famous graves of Neanderthals, even flowers were laid alongside the dead. This suggests not just survival instinct, but reverence, awe, and a sense of the sacred.

Archaeologists have uncovered figurines—fertility goddesses, animal spirits, sky deities—that testify to humanity’s instinct to personify powers greater than ourselves. Whether in Mesopotamian ziggurats (stepped towers, like Babel’s), Egyptian pyramids, or Mayan temples, people poured their greatest resources into reaching out to the divine.

C-J wrote me after class two weeks ago. She reminded me that human beings have always looked beyond ourselves—not only toward God, but toward the stars. She noted that even the stories of aliens, ancient visitors, and science fiction carry a spiritual thread. They let us imagine help from beyond, and they remind us that all species are evolving toward some purpose. As she put it, ‘early in the process of being and becoming… the code knows its intentional purpose.’ That’s another way of saying: the longing for transcendence seems stitched into our very DNA.

Cognitive science offers one explanation. Psychologists speak of our brain’s “hyperactive agency detection device.” In simple terms, we are wired to see intentional agents behind events. When we hear a rustle in the grass, it is safer to assume it is a predator than the wind. Out of this instinct may grow belief in gods, spirits, ancestors. Evolutionary theory suggests that shared belief strengthens social cohesion: groups bonded by religion trust one another, cooperate more, and endure hardship together.

But whether religion is adaptive biology or divine gift—or both—the fact remains: across cultures and centuries, humans have been drawn to faith. The universality of belief is striking.

Theologically, Christians have often spoken of this as evidence of a deeper truth. Augustine wrote that our hearts are restless until they rest in God. Calvin spoke of the sensus divinitatis—an inborn sense of the divine planted in every human soul. Paul, in Romans, says that even pagans have some knowledge of God written into their hearts.

What this means is that faith is not an accident, not a passing cultural quirk. It is woven into the fabric of what it means to be human. We are, in some deep way, worshipping creatures. We reach toward transcendence as naturally as we breathe.

C-J also pointed out something sobering: the ancient stories often end in destruction or extinction when human arrogance goes unchecked. ‘I want to know, understand, and have dominion over it all,’ she wrote, is the recurring temptation. And here we are again, with AI and space technology, reaching for dominion. That insight presses the question: will our faith in this new age be humility before God, or arrogance before our own creations?

That is why the question we face today is so pressing. Because if faith has always been part of humanity’s story, persisting through multiple changes in communication technologies, will it persist in the age of this new, intelligent, responsive, and extremely powerful medium of AI? Will the instinct to worship survive when machines can generate gods before our eyes—omniscient oracles, radiant avatars, voices that sound divine? Or will those simulations redirect our faith away from God and toward ourselves, reflected back through our own creations?

This is where we must turn next.

We’ve seen that human beings have always been worshipping creatures. From Stone Age burials to medieval cathedrals, from Luther’s hymns to Bonhoeffer’s costly grace, faith has been part of our shared story. But now we stand on the threshold of something new.

For the first time, human beings can build machines that seem to think, create, and even speak with an almost divine voice. AI can generate art, compose hymns, preach sermons, and create moving images of angels, demons, and dragons. AI can take the Bible and turn it into spectacle. It can even answer questions with an uncanny authority, like an oracle at Delphi.

The question is not whether AI can simulate religion. It already does. The question is whether humans will continue to seek the true God in the midst of these simulations—or whether we will settle for worshiping our own creations.

AI poses two temptations. The first is the temptation of distraction. If religion becomes just another form of digital content—one more stream to scroll through—it risks becoming shallow, amusing without converting, inspiring without transforming. Spectacle without substance.

The second temptation is idolatry. The Bible has always warned against worshiping the works of our own hands—whether golden calves or stone statues. AI is the most sophisticated “work of our hands” ever created. If we begin to treat it as omniscient, as divine, as the voice of ultimate authority, then we risk bowing down to a mirror of ourselves, reflected back in silicon and code.

But AI also offers opportunity. Just as the printing press multiplied the reach of Scripture, just as radio and television carried sermons into millions of homes, so too AI can translate, illustrate, and share the gospel across barriers of language and culture. AI can generate wrappings that draw people in—so long as those wrappings are tethered to the core of love.

Think of icons in the East. They were never meant to be idols; they were meant to be windows. In the same way, AI can be a window if it points beyond itself—if it helps people hear the Word made flesh, if it moves them toward love of God and neighbor, if it leads them into communities of service and compassion.

So will humans remain faithful in the AI age? History suggests that we will. The impulse to worship, to seek transcendence, is too deeply woven into our humanity to disappear. But the danger is not that faith will vanish. The danger is that faith will be misplaced.

Will we remain faithful to the living God revealed in love and sacrifice? Or will we become faithful to the glowing avatars and simulations of our own making? The wrappings will certainly change—but the question of the heart will remain.

So let me bring this together.

We began with an AI-generated video of Revelation—spectacle, dragons, collapsing worlds. We asked whether this kind of wrapping spreads the real gospel, or only its flashy parts. We then traveled back through history: Augustine’s caritas, Aquinas’s cathedrals, Luther’s hymns, Calvin’s stripped-down worship, Kierkegaard’s scandal of faith, Bonhoeffer’s costly grace. We turned East to the icons and the liturgy, and we listened to modern voices warning us that the medium itself always reshapes the message.

Across it all, one truth has stood firm. Wrappings change, but the plumb line does not. The gospel, at its heart, is the simple rule to love God and love your neighbor. The Golden Rule remains the measure by which every practice, every technology, every wrapping is judged.

Now, in the age of artificial intelligence, the same test applies. AI will dazzle us with simulations. It will give us images and voices that seem almost divine. But the real question is not whether humans will remain faithful—it is to what, or to whom, we will give our faith.

C-J put it this way: the fabric between this dimension and the spiritual one is available, yet many choose not to seek it. That is the choice before us in the age of AI. Will we seek the fabric of love that connects us to God and neighbor, or will we ignore it and content ourselves with the glitter of our own inventions?

Will we use these new wrappings to open windows into the love of God? Or will we be content with reflections of ourselves, dressed up as gods?

The challenge of the AI age is the same challenge the church has faced all along: not to mistake the wrapping for the gift, not to lose sight of the heart of the matter. And the heart is love. Love of God, and love of neighbor. Everything else, as Rabbi Hillal told us last week while standing on one leg, is commentary.

C-J: Yesterday I spent some time addressing the question of what happens when humans merge with machines. There’s a website by Neil Perry Gordon, where he speaks of a “great turning” upon us—educating the soul in the age of the machine. He writes:

“This great turning point is the slow surrender of the human soul to the mechanical mind, and its name is artificial intelligence. In a few short years, AI has ceased to be a tool and become an architect—drafting our words, scripting our art, assembling our ideas. Its promise: endless convenience, endless speed, endless production. But in advance it demands something in return—the abdication of our own becoming.”

After expounding on this, he adds:

“The machine steals the crucible of becoming. The humanities—history, literature, philosophy, art—are the crucibles where spirit is forged. They are slow, difficult, and require failure, reflection, and the fierce labor of imagination. AI can imitate thought, but it cannot ache for truth. It can simulate beauty, but it cannot suffer the meaning. We are being made spectators of a life we were meant to create.”

I thought that dovetailed nicely with what David has been saying. This is greatly condensed, but it captures my point. When I say, “Oh no, no, no,” it’s because I feel the danger. Yet what you said has value. AI is here. It’s not going to change, but we need to master it. Like writing a good law, it must be flexible but also grounded in humanity, which gives it power and creativity. That creativity must still come from a place of intentional purpose for the future. Thank you for giving us a springboard this morning.

Donald: I’d like to step back and unpack a little of what David was saying about the human craving for things of the spirit. When we enter that conversation, it often focuses on “Why am I here? Where am I going?” That sounds self-centered—more about my journey than about God. Are we giving ourselves too much credit for always “searching,” when perhaps our search is driven by something more selfish than it should be?

Secondly—and these points don’t necessarily connect—the Bible uses dramatic imagery. In Daniel and Revelation it is bold, shocking, and meant to draw attention. Why was that necessary when the premise of the gospel is simply to love God and love your neighbor, which I fully agree with? The gospel has its wrappings.

Third, I was with a gentleman whose wife passed away recently. He’s 89 and doing well, but as he reflected, I realized something. Rewind the clock back to the beginning of COVID. That ushered in something remarkable when you consider online worship. During COVID, it was necessary—or so we thought—to worship online. This man and his wife missed church during those years, then she became ill, so they remained out of public view. That makes nearly six years.

COVID caused a major disruption, and it may play into why we are the way we are now. We were apart for three years before AI came upon us.

C-J: “Think it not strange the things that befall you, for there is nothing new under the sun.” Whether it was the Spanish flu or today’s crises, the most important thing is returning to icons and expectations of what is normal. We were created in God’s image as spirit beings. Yet we grew cocky: “Why can’t I know what you know?” Immature thinking led us away from the garden.

That’s why we need crucibles. They slow us down, turn our attention from glitz and pain to what is restorative. God’s business is restoration. Forgiveness is the doorway, but restoration is the house. Relationship is modeled through our relationship with God.

Anyone in research or service knows that relationships are about service—to others, to creation, to the Creator. When we need a house, we ask: what materials, how big, what purpose? Adversity taught us what we needed: math, language, fire, music. If we are made in the image of God, we often forget it. Icons, words, and music transcend us back to that gateway.

Don: Does everyone face the same risks or potential benefits? I’m skeptical about AI and its applications, but my grandchildren don’t seem to share my reservations.

I wonder if personality plays a role in whether you can easily assimilate the methods we’ve been outlining. Is there a gender factor? An age factor? A personality factor? Are there differences across culture, gender, and generation? Perhaps the risks aren’t as great as we think, because some people may be more resistant to change or assimilation than others.

David: The differences among us are very significant when it comes to AI. Some people will be completely bamboozled and lost, while others will be cautious. Much depends on background and age.

If you’re young, you were born into technology—it was already there, part of your world. Those of us born before the boom grew up differently, with different perspectives. Gender differences are also interesting. Dr. Weaver just shared an article suggesting women are generally more morally conservative than men—less likely to push the limits of morality as quickly. Intuitively that seems true, and apparently research supports it.

So yes, we can’t just make broad deductions about AI’s impact on people. At the societal level we can talk in general terms, but at the individual level the impact of AI can vary greatly—sometimes beneficial, sometimes harmful.

Sharon: I have many students, and each has a different learning style. Social science shows us how complex this is: personality, gender, culture, childhood socialization—all of it matters.

Scripture and our walk with Jesus are also amazingly diverse. God speaks to each of us in unique ways. AI should not be ruled out—it can be an amazing tool for some, though not one-size-fits-all. Some of us need more touch and affection; others don’t want to be touched at all. We are unique beings with unique needs.

AI can be packaged in ways that allow the Lord to use it as a tool—especially for the next generation—in ways that more traditional approaches might not. That’s the beauty of God’s diversity: different tools for different populations, under different circumstances, all pointing back to Him.

C-J: Nature is the great equalizer—those on high ground can fall, those on low ground can rise. I agree with Sharon. Diversity prevents stagnation. If an idea is inbred too much, it loses its strength. Diversity is like rays of light in different colors—it’s beautiful. God’s creation shows us diversity everywhere.

Carolyn: Let me add a little quip here. When I think of AI, my jaw drops. I’m in awe. I don’t understand it all—I feel like I’m on the periphery. When I meet someone with a flip phone, I wonder how they see things!

Some people don’t want to “go there,” but I try to look at the good that can come out of AI. I believe the Lord will show us good in it. Still, when we were talking about COVID and being stuck in front of the TV, I realized how hard it is when people have such diverse backgrounds and beliefs.

Scripture says even the very elect can be deceived. AI feels that powerful to me—so wonderful, so vast, so far beyond me. The last time I was this awestruck was watching Star Wars. I just know we must be careful, stay open-minded, and above all pray. I especially hope our young people and spiritual leaders will do that as they face this new world.

C-J: You wouldn’t send your children off with a stranger. We must set boundaries for ourselves too. Even when you trust someone, you stay close enough to be cautious.

If you simply say, “I leave it in God’s hands,” but meanwhile feel overwhelmed, depressed, and afraid, you risk becoming a victim of your own making. Wisdom means using resources well, being open, but also experienced enough to know that not everything that glitters is good. The more someone hawks a thing, the more danger may lurk behind it.

Donald: If you looked at a timeline, COVID ended right about the time AI began to emerge into public view. Maybe a year apart, but not much more. Coincidence?

During COVID we were encouraged to stay home. Many churches didn’t gather. The hugs, the lifelong fellowship—gone. Smaller churches weren’t even televised, so their congregations simply stopped meeting.

In my community, PMC broadcast weekly. But that didn’t mean I needed to “be” at PMC anymore. In fact, my wife and I spent most of our time watching Randy Roberts in Southern California. His broadcasts were remarkable because they offered “stem-to-stern” church: welcoming, worship, sermon, farewell. It felt like as much of a complete church service as you could get online.

So I wonder: did that prepare our hearts and minds for what came next—AI? Why would I go back to a little church where nothing much happens, when everything has been ramped up to this new level?

Don’s question is valid. Some people still prefer the small church gathering. But I spend more time now with people I knew as a teenager—close friends for decades—than with contemporary friends. That small church built real relationships.

Was it Christianity that drew me back, or friendship—or both? Something is happening now. AI didn’t just appear out of nowhere. Something preceded it. COVID was worldwide. It prepared the ground.

C-J: AI had already been used in business for years. But adapting it for the general public meant teaching people who were unsure and hesitant. Crises often accelerate adoption. Think of World War I and II—radios became essential for international news.

In this case, businesses needed AI to communicate, and if markets collapsed, the economy collapsed. So adoption was inevitable.

But my concern is this: what happens when the power goes out? We are globally dependent on electricity. Everything is plugged in—except our humanity. Relationships matter. I like one-on-one time, face-to-face connections. That’s how we were built. Others thrive on larger social networks and real-time interaction.

We’re at a tipping point. I don’t know how well we’ll do.

Donald: David’s premise this morning touched on semiotics and iconic imagery, even Eastern traditions. Where are we going with this?

Don: David quoted someone as saying it’s easier to say what God is not than what God is. Maybe we should treat AI the same way. It might be easier to define what it is not, or what it shouldn’t be, than to say what it can or should be.

David: That’s a good point. It is the Orthodox apophatic tradition that speaks of understanding God in terms of what He is not. I find it fascinating, because I’ve always maintained, and I think most of us here agree, that we have no hope of fully understanding what God is.

The Babylonians tried to “know” God with their tower. They failed, and so will we. But apophatic thinking says: eliminate what God is not, and what’s left points toward what God is—even though it never fully defines Him.

That’s a useful approach for AI as well. But do we have the discipline? Could we in this class stop talking about what God (or AI) is, and only discuss what God or AI is not? How long would we keep that up?

Reinhard: Maybe in that case we need to be more like children. Jesus taught us to have faith like children toward God, even when we don’t fully understand.

After COVID, AI did indeed become more prominent. Maybe COVID was a reminder of our fragility. Many people turned to God during that time. Conversions happened. Families drew closer. It taught us that life is more important than anything else, and worshiping the Creator is central.

Looking back through history, humanity has always sought divine power. God revealed Himself through Israel and then through Christ. Every generation faces new challenges. For today’s younger generation, life with advanced technology is normal. Spiritual life may be more challenging for them, but God can work through AI as a tool if they seek Him.

Revelation 22:11 says: “Let the one who does wrong continue to do wrong; let the vile person continue to be vile; let the one who does right continue to do right; and let the holy person continue to be holy.” That’s the bottom line. We must be prepared. Those of us who already stand on solid rock need to hold fast. Discussions like this help us prepare for the future.

Michael: Whether AI will affect spirituality more than previous technologies is an important question., but sometimes we conflate the religious with the spiritual. Churches are often more about the religious, not always the spiritual—and being religious doesn’t automatically mean being spiritual.

Every technology has challenged the church. Eventually the church adapts, but the spiritual dimension is different. My sense is that AI might actually benefit spirituality. It could make spiritual life sharper, clearer, more vivid.

We keep confusing things with our language. Perhaps AI’s “language” could be better at separating religion from spirituality than we are. We’ve long used religious language to try to describe spiritual realities. Maybe AI could help us see the difference more clearly.

David: It’s interesting you say that, Michael. I’ve also been writing about AI in education, and I argue that using AI to help write or research isn’t cheating—it sharpens the pencil, so to speak. I wonder if something similar could apply to spirituality.

AI could sharpen spirituality for those willing to use it for that purpose. But it depends on us: some will say, “No, I’d rather watch a movie,” while others may decide to reflect on some questions with AI for a while. We’re all different.

Donald: With regard to Michael’s point about the difference between religious and spiritual: In conversations lately, I find myself hesitating over those words. I don’t want to say “religious”; I want to say “spiritual” or “faith.”

I was brought up in a religious home, and my mother probably never thought there was any difference between being religious and being spiritual. But her first question about anyone new would have been, “Are they Adventist?”

David: I appreciate everyone’s attention over these past weeks. I will conclude next week by inviting ChatGPT to join our discussion, so bring your questions, challenge it, and see how it responds.

Don: Maybe Donald can open with his question.

Carolyn: Scams are bad enough, but AI takes them to another level. With its vast knowledge, how do we know where the line is between something real and something fake? I’d love to discuss that in class.

Don: Then maybe your question to AI should be: how do I know whether something is real or a scam?

Carolyn: Or even, how do I know AI itself isn’t scamming me?

C-J: So here’s another question: can AI write its own algorithm? Not yet, but it’s beginning to. It can be prompted and directed, and in responding it draws on what it’s been trained with. That’s a beginning.

David: This is where I go off on futuristic tangents. The most significant development will be when AI starts to develop itself, perhaps without us having any further say in the matter. 

I appreciate everyone’s attention over these past weeks. After next week’s , Michael will take over.

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