Will Artificial Intelligence replace church?

There’s actual a whole range of questions here. Will Artificial Intelligence (AI) replace pastors? How about the church institution? How about preaching? How about aspects of church? Hymn and song writing? Theological writing? Evangelism? Worship or parts of worship? Will AI replace the sense of community? How about the sense of the sacred? Will AI be treated as holy or divine? Will it cause disruption and/or problems? Will it make church life easier? Will it make it different?

I don’t know the answer to any of that. And neither does anyone else.

Here’s what I do know — some people ask questions because they want to know the answers. Some people ask questions because those questions lead to more questions. Some people ask questions because the questions need to be raised. Some people ask questions in order to consider new possibilities. I fall somewhere in those last three categories. There are probably other reasons to raise questions like these too.

While so much of the church is slow to deal with change, I’m left wondering, do we really have that kind of luxury any more? I don’t think we do. I’m not saying that the church has to adopt every single new invention that comes along. There’s something to be said for an institution that can offer some continuity in the midst of constant change. And at the same time, resistance to change is not a virtue either. It’s a sign of death or at the very least stubbornness and who wants to be around that?