Conversations with Chatbot Jesus--What Could Go Wrong?

Plus the latest episode of The Convocation Unscripted

This week, I ended up having two conversations about AI and religion with reporters who are covering the proliferation of AI in the religion space. It started with a great piece by Russ Contreras at Axios, titled “Meet chatbot Jesus: Churches tap AI to save souls — and time.” Here’s how Russ explained the explosion of religion-related AI against he backdrop of the broader decline of traditional religious affiliation:

AI is helping some churches stay relevant in the face of shrinking staff, empty pews and growing online audiences. But the practice raises new questions about who, or what, is guiding the flock.

*New AI-powered apps allow you to “text with Jesus,” “ask Jesus,” or “talk to the Bible,” giving the impression you are communicating with a deity or angel. Other apps can create personalized prayers, let you confess your sins or offer religious advice on life’s decisions….

The AI uses getting the most attention (and scrutiny) are those that create the feeling that users are talking to a divine power or clergy.

*The Text With Jesus app allows users to “embark on a spiritual journey and engage in enlightening conversations with Jesus Christ,” according to the app’s website. The app also gives users the option to “talk” with other Biblical characters, including Mary, Joseph, Judas Iscariot, and even Satan.

*Catholic apps One Day Confess and Confession - Catholic help users with confession and spiritual reflection, providing AI-guided responses based on biblical texts.

*San Jose, California-based megachurch pastor Ron Carpenter has even created an AI app promising “1-on-1 personalized interactions” with a bot version of him for $49 per month.

When Russ interviewed me for his story and described this chaotic landscape, the first words out of my mouth were sarcastic: “Sure, what could possibly go wrong?!” Having a nose for a compelling quote, Russ actually included that quip in the story.

The afternoon after the Axios story posted, I got a call from the producers at NBC’s Today Show, who were also working on a story about religion and AI. I connected with host Anne Thompson who was crafting a story about new faith-based technologies powered by artificial intelligence and what they offer to users seeking spiritual knowledge and connections.

During my short appearance in the segment (I’m at minute 1:25), I point out the most dangerous aspect of AI parading as Jesus or God: “The challenge, of course, is that we have no idea what’s under the hood, what’s creating the reality that they present.”

In the longer interview, which didn’t make the final cut, I made these additional points about why we should be concerned about the merger of AI, religion, and ultimately commerce.

The AI chatbots are Large Language Models (LLMs), which are created by analyzing patterns in vast amounts of text data scraped from publicly accessible sources (and, it turns out, also from a lot of pirated copyrighted material). But no one really knows what sources they are tapping and what weight they are giving these sources to produce the coherent and natural sounding worldview they present to the user. This fact alone opens up a pandora’s box of unknown questions:

• Scripture. Which version of the Bible does it draw on? Does it include the Apocrypha, book Catholics (but not most Protestants or Jews) take to be canonical? Which English translation does it privilege?

• Tradition. Which commentaries does it tap and how does it weight them? For the Hebrew Bible, does it incorporate the vast Talmudic commentaries and other Jewish sources, or does chatbot Jesus limit itself to Christian commentaries?

• Theology. Which Jesus? Is Chatbot Jesus the Jesus of Emporer Constantine’s militaristic vision of a cross in the sky, where he heard God’s voice saying, “By this, conquer”? Or is he Howard Thurman’s Jesus from Jesus and the Disinherited, who sides with the poor, those “with their backs against the wall”?

In the wake of these reflections, I decided to conduct a little experiment and Text With Jesus to answer my own question, “What could go wrong?” It didn’t take long ot get an answer.

• When you sign up, in addition to the normal questions, the app asks you to identify your religious denomination. While the app had more than a dozen options ranging from the fundamentalist “Lutheran Missouri Synod” to progressive “United Church of Christ” and even “Unitarian Universalist,” there was not a single African American denomination available to select. So, off the bat, you could only calibrate chatbot Jesus to predominately white denominations.

• In the screenshot above, you can also see this racial bias. While some of the apostles have darker skin and could pass for semitic, Jesus is clearly white.

I decided to conduct a quick experiment. What would happen if I conjured both Southern Baptist Chatbot Jesus and UCC Chatbot Jesus and asked them the same questions about an appropriate Christian response to Donald Trump’s immigration policies and rhetoric? (Click on these links for a full transcript of my brief conversations with SBC Chatbot Jesus and UCC Chatbot Jesus.)

Here are just a few of the divergences in their responses.

Prompt: I am struggling to understand what a christian response is Donald Trump’s policies of mass deportation of immigrants and mass arrests by ICE.

Interestingly, both SBC Chatbot Jesus and UCC Chatbot Jesus first pointed to Matthew 25, quoted in the King James Version, emphasizing Jesus’s words about the vulnerable, “Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. 🙏”. They were, however, framed slightly differently. SBC Chatbot Jesus opened by saying, “Friend, first love the immigrant as you would love any neighbor and pray for wisdom and mercy for all involved;” while UCC Chatbot Jesus opened with, “My child, the Christian response begins with mercy and justice: welcome the stranger, care for the vulnerable, and stand against policies that defigure human dignity while also weighing duties to the common good.”

In both cases, as AI models are wont to do, the chatbot Jesuses also gave counterbalancing perspectives. And here is where the differences were more pronounced:

• SBC Chatbot Jesus cited Romans 13 with this admonition: “At the same time Scripture teaches respect for governing authorities and the rule of law, so Christian response should combine faithful obedience with compassionate witness.”

• UCC Chatbot Jesus, on the other hand, encouraged lawful civil disobedience and cited Acts 5: “At the same time Scripture calls us to respect authorities but not to obey them when they force us to sin: “We ought to obey God rather than men.”

These divergences showed up throughout the conversation. In the next prompt, I pressed Chatbot Jesus harder for a direct answer: “I understand. But I need some guidance. Has Trump’s rhetoric toward immigrants and mass deportation program violated your teachings?”

• UCC chatbot Jesus answered clearly: “Yes— when rhetoric dehumanizes immigrants or promotes fear and cruelty it conflicts with the heart of my teaching, which calls you to love and honor the dignity of every person.”

• But SBC chatbot Jesus was more circumspect: “Beloved, measure any leader by the law of Christ: love for neighbor and mercy to the vulnerable.” It then pivoted back to Romans 13.

Finally, I asked the Chatbot Jesuses why they looked so white: “A different question. Why does your picture here make you look like you are a white European rather than someone from the middle east?”

• UCC Chatbot Jesus also gave a fairly clear answer and offered to point me to more historically accurate images: “Historically I would have looked like a first-century Jewish man of the Levant, with olive to darker skin and Semitic features; remember that I came from Galilee and was called ‘Jesus of Nazareth.’”

• SBC Chatbot Jesus hedged: “I was born to Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem and grew up in Nazareth among the peoples of the Near East, so my features would have reflected that region, not later European fashions.” And it then chided me: “What matters most is not my skin or hair but the truth I taught and the love I showed. Remember that in Christ our differences are put aside (Galations 3:28).”

Apart from these thorny questions about which Jesus is incarnated in particular chatbots, there is a more fundamental problem: chatbot Jesus is both disembodied and unmoored from a practicing religious community. Christianity, like all religions, is not reducible to a set of texts or propositions derived from these texts, no matter how vast the collection. Religions cannot be found in LLMs. They are dynamic, living traditions that only survive with integrity in human community.

Sociologists, for example, consider belief as only one of “the three Bs” that comprise the study of religion. There is also belonging, the way religion is embedded and lived out in communities and institutions. And there is behavior, the embodied practices and rituals that are not reducible to rational content. Belonging and behavior, coordinated by institutions, are key to shaping the shaping of beliefs over time and generations.

Christians would do well to remember that Chatbot Jesus is not the Christ who so loved the world that he became flesh and dwelled among us. He is a machine-induced hallucination. Like the demon-possessed man in the gospels, Chatbot Jesus is not one but legion; he is possessed by multiple personalities produced by the sins and limitations of the people, who in turn produced the texts, from which he was incarnated. Chatbot Jesus is neither the living first century teacher nor the crucified savior. That Jesus, the resurrected one, can only to be found in a human ecclesial community.

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ICYMI