Deus ex machina: Half of US Christians trust AI's spiritual advice

AI + ML

A robot preaching in a church

AI sycophancy + spirituality = uh oh

Who needs a minister when you have an LLM? America’s Christian population appears to have found God in precisely the place you’d expect a manifestation of the divine to be spotted in 2026: Amid AI chatbot responses. 

A survey of Americans published this week by Evangelical polling outfit Barna sought to discover what Christians thought about AI’s ability to serve as a spiritual mentor, and the split is surprisingly even: A full 48 percent of practicing US Christians told the organization that they trusted AI’s advice to aid their spiritual growth.

Potentially more surprising than that, 34 percent said spiritual advice dispensed by an AI was just as trustworthy as what they'd get out of a flesh-and-blood pastor. That share rises, unsurprisingly, among younger Christians, with 39 percent of Gen Z respondents and 44 percent of Millennials agreeing that preachers and AI are at trust parity. 

Pastors themselves, it likely won’t surprise you to learn, are splitting sharply from their flocks on the matter of AI’s ability to fill their roles in the lives of congregates, with just 12 percent saying they agree that AI can help people grow spiritually. 

That said, there’s a pretty serious tension among American Christians when it comes to AI. At the same time half say it’s aiding their spiritual journeys, most also expressed concerns about negative effects of AI on spirituality. 

A full 83 percent of practicing US Christians believe AI is likely to misinterpret scripture, 73 percent are worried AI will cause loss of religious faith, and 72 percent believe that AI is beginning to act as a replacement for God and earthly spiritual leaders. 

“Christians say they trust AI with spiritual growth, and a meaningful share say its spiritual guidance is as trustworthy as a pastor’s—yet large majorities are simultaneously concerned about AI misinterpreting scripture, replacing God, or undermining the role of spiritual leaders, Barna VP of research Daniel Copeland said of the findings, which he called “confounding.” 

“That level of openness is higher than we might have expected,” Copeland added in the Barna’s report. 

Worshipping at the altar of Altman

AI and religion have been butting heads for the past couple of years, with the Catholic Church particularly outspoken about the technology. 

The late Pope Francis called on world governments to establish global AI regulations in 2023, as well as calling on people to avoid turning to AI models for moral and ethical decisions. Vatican AI authority Friar Paolo Benanti later accused Silicon Valley elites of playing God with their creations, AI included, noting that “the focus will always be on using AI for profit,” which - according to the good book itself - isn’t compatible with Christianity. 

That hasn’t stopped some of God’s faithful from creating an AI Jesus and Christian AI platforms, and the new Pope, Leo XIV, has continued his crusade against the technology. 

"By simulating human voices and faces, wisdom and knowledge, consciousness and responsibility, empathy and friendship… artificial intelligence [could] not only interfere with information ecosystems, but also encroach upon the deepest level of communication, that of human relationships,” Leo said earlier this year.

Leo further expressed worry that AI was turning people into “passive consumers of unthought thoughts,” and that’s not even to touch on the fact that AI has a tendency to make stuff up to appease its questioners, potentially leading the spiritually curious into full-blown episodes of psychosis aided by a digital yes-man in the guise of an authority. ®