John 17:20-23
Jesus prayed, “I ask not only on behalf of these but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one,
so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”
Artificial Intelligence is not your friend—it’s the Tower of Babel. That was the title of the first article I saw this week while preparing for today. Another headline from a Jewish student paper read: AI: The Modern Tower of Babel. A theme was emerging. Faith publications and organizations are writing incessantly about AI and faith, the church, spirituality, and more.
Then Pastor Mark told me to listen to a segment from 1A this week about AI and faith. It was fascinating—and a little frightening.
I’ll be honest, I thought I had pretty good job security against AI and robots… until I listened to that segment.
I learned about Pastors.AI, a chatbot trained for a specific church using sermons and resources from real pastors. Meaning, you could upload all the videos and manuscripts from Pastor Mark’s sermons over the past 24 years, and the chatbot would generate answers to questions, write sermons, and craft Bible studies—just like he would! You could have your own Pastor Mark in your pocket.
Then there’s Gloo—AI evangelism. Gloo claims it helps churches grow by tracking digital interactions, managing prayer requests, responding to texts, and making new connections.
Entire denominations are diving into AI. If you're Catholic, you can't use just any faith-based AI, so you turn to Ask Father Justin. Apparently, a problem arose where some people preferred confessing to Father Justin instead of their priest. Imagine that… And it’s not just Catholics who do AI.
Episcopalians have Cathy—Church Answers That Help You. Right on the Diocese of Lexington’s homepage, you can talk with Cathy and learn anything you want from the Episcopalian perspective.But what good is the church or denominations if you can just chat with Jesus yourself, AI Jesus that is? If you try that one let me know.
So is AI a threat to the church? Or a tool to help it grow? Is it humans trying to become like God, or is it a resource that makes God more accessible? Is this software a reversal of Genesis 1 where we make God in our image, one chatbot at a time?Is it a new Tower of Babel—our attempt to code our way to God?
How might this ancient story help us with such questions? More importantly, what might it tell us about Jesus?
The Tower of Babel is mysterious. It's short, raises more questions than it answers, and isn't referenced anywhere else in the Bible. Like the other stories in Genesis 1–11, it’s an origin story; one that tries to explain how different nations and languages came to be. Linguists agree though, this is not how languages came about. It much more complicated. As is this story. To read it as only an explanation of languages or cultures misses what all it reveals about God.
It’s also the origin story of Babylon. Thousands of years ago, Babylon made a major technological advance: the brick. They could take bricks, butter’em with bitumen, stack them on top of each other and build.
So the people said, “Let’s build a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and make a name for ourselves, or else we’ll be scattered across the earth.” That one sentence is full of so much irony. The tower didn’t reach heaven. In fact, God had to come down to earth just to see it. And when God finds it, God isn’t pleased. Why exactly? We’re not told. What we do know is that God confused their language and scattered all the people—the very thing they were trying to avoid.
That question—why did God do this?—has led to many interpretations, some with harmful consequences.
One interpretation says God scattered the people because mixing cultures, ethnicities, and languages is bad. That view has been used to justify segregation in this country and apartheid in South Africa.But I don’t read this story as the scattering being a consequence or punishment.
God said twice “to fill the earth and subdue”. Well you can’t do that if people are all in one place.
So scattering wasn’t punishment - it was the plan. As were the different languages and ethnicities. Diversity was God’s design from the start.
Another view is that God is suspicious of cities. So, urban life must be prideful or ungodly, while small-town life is holier and safer. But that doesn’t align with the broader biblical story.
God called Jonah to Nineveh, a powerful city, because God cared for its people and animals.
Jesus longed to gather Jerusalem under his wing. Revelation envisions a new heaven and earth—with a new Jerusalem at its center.
God is not suspicious of cities, but is as present there as anywhere else in the world.
And perhaps most pertinent today: some believe God scattered humanity because they were too advanced. Such a reading makes folks skeptical of scientific progress and technological advances like, well, Artificial Intelligence.
But I don’t think God was all that concerned about some bricks stacked a couple hundred feet in the air. Nor is God all that impressed with our towers of today: our advances, systems, or political structures.
And I am pretty sure God isn’t wringing hands over Artificial Intelligence like everyone else seems to be.
What I think God is concerned about is any human attempt to work our way up to God, any effort to work out our own salvation. And we try all the time. We think: “If I just do enough good,” “If I go to church enough,” “If I text with AI Jesus,” or “complete my Bible AI devotional”—then I’ll get to God.
All our technological advances will undoubtedly do a lot of good. But if we think software can save us, it’s no different than thinking a tower can take us to heaven. The tower never reaches.
We can’t code our way up to God.
But the good news of our faith is that we don’t have to go up to God because God came down to us in Jesus Christ. And through that person, that real, divine, tangible person, do we and all the world receive the grace and forgiveness we could never create for ourselves, no matter how advanced we get. Through that person, all the scattered people of the world might be one in him.
That’s what, or really who, holds this community together. We don’t all hold the same views, or come from the same backgrounds, or see the world in the same way. Sometimes it probably seems like we aren’t even speaking the same language. And yet, it is the grace and forgiveness and mercy of Jesus that binds us together as one.
This A.I stuff isn’t going away anytime soon. It certainly has it’s dangers. At the same time it is a technological tool and the church has always engaged with these tools. When the printing press was invited, the church made tracts and pamphlets. When radio came around, preachers broadcasted their sermons across the airwaves.
TVs gave rise to the televangelist. And today nearly everyone watches a service online before they ever step foot through our doors. So it should be no surprise that christians, churches, pastors, denominations, are using A.I. in all sorts of ways.
But like any tool, it can be misused and lead to harm, like thinking it can somehow take us up to God, as an ancient tower once tried. Or that it can bring Jesus down to us.
Yet it can’t do that either, because Jesus came down and is here already. Here at the table where we get our fill of his forgiveness in bread and wine. Here in the waters of baptism where we are washed by his grace. Here in your neighbor, who reflects the very image of God. By his coming down to us, Jesus made his love tangible through these physical signs of his grace that he freely gives to us.
And that’s something A.I. can never give. Amen.