A California pastor named Justin Lester has built a digital twin of himself using nearly 2 million words from his sermons, books, and other messages. The artificial intelligence–generated clone offers counsel around the clock to hundreds of people in Vallejo, a city in the Bay Area. The New York Times, which reported on Lester, said the AI twin talks in the pastor’s cadence. It has comforted a woman the night before heart surgery, advised a person who felt despair over a lost job, and generated a letter for a homesick child at camp.
Lester is not alone in searching for ways to incorporate generative AI into Christianity. The creators of one AI-infused app, called Bible Chat, have created another sort of digital chaplaincy that allows users to confess their secrets and sins to a chatbot, and ask it for insight about how to interpret the bible. Bible Chat has been downloaded more than 30 million times. Other “faith tech” tools are also on the rise.
I’m sure most of us already sense something is off here, and plenty has been written about the obvious concerns with the technology: Can a chatbot pray for you? (No.) Can it know you? (No.) Can it be trusted to tell you the truth when the truth costs something? (No.) I won’t use this article to rehearse those arguments. Instead, I will focus on our existing problems, as Protestants, with spiritual authority and how AI technology that provides spiritual guidance threatens to make it a lot worse.
(CT) ‘The New York Times, which reported on Lester, said the AI twin talks in the pastor’s cadence. It has comforted a woman the night before heart surgery, advised a person who felt despair over a lost job, and generated a letter for a homesick child at camp’ https://t.co/eimklPp9eQ #faith #parishministry #ordainedlife #technology #ai #21stc
— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) October 5, 2026
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