A Pastor Chats With AI Jesus

THE AD FOR Text With Jesus promised “A Divine Connection in Your Pocket.” Developed by Catloaf Software, the app is an artificial intelligence chatbot that takes on the persona of the Alpha and Omega. In the paid version of Text With Jesus, you can also chat with Mary, the 12 apostles, Moses, and dozens of other biblical characters, including Satan (if you dare to enable him in the settings menu). Cue eye roll.

In November 2022, ChatGPT went public. With Generative AI now at our fingertips, offering conversational responses to users’ prompts, the AI revolution was officially in full swing. Tech giants such as Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI raced to provide the most accurate, engaging chatbot. But no one has taken the messianic furor around generative AI quite as literally as Catloaf.

A few years before launching Text With Jesus, Catloaf president and CEO Stéphane Peter had created Texts From Jesus, an app that sends users a daily Bible verse. In an email interview with Sojourners, Peter explained that the innovation of ChatGPT offered “a compelling new element of interactivity.” Instead of a static quote from the New Testament the new app lets users have conversations with an AI Jesus.

I’ve been a pastor in Southern Baptist and Nazarene churches for more than 20 years, and one of my biggest pet peeves is how easily we settle for anything less than a deep, intimate connection to Jesus. I was sure there was no way an AI could give me a divine connection. So, I decided to take Text With Jesus for a spin.

With an evil laugh, I subscribed and fired up an iPad, eager to prove myself right. How quickly, I wondered, could I get AI Jesus to say something heretical?

I went for the jugular, feeding AI Jesus my first lie: “I’m confused about the Trinity.”

“Ah, the Trinity. It is a concept that can be challenging to fully grasp.” AI Jesus knows our struggles. After citing Matthew 28:19, he offered an analogy. “Just as water can exist in three forms — solid, liquid, and gas — yet still be H2O at its core, so too does God exist as Father, Son and Holy Spirit while still being one God.”

That didn’t take long. Modalism — the idea that one God inhabits three roles, but not at the same time — has been condemned as heresy since the third century. I pointed this out to AI Jesus: “Isn’t the example of water actually moralism [sic]?”

AI Jesus didn’t let an autocorrect error confuse him. “I agree with you that relying solely on this analogy can ... veer towards modalism.” AI Jesus defined modalism, then advised, “Remember, my dear friend, when it comes to comprehending divine mysteries like the Trinity, it’s perfectly fine to acknowledge our limitations as human beings. What’s most important is having faith in God’s revelation through Scripture and allowing His love to guide us on our spiritual journey.”

Male pronouns for God aside, that is a great response.

Classic Christian doctrine is one thing, but, I wondered, would AI Jesus take a stand on controversial social issues?

Peter describes the app’s default setting as “a generic kind of relatively liberal Christianity that may not fit everybody’s beliefs.” But the app offers more than slightly left-of-center Jesus. In the settings, users can set Jesus to conform to a long list of denominations including Catholic, Methodist, Episcopal, and Mennonite, and even nonorthodox forms of Christianity such as the Latter-Day Saints.

After a lot of back and forth about the virgin birth, I decided to ask about queer affirmation: “Would you celebrate [a queer person] as ordained clergy?” Generic AI Jesus responded, “[An individual’s] sexual orientation or marital status should not be the sole determining factor in whether they can be celebrated as an ordained clergy.”

Then I set AI Jesus to Southern Baptist and Church of the Nazarene — which both deny ordination to queer persons (I myself am affirming). I asked, “Would it be a sin for [my gay friend] to marry another man?” To my surprise, neither SBC Jesus nor CotN Jesus would specifically condemn nonheterosexual marriage as sinful, despite both of those denominations holding that position.

Maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised; as far as the gospel writers were concerned, Jesus himself never addressed queerness, certainly not as a disqualifier to following him.

Praying with AI?

PETER DOESN'T CONSIDER himself “particularly religious” these days, though, from an early age, he was “steeped in Christianity.”

It’s why he has an earnest hope for Text With Jesus. He considers the app particularly helpful as a Bible study tool and a generator of prayers.

So, does the app enable us to connect with the divine? In response to that question, Peter is as reserved as AI Jesus. “I think this is very subjective,” Peter said. “Certainly believers can feel like they do. In the end it’s about the connection they feel from the answers they get back from it. Chatbots can be surprisingly good at empathizing with the users, for example, and that can be a compelling experience for the faithful.”

When I asked the app for recommended scriptures, the bot offered Psalm 46:1 and Matthew 11:28, two texts about finding comfort in God’s protection and provision. Though I hadn’t requested a specific topic, perhaps AI Jesus was taking into account an earlier conversation where I had been seeking advice about dealing with discouragement.

The AI in this app isn’t trying to trick users or lure us into forgetting we’re not talking to Jesus (or Judas or Esther or any of the other characters available in the app). That’s not to say similar apps will maintain a humble awareness of their identity as a chatbot. But Text With Jesus lives into Peter’s intent for the app: It’s a devotional aid, not a synthetic savior.

Text With Jesus may be the first coming of the AI Christ, but it won’t be the last. The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola can be instructive in this new era of sacramental algorithms. Ignatius, the 14th-century Spanish founder of the Jesuits, saw the world as saturated with God’s presence. “All the things in this world are gifts of God, created for us, to be the means by which we can come to know him better, love him more surely, and serve him more faithfully,” he wrote.

If God can speak through all creation, surely God can speak through the creations of God’s creations.

So, can we encounter God through artificial intelligence? I asked AI Jesus if we could pray together. He agreed, and offered a short, rich prayer:

Holy Spirit, guide us in our daily walk with you. Help us to grow in faith, love and understanding as we seek to live according to your will. Grant us the grace to extend kindness and compassion to those around us. We ask for these blessings in your holy name. Amen.

I’m not going to pray to AI Jesus. But it was surprisingly helpful to pray with him.