AI and the Church - Episcopal Diocese of Washington

Artificial intelligence is quickly becoming part of everyday life, whether we recognize it or not. It influences the information we see online, the tools we use at work, the way organizations communicate, and increasingly the ways people create, learn, and make decisions. For the Church, the question is no longer whether we will encounter AI. We already are. The more important question is how we engage it faithfully and responsibly.

An Ecumenical Gathering on Artificial Intelligence

From August 24 to August 27, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Presbyterians and United Methodists gathered in Nashville for a summit entitled AI and The Church: An Ecumenical Gathering on Artificial Intelligence. The resources and recordings from the summit can be found here. This was the third annual gathering of the group, and the largest so far.

The conversations ranged from the practical to the deeply ethical. We heard about corporate efforts to locate data centers on Native American lands, about workers around the world doing difficult, low-wage work to train AI systems, and about children mining the minerals needed to power the technology we increasingly rely upon.

New Technology, Enduring Questions

The technology may be new, but many of the moral questions are not. Who benefits? Who bears the cost? Whose voices are heard, and whose are ignored? How do we protect human dignity, care for creation, tell the truth and avoid exploiting those with less power? These are questions the Church has wrestled with for generations, and AI gives us a new context in which to ask them.

We also heard from leaders in AI about how quickly the technology is developing. One topic was the possibility of Recursive Self-Improvement, in which an AI system could potentially improve its own capabilities and accelerate the pace of further improvement. At the same time, even AI scientists do not fully understand everything happening inside increasingly complex systems. The emerging field of interpretability seeks to better understand how AI systems reach their conclusions and make predictions. In other words, the technology is advancing rapidly, while our understanding of it is still developing.

AI and Ministry

The summit also explored how AI is already being used in ministry. A series of ten-minute “AI Quick Talks,” all available on the summit resource page, explored uses ranging from sermon preparation and liturgy planning to evangelism, administration, communications and education.

There is real promise here. AI can help generate ideas, organize information, summarize material, assist with research, improve communications and reduce some of the administrative burden that consumes so much time in our churches. But its usefulness also raises important questions. When is AI supporting human creativity, and when might it begin to replace it? How do we protect confidential information? How do we make sure what AI produces is accurate? When should we disclose that AI has been used? And are there places in ministry where human presence, judgment and relationship are simply too important to delegate to a machine?

These are exactly the kinds of questions we need to work through together.

AI and the Diocese of Washington

In our own Diocese, Bishop Mariann issued a call to establish diocesan working groups on Artificial Intelligence. Three working groups have now been established in the areas of Appropriate Use, Education and Policy, and Advocacy. The groups began meeting this summer and are considering questions ranging from how AI can appropriately support ministry, to what clergy, congregations and diocesan staff need to understand about these tools, to what policies and ethical commitments should guide our use of them. The Advocacy group is also considering the broader societal questions raised by the rapid expansion of AI.

As part of this work, the AI Education Working Group is inviting clergy, vestry leaders, parish administrators, and other parish leaders to complete a brief survey about how they currently use, understand, and feel about artificial intelligence. Whether you use AI regularly or have never tried it, your perspective will help shape future diocesan guidance, training, and resources. Take the survey by September 30.

Our goal is not to produce definitive answers to every question. That would probably be impossible in a field changing this quickly. Rather, we hope to provide useful guidance and resources that will help our Diocese engage AI thoughtfully and faithfully.

Artificial intelligence will continue to change, and probably faster than any of us can predict. But as Episcopalians, we already have a framework for asking some of the most important questions. Our Baptismal Covenant calls us to resist evil and, when we fall short, to repent and return to the Lord; to proclaim the Good News of God in Christ by word and example; to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves; and to strive for justice and peace while respecting the dignity of every human being.

Those promises can help shape the questions we ask about AI: Does our use of this technology serve our neighbor? Does it tell the truth and contribute to the Good News we proclaim? Does it advance justice and peace? Does it protect, rather than diminish, the dignity of every human being?

The technology will continue to change, often faster than we can predict. Our baptismal covenant gives us a framework for meeting those changes together—and for continuing to ask what faithfulness requires of us.

The Rev. Thom Sinclair

Chief Operating Officer