Following Christ in the Age of AI

By Sean O'Callaghan and Paul A. Hoffman

In an era when AI-based technologies are disrupting, even potentially distorting, what it means to be human, we see an opportunity—perhaps even an invitation—for Christian leaders to rediscover a metaphor that clarifies and concentrates our discipleship endeavors. What might that metaphor be? Although most homes in North America may lack a traditional fireplace, the concept of the hearth is a useful and biblical image. Thus, for our purposes here, we seek to respectfully build on [philosopher Albert] Borgmann’s insights by submitting a model we call “hearth habits.” We believe these habits will recenter the imago Dei by promoting embodied, communal practices that counter the dominance of technology in the Western world.

. . . Here’s why hearth habits matter: they reassert and reengage our humanity in the face of AI’s persistent, disembodied Gnosticism. Hearth habits retether humans to God’s concrete realities, to rootedness in place, and they reaffirm, for Christians, their exalted identity. Jacob Shatzer hits the nail on the head: “The virtual will never be the same as physical presence. We cannot shed the metaphor of the church as the body of Christ—the analogy being to the physical body of Christ.”

The hearth habits model is composed of the following five components: the Holy Spirit is the fire starter and sustainer while the fireplace holds four logs: embodied habits, place habits, time-bound habits, and social habits [see figure below]. It should be noted that what follows is not meant to be an exhaustive list. Rather, we make a few suggestions that we hope will act as a catalyst of sorts, a launching pad for further deliberation and exploration. Accordingly, these habits are not intended to be universal; instead, they are to be contextually imagined and applied, depending on one’s location, Christian tradition, and church community. We recognize that readers may already practice some of these habits, but perhaps other habits are new or done infrequently. The goal is to stimulate fresh insights and behaviors.

The First Log: Embodied Habits

Certain activities are particularly potent at arousing our senses and appealing to our enfleshed, tactile selves. They fulfill the imago Dei, give us satisfaction, and bring glory to God. Consider the following:

• Cooking a meal: preparing a weekly feast or dish animates creativity and collaboration. I (Paul) delight whenever my wife, Autumn, and I purchase the ingredients for and construct chicken marsala. She cleans, cuts, pounds, coats, and cooks the cutlets. The sauce is composed of sautéed mushrooms, shallots, garlic, and other savory spices. Cream, butter, broth, and marsala are incorporated into a lovely, bubbling sauce. The chicken is respectfully laid in the sauce, where it gently simmers. At the prompted time, I spring into action and boil the water for the fettucine, sprinkling in salt and olive oil. Then I obsessively hover over the pasta, tending to it, stirring it, and ensuring it cooks al dente, which in Italian can be translated “firm to the bite.” A potpourri of commotion and connection unfolds with sweating, chatting, fretting, complaining, laughing, and increased hankering. This is more than a meal; it is a sacred, unruly dance in which we are uniquely present to one another while consumed by a task.

• Nature walking: After a hectic day in early fall, Autumn and I head to Sachuest Beach, a few miles from our home in Middletown, Rhode Island. This “south facing, mile long,” crescent-shaped beach envelops our senses. We saunter along the coastline, absorbing all the gifts surrounding us. As waves rush forward and crash, seagulls squawk, children splash and scream, and the sun slowly slopes over the nearby granite cliffs—spraying speckles of calming colors across the landscape—a peace settles over our worried, weary hearts and manic minds. We find that this habit readjusts our ears, enabling us to perceive the melody playing around us (see 1 Chron. 16:31–33). Perhaps walking in a local park or wooded area will offer a similar sensation.

. . . To summarize, [these kinds of activities]—completed at least once a week—have the potential to help renew and sustain the imago Dei in us.

The Second Log: Place Habits

Next come place habits, which anchor humans into a particular terra firma, a distinct longitude, latitude, elevation, climate, topography, and built environment. This dynamic concept is sometimes called “place.” This section will not delve into a theology of place, as that has been done elsewhere. Rather, the objective is to present the idea of “placemaking practices.” Craig Bartholomew describes gardening and homemaking as exercises fulfilling God’s commands in Genesis 1–2, to “tend to the respective places in which we have been put.” We agree with his insight that “the embodied nature of human beings means that our placedness is always local and particular; so too will be our primary responsibility for placemaking.”

Let’s start with gardening. Why is this practice important? Simply put, it unites us, in a sensory and tactile way, with the soil and seasons surrounding us. For instance, starting in June, my wife, Autumn, typically purchases and embeds baby tomato plants in large flowerpots on our back porch. Because the deck faces southeast, the plants receive plenty of exposure to the sun. Daily, she examines and waters them before and after work. Additionally, she pots basil and situates it next to perennials such as coneflowers, daylilies, and Shasta daisies, carefully set in metal railing planters. The whole effect is one of vivid colors and sweet, aromatic scents. Through the habit of gardening, Autumn intentionally relates to our place. It should be noted that a person doesn’t need a suburban or rural context to cultivate flowers and veggies. It can be accomplished via small containers on an apartment patio or on a windowsill. . .

The Third Log: Time-Bound Habits

The siren song of AI, like many machines, lures humans away from the rhythms and constraints of time. Because AI is immersive, endlessly stimulating, and addictive, it can untether the mind-body from the clock, a gift of limitation. This reality calls for a holy repacing through time-bound habits. These habits resync us with embodied reality.

The first is silent, listening prayer. This ancient exercise may bear more noticeable fruit in our urbanized, technologically dominant era than in past times. We recommend multiple approaches to this kind of prayer. One can commence with an open Bible and journal. Or maybe try sitting quietly by a window with a drink of choice—say, a cup of tea or lemonade. The beverage is optional, but the absence of devices is not. Look and listen, whispering thanks to God for the innumerous beauties teeming around us.

. . . Observing the liturgical year and calendar is a richly communal and ecclesial way of engaging in time-bound habits. We recognize and respect the fact that billions of diverse Christians across the globe participate in this calendar in ways ranging from significant to negligible. Nonetheless, we believe highlighting it is instructive. According to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the year consists of six seasons:

• Advent—four weeks of preparation before the celebration of Jesus’s birth

• Christmas—recalling the Nativity of Jesus Christ and his manifestation to the peoples of the world

• Lent—a six-week period of penance before Easter

• Sacred Paschal Triduum—the holiest “Three Days” of the Church’s liturgical year, where Christian people recall the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus

• Easter—fifty days of joyful celebration of the Lord’s resurrection from the dead and his sending forth of the Holy Spirit

• Ordinary Time—divided into two sections (one span of four to eight weeks after Christmastime and another lasting about six months after Easter time), wherein the faithful consider the fullness of Jesus’s teachings and works among his people

The practice of following this calendar should not be misunderstood as some kind of legalistic straitjacket or a rote, formal, or “religious” exercise. Instead, the purpose of following the calendar (and of Christian liturgy in general) is to reenact and memorialize the life and ministry of Jesus Christ as an act of devotion and imitation. In doing so, we recall that Jesus is our Savior, Lord, and Exemplar. The Son of God redeemed time as he was led by his heavenly Father. Jesus never strayed from God’s schedule. What a benefit and blessing to learn from him! Last but not least, within this sacred schedule, God’s presence and power are manifest in a special way, and a humbled body of Christ receives grace. In this paradigm, worship is a profoundly interactive experience. . . .

As seen above, the liturgical year is designed to be observed within a vibrant Christian community, which brings us to the final log.

The Fourth Log: Social Habits

We start with the Eucharist, also known as the Lord’s Supper or Holy Communion. It is hard to overstate the theological significance of this practice. James Smith describes it as “supper with the King,” “a compacted microcosm of the whole of worship,” and a practice that “places us in the midst of the story, in an episode that compresses the gospel into an action.” The Lord’s Supper reminds Christians that they are a cruciform community, contoured by the cross. . . . Given its meaning and impact, perhaps the Eucharist should be the starting point for all the hearth habits listed here. For the Christian, the holy mystery of the body and blood of the crucified One can never be superseded by algorithmic machines promising a disembodied, Gnostic pseudosalvation. Herein lies the authority of Communion: it reorients believers to God’s creational narrative, reinserting us into the Trinity’s redemptive river of liberation and reclamation, flowing toward glorification.

A second social habit we wish to promote is hospitality. From an ancient perspective, hospitality overlaps with the Lord’s Supper, which was (and, for some contemporary denominations, still is) an extended, congregation-wide meal called a “love feast” (see Jude 1:12). It was an event that called for a sacrificial, economic sharing that leveled out the prevailing, hierarchical playing field and reflected God’s kingdom values (see 1 Cor. 11:17–34). More broadly, 1 Peter 4:9 issues this command: “Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.”

. . . In our view, hospitality can have many expressions: it can be as simple as sharing a meal and having an unhurried conversation, it can take the form of an intentional mentoring relationship, and it can even extend as far as foster care and adoption. At its core, hospitality is the practice of sacrificial service based on a shared identity (the imago Dei), not on economic, career-related, or other utilitarian considerations that lead people to treat others as commodities. Hospitality is not only biblically sanctioned; it also fundamentally counters some of the darker tendencies of AI. [M]achine learning is often developed and deployed by technocratic elites who view the world through the lenses of consumeristic, market-driven capitalism, unrelenting progress, and technologism (the belief in the supremacy of science and technological advancement to solve all problems). Perhaps Jacques Ellul’s concept of “technique” captures the gist of these worldviews: “technique is the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for a given stage of development) in every field of human activity.” It would be difficult to argue that rationalism and efficiency—as understood in late-modern Western culture—are norms exalted in Scripture. We are called to the imago Christi, not to the imago machinarum. Hospitality, then, can rehumanize us against the dehumanizing effects of technology.

— Sean O'Callaghan is associate professor of religious and theological studies at Salve Regina University, where he also serves as a coordinator of the AI Initiative. He previously served as director of the PhD program in humanities and technology and is currently a faculty member in that program.

— Paul A. Hoffman is associate professor in the Department of Biblical and Religious Studies and director of the Preministerial Scholars Program at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. He previously served as a senior pastor and is the coauthor of Preaching to a Divided Nation, named an Outreach 2023 Resource of the Year.

Image by Emmerich Jörg Herrich from Pixabay

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Excerpted from AI Shepherds and Electric Sheep: Leading and Teaching in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Sean O’Callaghan and Paul A. Hoffman (Baker Academic, 2025). Used by permission.

Since ChatGPT burst into the public consciousness in 2022, AI has thoroughly infiltrated everyday life. Machines can now take on work once thought to be solely the domain of human beings—from writing college essays to composing worship music. How should Christians respond to this brave new technology?

In this accessible introduction to AI, Sean O'Callaghan and Paul Hoffman explore its social and ethical impacts for ministry and teaching. The authors shed light on the biblical vision for human flourishing—and on how AI can help or hinder that flourishing. Avoiding both alarmism and uncritical acceptance, O'Callaghan and Hoffman offer resources and practical tools for using AI in our classrooms and congregations.

AI can write a generic three-point sermon, but it cannot replace an authentic encounter between humans and the divine. In a time of cultural confusion, O'Callaghan and Hoffman encourage readers to embrace the clarity found in the gospel.

“In this significant work O'Callaghan and Hoffman guide Christian leaders biblically, theologically, and practically on this life-altering development called AI. While we do not know what the future holds in this digital world, we do know the One who holds the future. A well-researched and pioneering book that gives us a clear road map to begin understanding and navigating this ever-changing technological age.”

— Matthew D. Kim, Truett Theological Seminary, Baylor University; author of Preaching with Cultural Intelligence

Find AI Shepherds and Electric Sheep at Baker, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Christianbook.com, Books-A-Million, and Walmart.

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