What does AI reveal about creation and vocation?; The Christian Century, June 10, 2026

Uriah Kim , The Christian Century; What does AI reveal about creation and vocation?

"How are new technologies shaping human identity, responsibility, and the common good? Increasingly, such questions are being raised by religious leaders and theologians, most notably by Pope Leo in Magnifica humanitas, his recent encyclical on artificial intelligence and human dignity. Secular critics as well have rightly described this moment as shaped by a form of digital empire.

In this context, artificial intelligence has emerged as a new arena in which long-standing patterns of power and extraction are reasserting themselves. AI systems are developed by powerful institutions, trained on uneven datasets, and deployed in ways that often reinforce existing inequalities. What is being drawn into these systems today is not only labor or natural resources but knowledge itself—including its patterns as to whose stories are preserved, whose perspectives are made to appear objective, and whose ways of knowing are quietly marginalized. This dynamic is not unprecedented. It reflects a familiar imperial pattern now appearing in digital form.

Yet critique alone, however necessary, is no longer sufficient. If religious communities and educational institutions stop at denunciation or rejection of AI, they risk leaving formation to the very systems they distrust. Artificial intelligence will continue to shape how people think, decide, and understand themselves—whether or not we engage it constructively. In reality, AI is already embedded in our everyday infrastructure: search engines, recommendation systems, navigation tools, and even familiar digital platforms such as Microsoft 365 and Zoom, which have quietly integrated AI assistants and other automated features into tools millions of people use every day. Avoiding a particular chatbot does not place us outside this ecosystem; it simply obscures the extent to which intelligent systems are already influencing how we gather information, weigh evidence, and form judgments.

The question, then, is not whether AI should be resisted or embraced, but whether communities of faith will assume responsibility for how human judgment, spirituality, moral imagination, and meaning-making are formed in its presence."