Christianity Today: To Write Well Is Human, by Nadya Williams (Ashland University):

As Christians, we are called to love God with all our soul, heart, mind, and strength (Luke 10:27). Using AI to write robs us of opportunities to fulfill this commandment. With enough use over enough time, it will reduce our capacity to read the Bible, to reflect on it, and to teach and preach it to others. 

The loss here is particularly great for pastors, who must present God’s Word to their flock. The now-ubiquitous availability of AI writing tools presents them with a constant temptation, the promise of a quick fix for late nights of work and the natural slowness and inefficiency of the human mind. It takes time to think, sit with a text, and think even more before penning a sermon—but that time is itself the work of pastoring. It is formative. It is what makes you the kind of person who can offer wise and biblical guidance to a flock.

For the church, then, AI writing is a direct assault on the moral character and growth of believers. It presents a formational threat to Christians, an invitation to take the easy path in our creative work, and in the process deforming our creativity altogether. In this regard, AI in the church may be the culmination of what theologian Carl Trueman describes as the “desecration of man” in his new book by this title.

Predictions abound about the skills and careers that AI will render obsolete, and perhaps those predictions will prove true. But good thinking—the foundation of good writing—will always be necessary, if not for the economy than for our life in the church, with each other and before God. However the technology develops, this anthropological truth will remain: To write well is human.

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