AI and Christian Imagination: Toward a Theology of Educational Technology

When the Lord said to Joshua, “Go up and attack Ai” (Joshua 8:1), I’m pretty sure he wasn’t talking about ChatGPT. Yet sometimes, it seems like that’s how we treat Scripture—searching for a proof-text answer to contemporary issues. Is the Bible telling us that we should take up arms against algorithms? Smash the supercomputers? Obliterate the large language models? Clearly not. (Though I’ll admit the mental picture here was too good to resist!)

I hope you are reading my tone correctly: I take a high view of Scripture! So high, in fact, that this playful misreading of Joshua 8:1 is meant to highlight an important point: the Bible is not a manual on 21st-century technologies. You won’t find “computer,” “smartphone,” or “artificial intelligence” in your concordance. But that doesn’t mean Scripture is silent! The Bible might not have direct language about how to respond to the challenges of artificial intelligence, but there is plenty of wisdom in the Word that we can draw upon. Rather than a proof-texting approach, I suggest that we need to learn to think theologically—to discern biblical principles that can guide us as we live faithfully in a technology-rich world.

Thinking Theologically About Technology

My friend Derek Schuurman, a Christian computer scientist, reframes Tertullian’s old question, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” by asking instead, “What has Silicon Valley to do with Jerusalem? What do bytes have to do with beliefs?” I think this is the right kind of question that we should be asking when it comes to technology. The challenge for Christian educators isn’t simply whether to use AI or not—it’s how to use technology Christianly, in ways that reflect God’s truth, goodness, and beauty.

Thinking theologically means zooming out from prooftexts and instead considering the big picture. What principles emerge when we ask how this technology might help us love God with heart, soul, mind, and strength? How might it help us love our neighbors as ourselves? Where might it distort that calling?

Practicing Humble Skepticism

Of course, not every promise about technology deserves our wholehearted embrace. Neil Postman—who was not a biblical prophet but was certainly prophetic—warned decades ago about “technopoly,” a culture in which technology becomes the dominant authority. Even before the internet, Postman worried about information glut and just how easily we could be misled by implausible claims.

His warning rings even truer in an AI-saturated world, where every week seems to bring new breathless headlines: This will revolutionize teaching and learning! If you don’t use this, your students will be left behind! Or, alternatively: AI will destroy education as we know it! We have to ban it!

How do we respond? I’ll suggest an approach I call “humble skepticism.” This is not a knee-jerk rejection, but also not naïve enthusiasm. Instead, we discern—testing the spirits of our age, as the apostle John would put it. (See 1 John 4:1-6.) We ask careful questions:

• What does this technology promise?
• How likely is it to deliver on that promise?
• What will we gain, and what will we lose, by using it?
• Can this be used in ways that align with the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control?

Jesus told his disciples to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. That’s the posture we need with AI: discerning but hopeful, critical but charitable.

Technology in the Arc of the Redemptive Story

The fullest Christian imagination for AI comes when we set it inside the Big Story of Scripture: Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration.

• Creation reminds us that technology itself is not evil. Human creativity, including tool-making and innovation, is part of God’s “very good” design.
• The Fall warns us that technology, like all things, is twisted by sin and can be wielded for harm. Algorithms can amplify injustice as easily as they can aid learning.
• Redemption proclaims that Christ has reconciled all things—yes, even the digital and technological—through his death and resurrection. There is no corner of creation outside his sovereign rule!
• Restoration points us forward. Notice the story doesn’t end back in the garden but in a city, the New Jerusalem. That detail matters! It suggests that cultural and technological development are not detours from God’s plan but part of the unfolding story. In the end, Christ declares, “I am making all things new.” Even our tools, our machines, and our inventions will somehow be caught up in God’s renewal.

Can I picture AI in the New Jerusalem? Honestly, I don’t know. But I like to imagine that even our most advanced technologies could be transfigured into tools of love, justice, and praise. And in the meantime, we are invited to use them in restoration-oriented ways—ways that glorify God, honor human dignity, and serve our neighbors.

Imagining Christianly

So, should we attack AI? No. But should we think carefully, critically, and hopefully about AI? Absolutely.

Christian educators don’t need to be either AI alarmists or uncritical cheerleaders. Instead, we are called to cultivate a theological imagination for technology—one that balances trust in God’s sovereignty with humble skepticism about human promises, one that remembers the arc of the redemptive story, and one that dares to ask what it means to live as disciples of Jesus in a technology-rich world.

Maybe the better battle cry isn’t “Attack AI!” but “Imagine Christianly.”