AI and the European Church: Wrestling with Post-Christian Technology

How the birthplace of the Reformation navigates artificial intelligence in a secular age

Rev. John Moelker | October 2025

🏛️ THE HISTORIC FIRST

June 2023: Over 300 people packed into St. Paul's Church in Fürth, Germany, for a worship service unlike any in Christian history.

The pastor was an avatar—an AI-generated figure projected onto a screen with "an expressionless face and monotone voice."

For 40 minutes, ChatGPT-powered digital disciples led prayers, delivered sermons, pronounced blessings, and guided hymns. Even the music was AI-composed.

Jonas Simmerlein, theologian and tech expert:

"From what you will see and experience today, around 98% comes from a machine."

Welcome to AI and the European Church—where post-Christian culture meets cutting-edge technology, where ancient cathedrals house digital experiments, and where Christianity wrestles with what it means to be faithful in a context that has largely moved beyond faith.

The European Context: Post-Christendom Meets High Tech

To understand European Christianity's engagement with AI, you must first understand Europe's religious landscape.

The Decline

📉 THE POST-CHRISTIAN REALITY

The religiously unaffiliated grew considerably in several European countries between 2010 and 2020.

Christianity's cultural dominance has ended

Church attendance plummets

Seminaries close

Cathedrals become museums

Yet pockets of vitality remain:

Orthodox Christianity holds strong in Eastern Europe

Evangelical and Pentecostal movements grow in urban centers

Catholic renewal emerges among young people seeking "something deeper"

Immigrant churches bring new energy

European Christianity in 2025 is minority faith navigating post-Christian culture—no longer the cultural default but a conscious choice, often countercultural.

The Technology Context

⚖️ EUROPE LEADS IN AI ETHICS

September 2024: Council of Europe Framework Convention on AI—"the first-ever internationally legally binding treaty in this field"

EU AI Act sets global standards

European universities produce cutting-edge AI research

Prioritizing human rights, democratic values, ethical concerns

This creates unique dynamics for European Christianity: working within sophisticated regulatory frameworks, engaging technologically advanced societies, and speaking to increasingly secular populations about technology's moral and spiritual dimensions.

The German Experiment: Lessons from St. Paul's Church

The AI-led worship service at St. Paul's Church wasn't meant to replace pastors. Jonas Simmerlein explained that his intention was "to allow participants to experience a novel form of religious worship using AI in place of a human pastor" and to spark conversation about AI's role in church contexts.

The Experience

🤖 THE 40-MINUTE SERVICE

AI avatars led attendees through:

Intercessory prayers

Psalm recitations

The confession of faith

A sermon

A final blessing

AI-composed music

The congregation response: "Whispers and some laughter at some points"

One worshipper noted: "I would have expected the avatar to at least raise its arms during the blessing."

After the service, attendees were asked to turn to neighbors and discuss their reactions—making the real value not the AI service itself but the conversation it generated.

The Research Findings

📊 SIMMERLEIN'S RESEARCH RESULTS (2025)

Diversity of Opinion — Responses ranged from enthusiasm to skepticism

Spiritual Experiences — Despite most responses being skeptical, some participants reported having genuine spiritual experiences during the AI-led service

High Religiosity — Subjective religiosity was rather high (mean: 4.975 on 7-point scale). These weren't secular tourists—they were committed believers willing to experiment

Denominational Diversity — 83.5% Lutheran/Reformed, 7.6% other Protestant, 6.3% Catholic

The Crucial Questions

🔍 WHAT THE GERMAN EXPERIMENT REVEALS

Can machines mediate the sacred? If worship is fundamentally about encounter with God through human community, what does AI-led worship even mean?

Is this the future? One observer noted: "I think probably yes, it is coming and faster than we think."

What is lost? The communications expert's observation about losing "the art of speaking" points to something deeper—when we optimize for efficiency, what essential human elements disappear?

The Vatican's European Framework

While Protestant Germany experimented with AI worship, Catholic Rome developed comprehensive ethical frameworks.

Antiqua et Nova (Ancient and New)

📜 JANUARY 28, 2025: VATICAN'S AI DOCUMENT

Thirty-page note: "On the relationship between artificial intelligence and human intelligence"

Less a theological treatise than an ethical report, addressing practical concerns:

Workplace surveillance where sensors quantify every keystroke

Educational concerns where students "spoon-fed chatbots may lose critical reasoning"

Autonomous drones that "decide when to kill"

Deepfakes that "corrode the sacrament of truth by making every image suspect"

The hinge sentence:

AI must "complement human intelligence rather than replace it," because replacement would enthrone a "substitute for God."

The Rome Call for AI Ethics

🤝 MULTI-FAITH COMMITMENT (2020)

Leaders from Roman Catholic Church, IBM, and Microsoft signed the Rome Call for AI Ethics

Eventually including leaders from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam to ensure AI usage is:

Transparent

Inclusive

Responsible

Impartial

This represents characteristically European approach: multi-stakeholder, ethically-focused, legally-binding frameworks developed through patient dialogue.

Vatican City's AI Guidelines

📋 JANUARY 1, 2025: COMPREHENSIVE INTERNAL POLICY

Vatican City enacted some of the world's most comprehensive internal AI guidelines:

Data transparency

Energy consumption

Ethical principles against autonomous weapons

Alignment with Holy See's broader international advocacy

The Vatican isn't just theorizing—it's implementing concrete policies, modeling what ethical AI governance could look like.

The European Christian Internet Conference (ECIC)

Established over 20 years ago, ECIC brings together digital professionals from across the continent—online pastors, digital strategists, content creators, web and social media managers.

The 2024 Bossey Conference

🇨🇭 SEPTEMBER 2024: ECUMENICAL INSTITUTE, SWITZERLAND

Theme: "What is truth? - Ethical and practical issues in the use of Artificial Intelligence"

Around 30 communicators from Germany, Switzerland, Finland, Sweden, Belgium, Poland, Greece, France, and the United Kingdom

Key Insights from Bossey

💡 THREE CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES

Prof. Dr Holger Sievert (Macromedia University Cologne) Surveyed almost 1,500 church employees:

"Digitalisation of the church is a prerequisite of AI usage in the church"

Finding: "Churches are behind business companies in technology use for 10-15 years."

This lag isn't necessarily bad—it represents caution, discernment, and the recognition that churches serve different purposes than businesses.

Christine Ulrich (Journalist & Media Ethicist) On the search for truth in journalism:

"How can it still report truthfully when everything can be fake, when everything can be misused politically?"

Answer: "Professional and quality journalism always seeks the truth, distinguishing it from propaganda"—critical distinction in age of AI-generated content

Hovig Etyemezian (UN Refugee Agency - UNHCR) How AI helps UNHCR work with refugees:

Predicting population movements

Alerting populations to natural disasters

Better preparation for emergencies

Better understanding of refugees' needs

Providing improved services

This represents AI serving human dignity and flourishing—precisely the framework European Christianity advocates.

The UK Context: Tradition Meets Innovation

British Christianity navigates AI amid broader questions about Christianity's role in increasingly secular society.

Surprising Religious Growth

📈 UNEXPECTED TREND (May 2025)

The Economist reported: "Catholicism Spreads Amongst Young Britons Longing for 'Something Deeper'"

The question: How does this spiritual hunger interact with AI?

Can technology satisfy it? Or does technology's inability to provide transcendence actually drive people toward authentic spiritual experiences?

British Monastic Innovation

🙏 THOUGHTFUL INTEGRATION

The Prayer Companion — British convent of Poor Clares uses device that scans international news for events inspiring nuns' intercession prayers

The eRosary — Vatican-approved device tracking daily prayer progress

Evermore app — Guides users through daily Christian meditations while monitoring progress

These represent European Christianity's pragmatic approach: using technology for specific, helpful purposes while maintaining prayer's essentially relational character.

The Eastern European Story: Orthodox Christianity and AI

Eastern European Orthodox Christianity brings different sensitivities to AI discussions.

The Mystical Tradition

☦️ ORTHODOX SENSIBILITIES

Orthodox theology emphasizes:

Mystery — God fundamentally beyond human comprehension

Apophatic theology — Knowing God through what He is not

Theosis — Becoming like God

Icons and liturgy — Encountering the divine

Deep suspicion of:

Rationalism

Technological reductionism

The question: If God is fundamentally beyond human comprehension, how can algorithms mediate divine encounter?

The Communist Legacy

📸 LIVED MEMORY, NOT PARANOIA

Eastern European Christians remember:

Totalitarian surveillance

State control of information

Technology used for oppression

This creates wariness about AI-enabled surveillance and control—concerns that seem paranoid to Western Christians but are lived memory in the East.

The Empirical Research: The 10-15 Year Lag

📊 PROFESSOR HOLGER SIEVERT'S FINDINGS

Survey of almost 1,500 church employees across two large European churches:

Finding: Churches lag behind businesses in technology adoption by 10-15 years

This reflects:

Resource constraints (smaller budgets)

Different priorities (spiritual formation vs. profit)

Institutional conservatism (protecting what's sacred)

Demographic factors (older leadership, aging congregations)

The key insight: "Digitalisation of the church is a prerequisite of AI usage in the church."

You can't jump straight to AI without first achieving basic digital literacy, infrastructure, and cultural comfort with technology.

The Learning Opportunity

🎓 THE SILVER LINING

European Christianity's lag in technology adoption isn't necessarily weakness.

It provides opportunity to:

Learn from early adopters' mistakes

Observe what works and what doesn't

Implement thoughtfully rather than reactively

European AI Regulation: The Christian Contribution

Europe leads globally in AI regulation, and Christian voices contribute significantly to these frameworks.

The Council of Europe Convention

⚖️ SEPTEMBER 2024: HISTORIC TREATY

Council of Europe Framework Convention on AI explicitly protects:

Human rights

Democracy

Rule of law

Christian advocates helped ensure these frameworks protect religious freedom, maintain human dignity, and resist technological determinism.

The EU AI Act

🇪🇺 GLOBAL STANDARD-SETTING

European Union's comprehensive AI Act—Christian voices shaped key provisions:

❌ Prohibiting social credit systems

⚠️ Restricting facial recognition and biometric surveillance

✅ Requiring transparency in AI decision-making

🛡️ Protecting vulnerable populations

👤 Ensuring human oversight of high-risk systems

This represents European Christianity's strength: influencing secular governance frameworks toward outcomes that protect human dignity even without explicitly religious language.

The Pilate Question: "What is Truth?"

❓ THE ECIC 2024 CONFERENCE THEME

"What is truth? - Ethical and practical issues in the use of Artificial Intelligence"

This question—Pilate's question to Jesus—becomes urgent in the AI age when:

Deepfakes make any video suspect

AI generates convincing misinformation

Algorithms personalize "truth" to individual preferences

Reality itself becomes malleable and manufactured

The Journalistic Response

📰 CHRISTINE ULRICH'S ANSWER

"Professional and quality journalism always seeks the truth, distinguishing it from propaganda."

In an age when AI can generate infinite content, the painstaking work of truth-seeking—verification, investigation, accountability—becomes more valuable, not less.

European Christianity, with its rich intellectual tradition, philosophical sophistication, and commitment to truth as correspondence to reality (not just personal experience), has crucial contributions to make.

The European Contribution to Global Christianity

🎁 FIVE UNIQUE GIFTS

What does European Christianity uniquely bring to global AI discussions?

1. Ethical Frameworks — Centuries of moral philosophy, theological reflection, democratic governance

2. Regulatory Experience — Actual experience regulating technology, not just theorizing

3. Ecumenical Dialogue — WCC and ecumenical bodies facilitating conversation across Christian traditions

4. Post-Christian Perspective — Insights into engaging technology in contexts where Christian assumptions aren't cultural defaults

5. Historical Memory — Remembering the church's historical mistakes produces appropriate humility

Five Challenges for European Christianity

⚠️ THE DISTINCTIVE CHALLENGES

1. Demographic Decline — Aging congregations, declining attendance = fewer resources

2. Cultural Marginalization — Christian voices have less influence in technology development

3. The Innovation Lag — 10-15 year gap means responding after technology has shaped society

4. The Secularization Narrative — Assumption that secularization is inevitable can become self-fulfilling

5. The Unity Challenge — Fragmentation makes unified response difficult

A Vision for European Christian AI

🌟 IMAGINE...

European Christianity leveraging its unique strengths to engage AI:

Ecumenical dialogue producing shared ethical frameworks transcending denominational divisions

Sophisticated regulation protecting human dignity, privacy, freedom without stifling beneficial innovation

Ancient liturgical traditions offering alternative to algorithm-driven spirituality—mystery, transcendence, embodied community

Intellectual resources marshaled to articulate what secular frameworks miss—ultimate meaning, transcendent purpose, eternal perspective

Monastic communities modeling contemplative presence as counterpoint to frenetic technological acceleration

The German Service: Final Reflection

Returning to St. Paul's Church in Fürth—what did that AI-led service ultimately reveal?

🤔 TWO POSSIBLE INTERPRETATIONS

Perhaps it reveals:

The human capacity for worship is so profound that even an avatar can't entirely suppress it. When people gather seeking God, He meets them—despite the technological mediation, not because of it.

Or perhaps it shows:

"Spiritual experience" itself is ambiguous—that feelings of transcendence can be triggered by novel experiences without genuine encounter with the living God.

Either way, the German experiment confirms:

We must engage technology thoughtfully, experimentally, critically—but always subordinate technology to theology, never the reverse.

The European Call to the Global Church

📢 FIVE CHALLENGES TO THE GLOBAL CHURCH

European Christianity challenges the global Church to:

1. Think theologically before technologically Don't ask "Can we?" before asking "Should we?" and "What does Scripture teach?"

2. Develop regulatory frameworks Technology governance isn't optional—it's essential for protecting human dignity

3. Maintain intellectual rigor Engage AI with the best of Christian thought, not just gut reactions

4. Learn from history Remember the Church's past mistakes, approaching AI with appropriate humility

5. Preserve transcendence In an age that reduces everything to data, maintain the mystery, awe, and transcendence that draw people to God

The Ancient Faith in Modern Context

⛪ 2,000 YEARS OF WISDOM MEETS 3-YEAR-OLD TECHNOLOGY

European Christianity—heir to:

Church Fathers

Medieval scholastics

Reformation theologians

Ecumenical pioneers

Brings ancient wisdom recognizing:

Human nature remains constant even as technology changes

The questions AI raises are fundamentally old questions in new form

The answers found in Scripture, tradition, and reason still speak with authority

As AI advances at dizzying speed, European Christianity's rootedness in ancient truth provides desperately needed ballast.

The faith that weathered:

The fall of Rome
The Reformation's upheaval
The Enlightenment's challenges
The 20th century's horrors

Has resources for navigating the 21st century's technological revolution.

To learn more about how ChurchWiseAI is helping churches navigate AI with wisdom rooted in orthodox Christian theology and ethical frameworks, visit ChurchWiseAI.com and discover their vision of "Seeing Jesus through Wise Ai."