Christians have a rich history of engaging with new technologies to advance the mission of God. While there has also been resistance or caution at times, Christians have been quick to adopt technological advances. The printing press made the Bible more accessible, radio broadcasts and Christian TV networks helped spread the gospel, and the Bible App revolutionized Scripture engagement. AI is no exception.
“The way AI is exploding, it needs frameworks and structures. And from a gospel standpoint, it should always be about people,” said Lori Miller, president of Avodah Connect, a division of Avodah, a technology company seeking to reshape Bible translation.
Miller’s excitement about AI is grounded in her conviction that it should always be in service to Avodah’s vision — a world where everyone is seen, known and understood. “God seeing, knowing and understanding us and inviting us into relationship with him; this is what keeps us focused. The person needs to stay at the center of what we’re doing,” she said.
Miller observed that many years ago, a Western missionary would go into a village and work on one translation over the course of an entire lifetime. Even with advancements over the last few decades, translation methods can still take more than 20 years to complete at a cost of nearly $1 million per Bible translated. Leveraging Avodah’s AI technology and with a focus on empowering indigenous communities, Avodah can drastically reduce the cost and increase the speed of Bible translation, particularly with languages for which there is no available data online.
Larry Graber serves as executive director of KIN International, a nonprofit that works with churches in providing humanitarian services in their communities. Their goal is to ignite communities with the love of Jesus with time, treasure and talent. One of KIN’s areas of focus is Bible translation, and they have recently contracted with Avodah to translate 10 languages in Indonesia. Graber estimates that translation time has been reduced by 75-80 percent, and costs are down by as much as 60 percent.
Akosua Frempong, a freelance journalist, attended the Museum of the Bible’s first “AI and the Bible” conference and interviewed many AI and translation experts. Randall Tan, senior director of Bible Technology Strategy at Biblica, said that using AI because of speed, in addition to an expanded human labor pool, can help to reach the goal of making the Bible accessible to all people by 2033.
The conference also focused on ethical and accuracy issues. Senior editor for AI and Faith, Marcus Schwarting said, “I think that the researchers in this discipline would all agree that the accuracy of Bible translations should not be compromised by AI, simply in the name of speed and efficiency.” Schwarting said augmentation, not automation, can ensure accuracy of Bible translations. In other words, AI can help human translators, but not completely replace them.
Avodah focuses on low-resource languages, supporting the indigenous community’s collaboration with AI technology. Avodah works with members of the community to curate a selection of 1,200 Bible verses that represent the breadth of vocabulary and various genres in Scripture. The community also contributes any documents written in the local language as cultural reference sources, such as poetry, legal documents and children’s stories. Using this data together with the translated verses, Avodah can create a first draft of the entire Bible with around 70 percent accuracy within five months. The community offers feedback to further train the model so that successive translations are rendered even more accurate.
“Throughout the entire process, we ensure that people from the local community are leading the way in training the AI models,” Miller said.
Gloo is another Christian organization leading in the AI space with a focus on the redemptive potential of AI. In September 2024, Gloo hosted its second annual “AI and the Church Hackathon,” with the purpose of advancing AI-based technology to serve the faith community. Participating teams were invited to build AI-powered solutions that focused on human flourishing and church thriving.
Ed Stetzer, dean of Talbot School of Ministry and a presenter at the Gloo hackathon, outlined both the ethical concerns and ministry opportunities that AI represents for the American church in an Outreach magazine article. He argued:
The Church can’t afford to sit this one out. We have to “play” in the arena of AI. In fact, you already do so every day, for example, when you use your GPS, when you interact with bots on a website, and when you e-pay online. …Technology has always offered ways to improve life. The Bible and commentary a pastor uses for sermon preparation are both printed through technology that traces its lineage to the printing press. Now we have Logos and other platforms to help us do exegetical work digitally in a time-saving way.
He closed the piece by quoting ChatGPT when he asked it to give ways that AI can help a local church reach its community: “It’s important to note that while AI can be a powerful tool for outreach, it should complement and enhance human efforts rather than replace them. Personal connections, empathy and community involvement remain essential in building meaningful relationships and expanding the reach of a local church.”
Since July 2020, Cullen Rodgers-Gates has been serving as the director of development and membership at the National Association of Evangelicals. In this role, he established and leads the NAE’s development program while also engaging with a growing community of active members. Prior to his work at the NAE, Rodgers-Gates spent 20 years in international service-learning and nonprofit leadership, including six years as executive director of Congo Initiative USA. Rodgers-Gates holds two degrees from Wheaton College: a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and a master’s degree in historical and systematic theology.
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