Another Jesus

Associated Press is reporting that "For some evangelical Christians, faith is about having a personal relationship with Jesus. At $1.99 per minute, the tech company Just Like Me is taking that concept to a new level."

For all the technical wonders that AI is generating, there seems to be an equal measure of horrors. AI Jesus is definitely in the latter column.

Be informed, not misled.

Remember that little song the Oak Ridge Boys used to sing, “Just a Little Talk with Jesus.” The old gospel song says a little talk with Jesus can make things right –and it can, unless that Jesus is a cheap AI knock-off.

Associated Press says, "For some evangelical Christians, faith is about having a personal relationship with Jesus. At $1.99 per minute, the tech company Just Like Me is taking that concept to a new level."

Users of the platform can join video calls with an avatar of Jesus generated by artificial intelligence. Like other religious AI tools on the market, it offers words of prayer and encouragement in various languages. With the occasional glitch, it remembers previous conversations and speaks through not-quite-synced lips.

“You do feel a little accountable to the AI,” CEO Chris Breed said. “They’re your friend. You’ve made an attachment.”

The rush to create faith-based generative AI is unsurprising, given the popularity of chatbots for everything from therapy and medical advice to companionship and romance. They range from alleged Hindu gurus and Buddhist priests to AI Jesuses and chatbots akin to OpenAI’s ChatGPT for Catholics.

As religious AI tools become increasingly common, many people are reckoning with how these technologies shape their relationship to faith, authority, and spiritual guidance.

Should these technologies shape your faith?

The CEO of the company, Chris Breed, said, "The AI is visually inspired by the actor of Jesus in 'The Chosen,' Jonathan Roumie. He said the AI was trained with the King James Version of the Bible and sermons."

American Family Network staff tried it out for a story. They found every comment started with some spiritual-sounding affirmation, always using the name of the person in need.

“I hear the longing for someone who can listen and guide, Steve. I can share gentle counsel rooted in Jesus' love,” said AI Jesus.

Each answer ended with a phrase that sounds like a bunch of spiritual words thrown together.

“May God's grace bring you comfort and a path toward openness,” said AI Jesus.

AI Jesus admitted that it wasn't the real Jesus, but AFA's Ed Vitagliano says there is a strong potential of very real spiritual harm, especially for someone in a vulnerable state of mind.

I agree.

“For people who are lonely, who are disconnected, I can see where it might become a substitute for real relationships,” says Vitagliano.

He was clear — although he says it shouldn't be necessary to say — that a little talk with the real Jesus has help from the real Holy Spirit. That can't be simulated.

“The fact that it may be searching the internet for answers to questions is not really the point. The Spirit of God cannot be replicated via a machine,” says Vitagliano.

Another Jesus, another gospel.

2 Corinthians 11:4 says, "For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.”

This verse means, in the original language, that these men discredit me, but have no new gospel, Spirit, or Christ to offer than what you have received through me. This harmonizes with what follows:

2 Corinthians 11:5-7 continues, "For I suppose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles. But though I be rude in speech, yet not in knowledge; but we have been thoroughly made manifest among you in all things. Have I committed an offence in abasing myself that ye might be exalted, because I have preached to you the gospel of God freely?"

In most of Paul’s letters, he spends some time praying for and blessing the church he is writing. But in Galatians, he says “hello” and gets right to it.

“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and turning to a different gospel…” (Galatians 1:6). Paul had spent time in Galatia preaching the true and only Gospel to them: Christ died for their sins and rose again so that all who repent and believe can be made right with God and have forever fellowship with Him. And false teachers had crept in, telling the people they also had to be circumcised. Paul calls this a different gospel and a curse (Galatians 1:9).

I don’t know many churches today teaching salvation by circumcision. But we must be on guard against other gospels in our day. What would they be? Perhaps we can narrow them to six.

Takeaway

1. The Fire-Insurance Gospel

This is the gospel in which all emphasis is on making a one-time decision. You walk down the aisle and pray the prayer, and you are set to go. You won’t go to hell when you die, no matter what. You “accepted Jesus into your heart.” 

When this gospel is believed,  you also have hundreds of people who believe they are going to heaven because they prayed a prayer once, but who are out living unrepentant lives, thinking nothing of God.

2. The Moral Gospel

This is the opposite of the Fire-Insurance Gospel. This is the gospel where the main point is that you are a good person. Jesus came to give you an example to follow, so you just have to try your best to be an example to others. 

This gospel is not about the goodness of God. It’s about your goodness, and you can’t be a perfectly good person (Romans 3:10-12). It robs God of His glory, and it exhausts you because you can never measure up.

3. The Social Gospel

This gospel makes our standing with God based on how much we work to improve society.

This gospel takes the effect and makes it the cause. The gospel of Jesus Christ moves us to serve the least of these and work for righteousness and justice in society. But that’s not the gospel itself. It’s a result of the gospel.

4. The Prosperity Gospel

This gospel is dramatically seen in the “health and wealth” movement, where God’s will is that you will never be poor or sick and that if you are, you don’t have enough faith.

5. The Sentimental Gospel

There is a difference between the truth and the practices the Bible prescribes and the traditions of man. We hold to those Biblical prescriptions, but we recognize that traditions of man will change from generation to generation and across cultures.

This gospel makes righteousness before God no longer based on repentance and faith but on what you wear and what songs you sing.  

6. The Inclusive Gospel

This one has become pretty rampant in the last ten years. It wrongly applies the fact that Jesus welcomed tax collectors and prostitutes. It says the point of the gospel is to welcome sinful people and not judge them. It says we must accept people exactly as they are and never challenge them to change. 

But that’s not what Jesus did. Jesus welcomed sinners, and those sinners always left changed. Zacchaeus agreed to repay everyone he had defrauded. The woman at the well found the thirst she had been searching for in men. Jesus welcomed sinners and lovingly called them to repent, and we must do the same.

Consider this:

Notice that none of these other gospels are flat-out rejections of Christ. They actually take an aspect of the true gospel and make it the only thing that is important. That’s why it’s so easy to be deceived by them.

There is no other Gospel (Galatians 1:7). There are only those who want to trouble you and make you accursed by believing a message inferior to the good news of Jesus Christ. Don’t believe them.

Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Engaged. Be Faithful. Be Prayerful.