AI and Discernment
As artificial intelligence rapidly reshapes society, the church is called to engage not only with technological possibilities but also with their social, ethical, and spiritual implications. Discernment in the present tense requires placing human dignity, participation, and the common good before any claim of technological inevitability.
On July 30, I attended a Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) discussion about Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, which argues that human dignity and the common good must guide technological progress. The central question remains: how can technology serve humanity rather than humanity serve technology?
That question has stayed with me because it highlights one of the defining tensions of our age: AI innovation advances at an extraordinary pace, while policy, regulation, and public accountability move far more slowly. Code evolves overnight, while social consensus takes years. The result is a widening gap between technical capability and moral governance.
Much of today’s uncertainty lies in the space between innovation and the guardrails meant to govern it. A CFR survey of 350 experts across technology, security, law, and governance found widespread concern that governance is lagging behind AI innovation, underscoring both the promise and the risks of the technology.
My concerns about AI stem from decades of engagement with the ethical dimensions of information and communication technologies. I participated in the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva (2003) and Tunis (2005), where I helped convene the Values and Ethics Caucus with ecumenical partners and civil society. The caucus sought to integrate human rights, inclusion, accountability, and human dignity into digital governance discussions. In Tunis, United Methodists emphasized that technology should prioritize ethical values, empowerment, resource sharing, and human flourishing, rather than efficiency alone.
Those concerns didn’t end in Tunis. I continued to engage in discussions with the UN and civil society on internet governance, digital cooperation, and the annual WSIS Forums in Geneva. In 2025, at WSIS+20, I joined leaders from government, civil society, the technical community, and the private sector to discuss emerging technologies, digital inclusion, and ethical governance. Twenty years after WSIS envisioned people-centered information societies, the central question remained: would technological innovation advance human dignity, protect human rights, and foster participation, or would it undermine them?
Artificial intelligence marks the latest chapter in a much longer conversation about technology, power, and public responsibility. The difference lies in scale, speed, and consequence.
This conviction, shaped by ecclesial reflection and experience in digital governance, informed my presentation at the May 7 kickoff of the webinar series hosted by Discipleship Ministries (GBOD), Church and Society (GBCS), and UM Communications. The series aims to help the church explore the theological, ethical, social, and practical dimensions of AI.
As the 2028 General Conference approaches, discussions on AI and media ethics may lead to a new resolution and updates to the Social Principles (¶ 26, G. Media and Communication Technologies) regarding AI. For United Methodists, this is deeply important. As the church contemplates its future social teaching on AI, we face not only a technical challenge but also a theological one.
John Wesley embraced 18th-century communication technologies, especially print publishing and field preaching. His example shows that the key issue is not technology itself but the purposes it serves and the people it benefits. Wesleyan theology reminds us that humans are created in God’s image, not in the image of efficiency. Social holiness teaches that discipleship extends beyond private virtue into public institutions, laws, economies, and technologies.
A Wesleyan ethic for artificial intelligence might begin with three commitments: an infrastructure of welcome and hospitality, an architecture of solidarity and protection, and the healing of bodies and the body politic.
The infrastructure of welcome asks whether AI expands participation or deepens exclusion. The architecture of solidarity recognizes that compassion requires durable structures. The healing of bodies and the body politic points to technology’s ultimate purpose: human flourishing and the common good.
A future United Methodist social teaching on AI should incorporate a theology of human dignity and justice that extends beyond technology. It should address safeguarding truth in synthetic media, protecting dignity in data-driven economies, maintaining democracy in algorithmic environments, and shielding vulnerable populations from surveillance and exclusion. It must also consider creation care, environmental sustainability, and the water and energy needs of digital technology. These issues are part of the church’s ongoing discernment, including the GBOD-GBCS-UMCOM webinar series, as it prepares to act.
The present tense of our age tempts us to believe that speed is wisdom and that innovation is salvation.
The Christian tradition reminds us that not everything technologically possible is morally permissible, teaching that progress without accountability is fragile and that the true measure of technology is whom it serves.
For two decades, from Geneva and Tunis to WSIS+20 and now to AI discussions, one lesson endures: ethical language and public policy belong together. Human dignity must guide governance as a norm, not merely an aspiration. The common good must shape institutions, regulations, and international frameworks governing technology.
Looking toward the 2028 General Conference, the United Methodist Church may mark the start of its most significant contribution to the AI conversation: a disciplined practice of discernment that places covenant before code, community before efficiency, participation before the concentration of power, and human dignity before any claim of technological inevitability.
The future is arriving quickly. The church’s witness cannot afford to arrive late.
