I’d like to begin by posing the question, “What’s our Sitz im Leben?” And admittedly, this might lead to another question, “What exactly is a Sitz im Leben?” Biblical scholars use this term, which means a “setting in life,” for the way context shapes a text. It is the setting in life in which a text has been created and how it functioned in its time. As AI and Faith, our Sitz im Leben is a rapidly changing world in which AI is being woven into a vast array of life: medicine, finance, education, entertainment, warfare—you name it.
(By the way, David Brenner, who co-founded of AI and Faith along with Thomas Osborn, wrote an amazingly comprehensive piece, “Getting Up to Speed on AI&F’s Strong 2025,” which I’m assuming as the basis for these reflections.)
Looking ahead to 2026, it seems safe to say that AI will be even more embedded in daily life—and that it will become more personal, more agentic, and thus more influential in how we learn, work, communicate, and make decisions. Along the theme of this newsletter, I heard Elon Musk declare on a recent podcast that AGI will be achieved this year. (Ray Kurzweil, you were too conservative with the date of the Singularity!) Heady and sometimes overwhelming stuff! All of this—and more—means that the spiritual implications of our daily AI and tech choices will continue to make their way into our lives and consciousness.
I’ve been involved in religious and theological academic study, as well as pastoral ministry, for almost four decades. It seems to me that academics, religious communities, and their leaders are presented with a defining question: What is our fundamental orientation toward AI? Many live in tension in the face of AI. I personally resist the excesses of both techno-optimism (“AI can help us!”) and technophobia (“AI will ruin everything!”), even though I lean slightly toward the former. Will we treat AI as a tool or as something more? My work to date as executive director of AI and Faith keeps me constantly aware that AI is not simply a technical project. It is an expression of human hopes and fears, our longings for power, our craving for convenience, and our hunger for transcendence and meaning. These are the themes that religions have addressed with answers that have resonated for millennia.
Religious communities will face another critical question: Will AI be treated as merely another tool for efficiency or also as a force that shapes our environment and requires renewed discernment, wisdom, accountability, and moral leadership? I believe 2026 can be the year when faith traditions reinvigorate our public voice and role as builders of wisdom—helping society tell the truth about what AI is doing to us, protecting the vulnerable, setting humane limits, and keeping human dignity, justice, and love at the center. This task, let it be said, is not small and the answers are not self-evident, but it requires great courage and hope. By hope I don’t mean vapid optimism or toxic positivity. The latter tells us just to have a positive outlook—“things will get better.” The former denies the problems of this world and does nothing about it. But from the working scientific definition of hope, hope is good for the hopeful. It always leads to concrete action. Maybe the best answer to these questions is that we continue to lean into our core initiatives and our mission, which I’ll restate here because I find it quite compelling. Serving AI and Faith’s mission in this 2026 reality means equipping various religions and their leaders to engage AI with intellectual depth, practical wisdom, and hope—neither fearful nor naïvely optimistic.
With those in mind, I’ve been in conversation with the board and with key stakeholders, and in the coming year, in addition to our vast array of ongoing projects and core commitments, I’m also leaning into five directions. The first is creating and implementing curriculum for religious communities, alongside our Future of Life grant and our collaboration with an OpenAI grant awarded to the Presbyterian Church USA’s Synod of Covenant. Among other things, the focus will be how to use AI in safe and beneficial ways (which I think is entirely possible).
Second, I hope to continue to expand our publications and podcasts and track their impact. In the flood of media on AI, not all of what we read or hear is well-informed, and we at AI and Faith need to communicate our well-informed, thoughtful content to a variety of publics.
Third, I would like to continue developing and implementing affinity groups, particularly to have an affinity group in the five major world religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism). I am exploring ways to keep these groups vibrant as a way to connect our vast network of members.
Fourth, I’d like to explore religion-specific initiatives, with an aim to meet faith communities on their own terms—honoring distinct traditions and clarifying ethical responses to AI that promote human dignity, justice, and care for the vulnerable in a world.
Finally, I’ll explore an AI and Faith conference, learning from our experience of collaborating in others’ conferences (such as noted above in April), where religious reflection, rigorous conversation, and concrete collaboration can help shape an AI toward human flourishing and the common good.
This will be my first full year as executive director, and I’m excited to be on this journey with the AI and Faith community.
Views and opinions expressed by authors and editors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of AI and Faith or any of its leadership.
