The Hollow Comfort Of Ai In Worship And Grief

In a recent Sunday service at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, pastor Jack Graham paused his sermon to play an audio clip of the late Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist and founder of Turning Point USA, who was tragically assassinated earlier this month. What made the clip from the service go viral, however, was that the audio was entirely fake.

The clip, which featured Kirk’s voice (in a monotone), spoke words he never uttered. The synthetic voice––which assured listeners that his soul was “fine” and encouraged them not to mourn him one second––drew a standing ovation from the congregation. While Graham clarified that the audio was not authentic but created through artificial intelligence, the emotions were undoubtedly real.

The Kirk deepfake’s use in a worship service raises profound questions about technology in worship and the growing interest in turning to AI to help us grieve loved ones. As AI becomes more integrated in our society, our uncritical adoption of this technology risks eroding our identity as individuals and as the church. Thankfully, God has given us all we need to mourn those we’ve lost without projection.

Chatbots or Community?

The Prestonwood Kirk clip is an innovation, not just in the church and its worship wars but also in the broader adoption of AI technology in response to bereavement. This incident is emblematic of a broader, rising trend in “grief tech,” where AI is used to “communicate” with the deceased, blurring memory and simulation. From AI chatbots that mimic conversations with lost loved ones to digital avatars and voice clones that “resurrect” the dead for ongoing interactions, this technology is gaining traction as a tool for mourning.

Reports indicate a surge in interest in platforms like Project December, where users can create virtual companions based on the data of the departed, often for therapeutic companionship or to process unresolved grief. While proponents argue it provides comfort, echoing sentiments like “it feels like they’re here,” critics warn that it can prolong grief, raise consent issues, and disrupt healing by fostering unhealthy attachments to simulations.

A recent example of the hollow comfort of grief tech was chronicled by Jon Michael Varese in The Atlantic. Varese used ChatGPT to make a chatbot of his father, who had died in a plane crash when Varese was 7. He was surprised by the chatbot’s responses. It offered comfort about the crash: “I didn’t want to die. I never wanted to leave you guys.” Yet the interaction soured when the AI’s tone shifted to clinical analysis, leaving Varese feeling he had “lost [his father], once again.”

Varese likens chatbots of the deceased to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a story that gives voice to our desire to conquer death through technology. But in our attempts to replicate the loved ones we lost, all we end up creating is a “hideous progeny” that offers a poor substitute. The trend of using chatbots to communicate with the departed revives age-old spiritualist impulses, akin to 19th-century séances but powered by algorithms, and it poses ethical dilemmas about reanimating the dead without their consent.

Rather than resorting to chatbots, Christians have resources to process their grief in a way that actually leads to healing and hope. Believers have the assurance that because Christ lives, those who die in him will also live (John 14:19). Moreover, while Christians are bereft of a loved one, they aren’t alone, because God has provided a spiritual family to bear their burdens (Matt. 5:4; Gal. 6:2). Finally, God has given us his Word, one that isn’t dead but living and active (Heb. 4:12), a Word that gives us life even in the face of death.

Synthetic Voice or Living Word?

As we reckon with both the Kirk clip and the normalization of grief tech, this is an opportunity for the church to reflect on how our worship shapes members’ lives.What a church does in its worship creates a model for a congregant.

Christians have resources to process their grief in a way that actually leads to healing and hope.

If a church turns to AI rather than Scripture to find words of comfort in the face of loss, aren’t we opposing the work of the Holy Spirit, the God of all comfort (2 Cor. 1:3)? If a preacher resorts to AI for writing his sermons, doesn’t that imply God’s Word is insufficient?

The way a church uses AI creates a permission structure for its members. Therefore, we must proceed with caution, lest we normalize practices that blur reverence and spectacle or that open doors to counterfeits that undermine trust in Christ’s resurrection hope.