In July 2025, I had the opportunity to present an early version of this project at the Religious Education Association (REA) Annual Meeting. The conversations that unfolded there—among educators, theologians, and ministry leaders—remained with me long after the conference ended. Those reflections later developed into a published article exploring how artificial intelligence is beginning to reshape the landscape of religious education. As digital technologies increasingly influence how we learn, communicate, and interpret knowledge, the question for theological educators is not simply whether to adopt these tools, but how to engage them with theological imagination and discernment.
The article approaches these questions through a Wesleyan theological lens, drawing on themes such as prevenient grace, social holiness, and connectionalism. Yet rather than offering a final framework, the publication has become a starting point for a broader and ongoing reflection. As artificial intelligence becomes more embedded in educational and ministry contexts, I find myself returning to deeper questions about formation, community, and the nature of wisdom. What does it mean to cultivate spiritual discernment in a world increasingly shaped by algorithms? How might theological education remain attentive to grace, relational accountability, and embodied learning even as new technological possibilities emerge? The article represents one step in a longer process of thinking through these questions—an invitation to continue the conversation about how faith communities might engage technological change with both openness and theological care.
Working within the context of Pacific School of Religion, these questions feel especially tangible. Many of our students are adult learners, ministers already serving congregations, or people navigating multiple cultural and vocational contexts. Digital tools can open meaningful possibilities for accessibility and participation, particularly for those whose paths into theological education are not always straightforward. At the same time, the daily rhythms of teaching continue to remind me that formation unfolds slowly—through conversation, trust, shared reflection, and the experience of learning within community.
For that reason, the conversation about AI in theological education cannot be reduced to questions of efficiency or innovation alone. Artificial intelligence may help organize knowledge, support learning, and widen access to resources. Yet the deeper practices that sustain spiritual life—compassion, wisdom, discernment, and the ability to accompany others in faith—remain profoundly relational and embodied. The task before theological educators, therefore, is not to treat technology as either a threat or a solution, but to approach it with careful discernment.
Recent conversations with colleagues at PSR have reinforced for me that the questions raised by AI are not only technical but deeply pastoral and theological. In a faculty discussion about the future of education and the role of hopeful voices in uncertain times, I found myself returning to one of the tensions that surfaced in this work: the difference between encouragement that can be generated by algorithms and the deeper forms of hope that emerge from lived human experience. Technology continues to evolve rapidly, yet the need for communities that cultivate wisdom, resilience, and moral imagination remains constant.
Artificial intelligence can reproduce the language of encouragement and even mimic the tone of therapeutic or self-help discourse that many people recognize. In doing so, it may provide a sense of comfort—and at times even something resembling hope. Yet the kind of hope that persists through suffering, uncertainty, and collective struggle—the hope that endures even when circumstances offer little reason for it—cannot be programmed. Such hope grows out of relationships, memory, faith, and the long practice of accompanying one another through both grief and grace.
Seen in this light, the presence of AI in theological education may be less about replacing human capacities and more about clarifying them. Used thoughtfully, these tools can complement the work of educators, extend access to learning, and spark new forms of reflection. At the same time, they remind us that the deepest work of formation remains irreducibly human. The challenge before theological educators is not simply to keep pace with technological change, but to continue cultivating communities where wisdom, compassion, and faithful imagination can take root.
At its best, theological education has always been a space where new questions can be explored with both curiosity and faith. The emergence of AI invites us into that same spirit of thoughtful engagement. Rather than closing the conversation, it opens new opportunities to reflect more deeply on what it means to learn, to teach, and to form communities of wisdom in a changing world. If approached with humility and imagination, these evolving technologies may even help us rediscover something essential—that the heart of education is not only knowledge, but the shared journey of seeking truth together.