AI for Christian Theology by Smith, Joshua K.;

Short description:

What if theology was never meant to be static? What happens when the act of faith is reimagined across generations, cultures, and now, code? How can diverse theological perspectives work together to build ethical AI?

Long description:

What if theology was never meant to be static? What happens when the act of faith is reimagined across generations, cultures, and now, code? How can diverse theological perspectives work together to build ethical AI?

This book explores how AI offers a new lens for understanding faith, challenging communities to see theology as a dynamic, creative process rather than a static tradition.

This book examines how Christianity itself is a tradition of reimagining and reinventing. From Scripture woven from fragments of law, prophecy, and poetry to Christ as the Logos made flesh, faith has always been transmitted, transformed, and re-voiced in response to new contexts. Through chapters on Christology, eschatology, and ecclesiology, the book reimagines salvation, identity, and mission in light of AI ethics, neural networks, and posthuman theology. It celebrates fidelity and transformation, embracing hybridity, resisting binaries, and reframing the church as an ever-evolving community in a digital age.

Designed for theologians, pastors, students, and anyone curious about the intersection of faith and technology, this book offers fresh insights for engaging Scripture, worship, and doctrine.

“What an incredibly challenging and thought-provoking book! I love the notion of remix. Josh Smith is on exhilarating form as he takes a fresh look at how theology should respond to AI, and his Remix Manifesto is a bold invitation to think differently about the integration of AI into the relational vocation of imago dei.”

Eve Poole, Author of Robot Souls.

“This remarkable book does not simply ask what artificial intelligence means for Christian theology; it uses the advent of AI as a catalyst to rethink, remix, and reboot theology itself. With remarkable intellectual dexterity and close attention to and appreciation for the rich insights and values of the Judeo-Christian legacy, Joshua Smith demonstrates how our encounter with intelligent machines can serve as a creative and constructive moment for faith in the twenty-first century. The result is a bold and illuminating work that bridges technology and theology with both critical rigor and the spirit of renewal.”

David J. Gunkel, Northern Illinois University, US.

“This refreshingly honest read is full of new arrangements of technologists, theologians, and philosophers over the centuries that produces a playlist for faith and AI beyond the confines of doomsayers and ideologues. Approaching Christianity and AI with the same level of curiosity and an equal commitment to justice is no small task, though Smith makes it possible through epistolary like chapters that invite the reader into a poetic and capacious theological remixing of Christian practices and beliefs in light of AI.”

Kate Ott, the Jerre and Mary Joy Stead Professor of Christian Social Ethics and Director of the Stead Center for Ethics and Values at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, US. Author of Christian Ethics for a Digital Age and Sex, Tech, & Faith.

Table of Contents:

1: Reimagining Genesis in the Age of AI 2: Incarnation in a Disembodied Age: The Flesh Shall Stream 3: Rewriting the Fall for the Algorithmic Age 4: Revelation, Silence, and Divine Disclosure in a Networked Age 5: Rituals of Code and the Search for Sacred Time 6: The Flesh Made Code and the Ethics of Embodied Flourishing 7: Hope, Judgment, and the End(s) of AI 8: Cyborgs, Care, and Christological Kinship 9: A Call to Digital Resistance and Holy Disruption 10: Case Studies in Theological Resistance Appendix: A Remix Manifesto for AI and the Church