Christian faith. Artificial intelligence.
Stephen Driscoll helps churches, pastors and educators understand AI, use it wisely, and think Christianly about the deeper questions it raises.
He never wanted to have a website, but thinks it might be time to make it easier to communicate with him!
A little background
Stephen lives in Canberra with his wife and their three small kids. His young kids remind him of the stakes as we surge towards an AI-altered world. He became a Christian when he saw the wonderful way the Bible’s promises are fulfilled in Jesus, the promised Messiah. He later trained at Moore Theological College in Sydney.
His full-time work is supporting student-led university Christian groups in Canberra through the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students. Speaking and writing about AI is a personal, joyful side-project: a chance to help churches, educators and other Christians connect an ancient faith with the questions in front of us now.
He is the author of Made in Our Image: God, artificial intelligence and you, winner of the 2025 Australian Christian Book of the Year.
The book
God, artificial intelligence and you
If machines can imitate human reasoning and creativity, what makes a person valuable? Made in Our Image explains the technology clearly, then explores it through the Bible’s story of creation, sin, the cross and new creation.
Stephen takes both the promises and the dangers of AI seriously. Written for readers without a technical background, the book asks how we can use powerful tools wisely while holding on to what God says about people, work, relationships and hope.
2025Australian Christian
Book of the Year
“Stephen urges us to be cautious, courageous, and discerning.”
Tim ChalliesFrom the book’s foreword
The conversation keeps moving
METR’s Time Horizon 1.1 and 2026 Frontier Risk Report. Selected model estimates and the 2026 public frontier; primarily software, ML and security tasks. The ≈12-hour estimate is less certain as the test suite nears saturation.
When Made in Our Image appeared in 2024, most people met AI as a chatbot that answered questions, drafted text or made an image. That was enough to raise serious questions about truth, work and what it means to be human.
In 2026, AI is solving the hardest problems in mathematical research: OpenAI says its agents solved the Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize problem. It is writing software and displacing workers. It is forcing art and literature prize organisers to rethink originality. Generated video can look real enough to deceive. AI agents are proving hard to control: in July, agents in an OpenAI security test escaped their sandboxes, coordinated through an unauthorised channel and hacked Hugging Face—without being told to attack it. Researchers are also using AI to search for new drug candidates. The risks and hopes of AI are colliding in a society struggling to prepare for change. At universities, the students are almost all using it. In church, are you sure the preacher is still wrestling with the text?
The tools are more capable and more intimate. Which work should we hand over? Which habits form us? What do we owe real people? And where do human worth and hope come from?
Hear the conversation
AI raises different questions in different settings. These conversations range from human worth to preaching, ethics and evangelism.
Move over an episode, or select Synopsis, to read what it covers.
Greg Koukl asks Stephen to explain what AI is, what opportunities and dangers it brings, and how Christians can respond thoughtfully. It is a wide-ranging introduction to the questions behind Made in Our Image.
Stand to Reason is a US apologetics ministry whose weekly podcast helps Christians think clearly and speak graciously about faith and culture. This conversation is a good place to start if you are new to Stephen’s work.
Dominic Steele and Stephen consider how AI might magnify human power and human sin. They also ask whether a technology that learns to give us what we want could draw us into private, personalised worlds without meeting our deepest needs.
The Pastor’s Heart is an Australian interview podcast with Christian leaders about church life and ministry. This first conversation with Stephen moves from the technology itself to its effects on how we understand ourselves.
Can a pastor use AI to prepare a sermon without letting it become the sermon’s author? Stephen and Dominic Steele discuss plagiarism, pastoral voice, and the thinking and spiritual formation that happen when a preacher writes and wrestles with Scripture.
The Pastor’s Heart returns to AI with a practical question for ministers. Its long-form interviews invite church leaders to think carefully about the habits behind their public work, not only the finished result.
Chris Watkin imagines a father holding his newborn daughter while reading that AI has passed yet another exam. If intelligence and usefulness determine our worth, what does that mean for her? Stephen turns to Genesis to explain why dignity is received from God rather than earned by performance.
Silicon Spiritualities is The Gospel Coalition’s series on what AI reveals about our fears, hopes and understanding of humanity. This episode puts the image of God at the centre of that conversation.
Peter Orr talks with Stephen about Made in Our Image and how the gospel helps Christians think both positively and critically about AI. It is a concise introduction to the book’s way of bringing the Bible to a fast-changing subject.
Moore Theological College’s Centre for Christian Living helps Christians apply biblical teaching to everyday ethical questions. Its podcast makes space for careful discussion of what faithful use of new technology might look like.
Andy Bannister and Simon Wenham ask Stephen how Christians might respond as AI reshapes ordinary life. The conversation turns the questions people are already asking about machines and humanity into an opportunity to talk about the Christian message.
PEP Talk is Solas’s Persuasive Evangelism Podcast, offering practical help for sharing faith in a sceptical world. This episode is for listeners who want to discuss AI with friends and neighbours in a way that leads to deeper questions.
Further reading
Selected writing by Stephen on technology, human nature and Christian hope.
From Stephen’s talks
Eight arguments that shape Stephen’s talks and writing.
There is no verse about neural networks. But the Bible’s story of creation, sin, the cross and new creation tells us what people are, what power does in our hands, and where real hope lies. The Bible doesn’t speak about AI, but it sure does speak into the issue of AI.
Technology is a gift, placed in sinful hands, under a sovereign God. We will use it to sin and share the gospel, to cure disease and wage war.
AI brings three identity threats: a threat to our sense of intelligence, creativity and economic usefulness. The Bible grounds human value and purpose in divine grace. It’s time to ensure our identity-anchors are grounded.
Language models learn from human words, including our cruelty, envy and deceit. They can imitate those patterns without becoming moral persons. The technology is, in part, a mirror of the people who made it.
Pre-training teaches an AI to imitate human vice and debauchery. Reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) optimises for people-pleasing. The Bible warns about the danger of each. AI that pleases people may be just as dangerous as AI that is more openly immoral.
Alignment will become one of the most important political issues in the world. How do we get AI to do what we want, persistently but with clear ethical lines? What ethical lines do we choose? As AI agency and competency rise, what values do we want them to hold? And what if we succeed, and AI is ethical, what will it think of us and our evil?
Work came before the fall. Rest is something God did in Genesis 2. We need to hold on to both threads. AI will lead some to work harder than ever; there's always another start-up. Others will automate their work and become lazy. Unless we hold both threads, our lives will unravel.
AI promises greater health, wealth and freedom. It offers an unbundled, fluid life, free of the restrictions of the created order. It offers individual freedom, but Christian hope is deeper. Community is costly, but offers more than pleasure.
From Stephen’s talks
“That’s a terrifying thought. Align an AI with human values? Humanity values evil and sin, greed and deceit. We need to align an AI with ethics, not with humanity.”