What Every Major Denomination Says About AI (So Far)

Ask a pastor whether AI belongs in sermon prep and you'll get a conviction in about four seconds. Ask what his denomination has actually said about it, and you'll usually get a shrug.

That gap is worth closing, because most of us are running on assumption—either that our tradition ruled on this years ago, or that nobody has said a word. Both are wrong more often than they're right. So here is what denominations say about AI as of this writing. I've limited it to bodies that have actually adopted or published something, and where a tradition has stayed quiet, I say so plainly rather than filling the silence.

The SBC resolution on artificial intelligence came first

In June 2023, messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention in New Orleans adopted "On Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technologies"—reported at the time as the first resolution of its kind from a major American denomination.

It is a broad document. It calls Southern Baptists to engage these technologies "from a place of eschatological hope rather than uncritical embrace or fearful rejection." It affirms that human dignity is rooted in bearing God's image and not in what we produce. It asks for honest, transparent, Christlike use.

What it does not do is mention preaching. Not once.

The SBC's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission had already gone further on the theological groundwork—in 2019, more than seventy evangelical leaders signed Artificial Intelligence: An Evangelical Statement of Principles, the first Protestant framework of its kind. But the sermon question waited until September 2025, when the ERLC released a guide called The Work of Our Hands: Christian Ministry in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, written primarily by Jason Thacker.

That document says the quiet part out loud. "AI can assist the pastor in preparation," it reads, "but it should never be used to replace or substitute for the distinct calling upon the man of God to preach God's Word to God's people." And then the reason, which is the best sentence anyone in this conversation has written: "The process of sermon development is one of the ways that God refreshes and refines the heart of the preacher. If it is short-circuited, valuable and personal engagement with the text is lost."

Assist, yes. Substitute, never. Hold that shape—you're going to see it again.

Rome drew the line at the homily itself

The Vatican has produced the most substantial theological treatment so far. Antiqua et nova, a note on the relationship between artificial intelligence and human intelligence, was published on January 28, 2025 by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith together with the Dicastery for Culture and Education, approved by Pope Francis earlier that month. Its core argument runs 118 paragraphs: AI may simulate reasoning and generate language, but it has no conscience, no freedom, no moral responsibility. It must complement human intelligence, never replace it.

Then it got specific. On February 19, 2026, in a closed-door session with clergy of the Diocese of Rome, Pope Leo XIV told priests to resist "the temptation to prepare homilies with artificial intelligence." His reasoning was pastoral rather than technical: a homily shares faith, and AI "will never be able to share faith." He added a line I've thought about more than once since: "The brain needs to be used, so our intelligence must also be exercised a little so as not to lose this capacity."

That is the clearest denominational AI guidance on preaching that exists right now, from any tradition.

The mainline church AI statements are still being written

The picture in the mainline is different—less verdict, more process, and worth knowing about if it's your tradition.

The Episcopal Church. The 81st General Convention in 2024 adopted two AI resolutions, including D020, which created a Task Force on Artificial Intelligence. Its mandate names our exact question: the task force is charged with considering "the use of generative AI in writing and preparing sermons and liturgies," alongside hiring, academic work, and copyright. It reports to the 82nd General Convention in 2027. So: a real answer is coming, and it isn't here yet.

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). The 226th General Assembly in 2024 directed the creation of new social witness policy on AI. That policy arrived at the 227th Assembly on June 30, 2026, under the title "The Algorithm and the Almighty: Navigating Artificial Intelligence Through a Reformed Lens," approved 368–88 after an amendment adding guardrails against overreliance on generative AI in ministry. It's guidance, not constitutional requirement—but it exists, in writing, and it's readable.

The Presbyterian Church in America. The PCA erected a study committee at its 2026 General Assembly to examine AI and its pastoral and ethical implications. Nothing adopted yet. Something coming.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The 2025 Churchwide Assembly adopted a motion, 584–15, referring the ethics and morality of AI to churchwide offices, with instructions to develop safeguards and a "faith and AI" study guide. The ELCA Church Council separately approved an issue paper on AI in late 2025, though that one sits within its corporate social responsibility work rather than its preaching counsel.

The Church of England. Its General Synod endorsed the Rome Call for AI Ethics in February 2024, as part of a motion on work and human dignity. Substantial on labor. Silent on the pulpit.

The United Methodist Church. I looked hard and could not verify an adopted churchwide statement on AI. Its agencies have run discernment webinars and published practical resources for local churches, which is not nothing—but it isn't a position. If you're UMC and you know of one I missed, I'd genuinely like to see it.

Where the guidance agrees

Read them side by side and one line runs through nearly all of them.

Assistance is blessed. Outsourced authorship is condemned.

Nobody is saying pastors shouldn't use these tools. What they're protecting, in Baptist and Catholic and Presbyterian language alike, is the part of preparation where the text works on the preacher. The ERLC calls it refining the heart. Pope Leo calls it sharing faith. A PC(USA) delegate put it as not letting machines do our faithful work for us. Three traditions that agree on very little agree on this.

I should disclose my interest plainly: I'm a pastor who builds an AI sermon coach, and that line is not a marketing position for us, it's the product constraint. Our tool asks questions, pushes back on your outline, and critiques your draft. It will not write your sermon, by design, ever. I drew it there before I'd read most of these documents, and finding them afterward was a strange kind of relief. If you're still working out where you land yourself, I've written about whether any of this counts as cheating.

When your denomination hasn't said anything

For a lot of you, that's the actual situation. Meanwhile Barna found in December 2025 that 87% of pastors use AI in some form, and roughly a quarter use it to write or edit sermons. Practice is well ahead of policy, and waiting for a task force to report in 2027 is not a plan.

So write your own, with your elders, before you need it. Four questions get you most of the way:

• What will we let it do, and what will we never let it do? Name the line in one sentence. If you can't, you don't have one.
• Who has to know? Disclosure is its own decision, and it's easier made in a quiet meeting than after someone asks from the parking lot.
• What happens to the study we'd have done otherwise? If the tool saves you three hours, where do those hours go? If the answer is "nowhere," something has quietly gone wrong.
• How would we know if this was forming us badly? Agree in advance on the tell.

One step: pick the tradition on this list closest to yours, read its actual document rather than a summary of it, and bring one paragraph to your next elders' meeting. Not to get permission. To start the conversation on your terms, while it's still yours to start.