The Pornography of AI Worship
and the imitation of intimacy
About a month ago, an AI profile titled “Solomon Ray” had a brief stint as one of the top streamed Christian music artists. The sudden success of an AI profile (created by Topher Townsend, an actual musician) caused an understandable amount of controversy.
In the midst of that, I got a text from a friend.
A discussion came up this morning on AI generated art. How are we formed by that? Could we have a genuine worship experience while listening to AI worship music? What if we don’t know it’s AI?
For what it’s worth, there simply aren’t answer to all these questions right now. To some extent, we’ll all be on this journey together over the next few years, and it won’t be for a decade or so until we really understand the impact these things have on our spiritual life.
Yet that doesn’t mean we’re ignorant entirely.
Manufactured Intimacy
Whether in explicit erotic content or sexualized billboard marketing, whether targeting men or women, whether for intended sexual arousal or for a fully-clothed album cover… eye contact is important for giving the audience the illusion of intimacy.
The illusion.
It’s a way of tricking the audience into thinking “I know this person. This person desires me. I can trust this person.”
It’s one of the reasons parasocial relationships are so common today (yay to Cambridge’s “Word of the Year”). These are one-sided relationships where someone feels emotionally connected to someone they don’t know. They feel like friends with Taylor Swift or Brad Pitt, but in reality they’ve just experienced a lot of pseudo-intimate moments with that individual. Close up shots on Brad in a movie, eye contact from Taylor in an Instagram reel.
Of course, everyone “knows” that the intimacy isn’t real, but it’s still working wonders on us subconsciously.
How many of us feel a level of loyalty to certain social media influencers, more inclined to watch their newest videos than we would be to attend a niece’s birthday party? And when that influencer says or does something we don’t like, are we inclined to shrug our shoulders and move on? After all, they are a random person living in a different place whom we’ll never meet… their opinion has no significance in our daily lives.
But we don’t shrug. Instead, we feel the same rush of emotion as if someone in our intimate circle had just offended us. Why? Because weekly (or daily) we watch selfie videos in which we have been invited just 12 inches away from that influencer’s face, in the most intimate proximity of human interaction. We’ve been looking into their eyes and they’ve been “looking” back.
We’ve been tricking our brains into thinking we’re close to these people.
In explicitly pornographic content, this eye contact subconsciously tells the viewer — in a moment of deep vulnerability — that they are desired and that they are known. Afterward, grief and shame often come not because of social stigmas around pornography, but because we know it was all a lie. We are supposed to have that kind of eye contact, but only with that person who — in marriage — we have become “one flesh”.
And so, we come back to Solomon Ray and the pornography of AI worship.
Manufactured Worship
The term “worship” is immensely broad, and rightfully so. Paul, exhorting the church in Rome, urges us to present our bodies as a “living and holy sacrifice” because this is our “spiritual service of worship”.1
But for the context of this discussion, let’s narrow the term to “the singing of praises in individual and corporate settings”, which I think covers the questions my friend — and indeed, many of us — are asking. In fact, I’ll just address each of my friends’ questions here (though, out of order).
Q: Could we have a genuine worship experience while listening to AI worship music?
In many ways, this gets to the crux of most of our concerns.
But this also begs the question, what is genuine worship?
I would make the case (and I don’t think it’ll be all that controversial) that worship is the disciplined practice of giving back to God the praises He deserves with a heart posture that is in right relationship to Him.
It isn’t about an emotional feeling during the time of singing, though I really think those emotional moments are a wonderful gift from God. Those moments aren’t the point, but they have been a byproduct and gift to me (and many others) on numerous occasions.
The thing is, most evangelical churches don’t treat their time of corporate worship as a discipline meant to form us. They treat is at an event to conjure up feelings one might associate with worship… and to draw a crowd.
We all know the lights, fog machine, laser projector craze that propagates America’s largest churches (and many smaller ones). And the medium (the event venue) has influenced the message (the songs to be sung). The songs that have flourished in these environments over the last few decades are (generally) theologically shallow, easily played, and very catchy (yes, there are exceptions).
You might see excerpts from one of the Psalms makes its way into a lyric, but actually singing a Psalm in full would be considered too hard and too boring. It is very safe to say that these popular “worship” songs wouldn’t have been sung after Passover with Jesus and His crew2, nor by Paul and Silas when they were in jail3. And not just because they weren’t invented yet.
But they make us feel good, don’t they?
AI generated worship songs will surely be able to give us the same feeling. Like an actor or actress staring into the camera lens, these songs will give us momentary rushes of intimacy that most of us have associated with closeness with God and genuine worship.
This is why liturgical churches will — by and large — not struggle with the rise of AI anything in church. When the popular church world began calling their hymns and homilies lifeless and boring, they continued on with their disciplined practice. This may be one reason that many young believers are seeking out these technology-free and more liturgical churches.
The concern around AI worship will largely be in homes and churches that have been uncritical in the songs they’ve been singing — making decisions based on popularity, whether it fits with that week’s sermon, and whether they “like it”. AI generated worship will be able to hit those criteria for sure.
And God, in His infinite goodness and grace, will meet people where they are. For new believers (and for those who’ve never been trained into maturity) He will accept that worship when made with a right heart posture. God is so incredibly good, and His love cannot be hampered by any work of man (even AI).
But mature followers of Jesus will see worship as much larger and more disciplined. They will see the songs they sing as a larger choice that has nothing at all to do with crowds, preference, or feelings. They’ll sing (at church and at home) when they feel bored, because they know God deserves praise know matter how they feel. They’ll choose songs (old and contemporary) that are written by mature followers of Jesus (yay, artist theologians!) because they believe their Father likes songs that His children wrote.
And the songs are for God, not us.
Q: How are we formed by singing AI worship?
The ways AI worship forms us will be different from person to person.
Generally, if you have been choosing your Spotify playlist based purely on what “you like”, then your formational destination is unlikely to change with the rise of AI worship songs. Just choose the songs (AI or otherwise) that meet your ever-changing preferences. Whether AI or not, you’re on a path of formation that puts you and your preferences at the center of everything.
This will only make that easier.
Yet, I would encourage a new path.
Find albums (yes, full albums) by Christian artists that are beautiful and true… then listen to them when “you’re not in the mood”.
Watch how God shapes you, it’ll be awesome (and we’ll increase the compensation to those artists so they can make more art that is wonderful and true).
I’ll highlight one such album in our artist feature below.
This also begins to answer our next question…
Q: What if we don’t know if it is AI?
If you become intentional about seeking out excellent Christian artists — and sharing them with friends — you will very likely also be able to tell when something is AI generated.
For one, it’s likely to have that AI… something. Like when you know corn syrup is for sure in a particular drink. It just has a flavor.
Yet one exception to this is if you attend a church that is prone to singing an AI-written song because it’s “trendy”. How would you know if the band on stage is playing a song that was made by an AI algorithm?
Honestly, you may not.
If this is a concern for you, I would say to have a conversation with your pastor about your concern, and then leave it to the Lord. Be disciplined and participate in the corporate gathering you’re called to unless your conscience is truly bothered, and then pray for guidance.
It may sound flippant, but there is no other way.
God may lead some of you to leave, some of you to speak up, some of you to stand in silent prayer during those songs, or even some of you to sing along free from guilt. I cannot know which it will be, and I would do a disservice by trying.
Whatever you do, seek the unity of Christ in love.
The Future
It’s likely that AI art will only become more prevalent in our culture, and surely there will be a rise of AI music in the “worship” genre on your streaming platform of choice.
When we have a low bar for art, it isn’t hard for a Large Language Model (LLM) to cross it.
Songs created by AI will be able to draw crowds, grow churches, and give people feelings of closeness with God because those LLMs have been trained on shallow songs that have been designed to do just that. It’s imitation, not creation. And it’s not imitating hard stuff.
AI won’t be able to create hymns that can be sung generations later because they were born of rigorous Biblical study, lifelong discipleship to Jesus, and out of a Spirit-led response to praise in the most down-trodden moments of life.
To be fair, most of us haven’t been singing songs written in that way anyway.
Wisdom is to keep AI (and most forms of technology) well outside the church gathering until we fully understand how it will impact us as disciples of Jesus.
This isn’t out of fear of technology, but love for God and His Church.
How much harm have we done by removing sunlight from our gatherings in pursuit of a stage and lights (windows don’t play well with laser projectors)? The evangelical church saw the rise of phones and said, “how can we harness it?” and not “how can I help these people put those things down?”
Only now do we understand how terrible this has been for our fellowships, the mental health of our congregants, and our children4.
As best you can, stay away from Manufactured Intimacy of all types. Be wise. Be discerning.
Oh, and pray for one another, including the people who are choosing to use AI to make art. They may be doing harm, but it’s likely because they’re trying to fill a need in themselves. This has often been my story, and I daresay yours as well.
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.5
Artist Feature
If you have never heard “ALL YE LEPERS” by Joshua Leventhal, it is truly a gift to the church. Check it out today.
Romans 12:1 (NASB) “Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”
Matthew 26
Acts 16
I recommend Jay Kim’s excellent book Analog Church for more on the impacts of tech in the church, and what to do about it.
Philippians 4:8 NIV
This is excellent! Worship (including art of all kinds) is an incredibly human task, never a “robot” task. Unfortunately, when “the ends justify the means” and having an excellent “product” to draw a crowd is all that matters, we really miss out on what God really intends for us.