How AI Is Shaping Bible Interpretation

Pastors have plenty of reasons to be wary of AI. New research from Barna, conducted in partnership with Gloo for the State of the Church initiative, finds that one concern rises above most others: AI misinterpreting scripture. Nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults (74%) say they are concerned about AI misinterpreting scripture. Among practicing Christians, that figure rises to 83 percent, and among pastors, 94 percent. 

Though concern about AI misinterpreting scripture runs high, the way people want AI to handle scriptural interpretation varies significantly and, for Christians especially, seems to sit at odds with that concern.

How Pastors and Christians Want AI to Handle Hard Passages

Barna asked pastors and Christians, in the areas of theology where interpretations genuinely differ, what should AI do? Three in five pastors (60%) say AI should present all the major interpretations of a passage and explain how they differ, without indicating which one is correct. 

Only about one in four practicing Christians (26%) favors that approach. The same share instead wants AI to go a step further and name which interpretation is best. Just one in 10 pastors shares that preference, making Christians more than 2.5 times as likely as pastors to want a “right” answer rather than a set of options. 

Two smaller findings point the same way. Christians are about four times as likely as pastors to want AI to show only the most widely agreed-upon interpretation. And roughly one in five Christians—twice the share of pastors—say AI shouldn’t interpret contested passages at all.

When pastors use AI for scripture study, they prefer that AI compare multiple perspectives on passages and highlight the differences between them, without giving the “right” answer. “Their approach points to using AI as a tool to aid their learning, not to tell them what to think,” says Daniel Copeland, Barna’s vice president of research.

Where Pastors and Christians Agree—and Where They Don’t

Barna asked a second question that highlights the differences between how pastors think about AI versus their congregants: “When AI addresses a contested passage of scripture, how should it handle its own uncertainty?”

Presenting multiple interpretations side by side is the top choice across every group Barna surveyed. Roughly two in five pastors favor AI showing multiple interpretations, compared to only one in three practicing Christians.

Practicing Christians’ next preference is for AI to include explicit caveats or disclaimers. Pastors’ second choice points somewhere else entirely: About one in three (32%) want AI to cite scholarly disagreement outright, naming the sources behind the dispute rather than merely offering a disclaimer.

“A citation sends someone back to the underlying scholarship to sit with a disagreement directly, whereas a caveat only flags that the disagreement exists,” says Copeland. “Pastors seem to want people to use the tool but let it expand their understanding and push them to think for themselves.” 

The Pattern Behind the Numbers

Christians are meaningfully more inclined than pastors to want AI to resolve theological uncertainty on their behalf, whether by naming the “correct” interpretation or softening a hard answer with a disclaimer. Pastors, far more often, want AI to do the opposite: surface the disagreement, cite where it comes from and leave the interpretive work to the person asking.

Copeland connects that instinct to how pastors already approach their own preparation: “Writing dozens of sermons a year means testing an interpretation against multiple commentaries and traditions before deciding what to teach. The best gift you can give people isn’t always what you know, but how you arrived at what you know.”

Pastors are not avoiding AI when it comes to scripture. Only one in 20 (5%) pastors think AI should entirely avoid answering questions about contested passages of scripture, and fewer than one in 10 (9%) says AI should entirely avoid interpreting theology where theologians disagree. What pastors want is simple: Let AI show you the disagreement, but don’t let it settle it for you. 

Barna’s Faith & AI research explores how AI is shaping people’s faith today. Produced in partnership with Gloo, this research is part of our multi-year State of the Church initiative.