When I first heard about the Text With Jesus app, I had to make sure it was real. Once I found it, my spirit wept. I wrestled with whether to say anything at all. Would sending this to everyone I know with a “stay away from this” warning just bring more attention to it? Would the algorithms take over and land it on some “top whatever” list for everyone to see and check out? I still don’t have a perfect answer. But I remember what the Word says. Ephesians 5:11 (NKJV) — “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.”
There’s an app on your phone’s app store right now called Text With Jesus. You type your question. An AI responds. It quotes Scripture, offers comfort, and prays with you. For premium users, you can also chat with Satan. That’s not a joke.
I speak and teach often on the hazards of chatbots. There are many kinds: AI tutors, gaming and entertainment, mental health tools, and AI companions. AI companions are the worst of them. If you caught the 60 Minutes segment on AI companions, you know what I mean. It was alarming. I wrote about it for Bible Morning. An AI companion is not healthy under any name. Call one Jesus or dress it up as a prayer app and the problem doesn’t get better. It gets worse.
Here’s what people miss. AI is not sentient. It is a dataset and a system written by humans. When you open a Jesus chatbot, you have no idea what that developer believes. You don’t know their theology. You don’t know what they embedded in the training data. Whoever curates the training data is effectively curating the religious tradition the app represents. That’s not a tech problem. That’s a discipleship problem.
We carry a computer in our front pocket. Our phones are useful for many things. Talking to an artificial Jesus should be the line we don’t cross.
A 2025 survey by Back to the Bible found that only 11% of Americans have tried an AI Jesus chatbot. That sounds small. But these apps have only existed since 2023. Two years in, one in nine Americans has already tried one. The trajectory matters more than the snapshot. Meanwhile, a February 2026 study by Barna Group and Gloo found that nearly 1 in 3 U.S. adults say spiritual advice from AI is as trustworthy as advice from a pastor. Among Millennials, that number hits 40%. People are not just experimenting with these apps out of curiosity. They trust them. People are spiritually hungry and increasingly willing to feed that hunger with whatever is in reach.
The discernment instinct is still alive, though. The same Back to the Bible survey found 74% of respondents strongly disagree with accepting AI spiritual advice that contradicts Scripture. The people in our pews already sense something is off. They just don’t have language for it.
That’s the gap Bible Morning exists to close. We don’t fix our eyes only on the problem. We ask what we can do to lead fellow believers away from leaning on these apps. This isn’t a technology issue. It’s a discernment issue. And discernment has always belonged to the church.
The question isn’t whether AI will influence faith in America. That’s already happening. The question is whether your congregation will be equipped to recognize it — not just in the obvious forms, but in the subtle ones. The app that feels helpful. The answer that sounds biblical. The comfort that costs nothing and requires nothing.
Discernment isn’t suspicion. It’s familiarity with the real thing. That’s exactly what Bible Morning was built to cultivate.
Sources: Back to the Bible, AI and Spiritual Life Survey, 2025. Barna Group and Gloo, State of Faith and AI Study, February 2026.
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