Am I an AI Expert?

Why This Pastor Weighs in on AI at all

I wrote a book about AI and faith.

God and the Machine hits shelves with Abingdon Press. I get asked to speak about AI in ministry. I get tagged in the threads. I get the DMs.

And somewhere in there, the label started sticking: AI expert.

But, here’s the thing… I am not an AI expert.

I do not have a degree in computer science.
I cannot tell you how a transformer model handles attention weights.

And I’m not saying this in an ‘imposter syndrome’ kind of way. I’m wanting to instead be crystal clear about who I actually am in this conversation.

I don’t want to be an expert in AI.

What I have is a degree in theology, a degree in communications with a focus in electronic media, and almost a decade of pastoring nerds, geeks, and gamers in digital space. That’s the resume. That’s the receipts.

So when people ask me to opine on AI, I want to be honest about what I’m actually qualified to say.

The Question Underneath the Question

Here’s what I think people are actually asking when they ask if I’m an AI expert: Should I trust your take on this?

That’s a fair question. It deserves a real answer.

My answer is that I hope I’m an expert in something more useful than AI: human relationships. How communities form. How people get hurt. How a pastor decides whether a tool belongs in the room with the people they’ve been called to serve.

That’s the lens I bring to AI.

I care much less about whether this technology is ‘cool’ and far more about if this technology is good for the humans I love. It’s this key distinction that led me to write this article at all.

If you’ve read the book, you already know this. God and the Machine isn’t really a book about AI.

It’s a book about us — about what AI reveals about what we already believe about being human, being in community, being creatures who were made for relationship before we were made for productivity.

The AI is the occasion. The humans are the subject.

Why This Matters for the Pastor in the Room

There’s a temptation in our field right now to defer to whoever sounds the most technical. The pastor who can list five LLMs gets the mic. The one who built a chatbot for their church gets the conference slot.

I’m not knocking those folks — some of them are my peers and I learn from them.

But the question of should we use this is not a technical question. It’s a pastoral one. It’s a theological one. It’s a question about what we owe the people we serve.

And on those questions, the pastor in the room is the expert. Not the engineer. Not the platform. Not the guy on Twitter with a blue check and a prompt library.

You.

Do you feel the weight there? You should. We’re being watched.

What I’m Actually Offering

When I write about AI here, when I show up on a podcast, when I get up to speak — I’m not offering you a technical credential. I never was.

I’m offering you the thing pastors have always offered: a way of asking better questions in community.

Questions like who is this hurting? Questions like who is this serving, and at whose expense? Questions like what does loving my neighbor look like when my neighbor is afraid of the tool I’m holding?

Those questions don’t need an AI expert. They need a pastor who’s done the work of discerning who they’re called to serve, and isn’t willing to throw those people overboard for a faster sermon prep.

So no, I’m not an AI expert.

I’m a pastor who knows a little bit about AI and a lot about people.

That’s the credential I’m offering. That’s the work I’m willing to be paid for. That’s the table I’m inviting you to.