I recently heard a brilliant colleague’s presentation entitled, “The Human Advantage: Preparing Future-Ready Students in an AI-Shaped World.” In my role as a school chaplain and in my personal life, I’m increasingly convinced that AI will have a significant place in the moral and religious formation of this generation in ways I couldn’t have imagined even two years ago.

There’s been an unmistakable shift in my own home, largely driven by my tech-savvy husband and children. We’ve moved from just asking Google for basic information to turning to AI for advice. It has become the arbitrator of nearly every dinner-table debate and passing curiosity: Create an itinerary for my Chicago vacation? Where should we go fishing this weekend and at what time based on the tides? Can you look at this picture of my refrigerator and tell me what to cook for dinner? Does this toe look broken and should I go to the doctor?

What surprises me most, however, is not how often adults are using these tools in novel ways, but how naturally our students trust AI with their most difficult and personal challenges. They turn to AI for help with schoolwork, relationship advice, wardrobe decisions, and even late-night reassurance when anxiety creeps in. They also look for consolation in the face of grief, for companionship when they are lonely, and for distraction when they are overwhelmed. For them, consulting AI isn’t experimental; it’s increasingly a matter of course to turn online first. What they often find are easy answers, supportive affirmations, nonjudgmental listening, and uncomplicated feedback. There is no embarrassment, no awkward pause, no fear of disappointing someone. It is available at 11:30 p.m. the night before the test or during a lonely moment after a disagreement with a friend. It’s no wonder more and more people—including our students—have come to rely on AI to navigate their lives. For all our concerns, this genie cannot be wished back into the bottle. We should rightly have significant concerns about AI influence on spirituality, yet I am also encouraged by the opportunity to reimagine the gift of our humanity.

In our Episcopal schools, we are responding with care and thoughtfulness as we endeavor to develop human competencies like critical thinking, moral leadership, and emotional intelligence. Faculty are integrating AI into classrooms with integrity, helping students explore both its strengths and limitations. We are discussing authorship, originality, and ethical use. For chaplains, the conversations about AI in religious formation, the questions run deeper: What does discernment look like when answers arrive instantly? What does prayer mean when a machine can compose one in seconds? How do we form wisdom—not just competence—in an age of algorithmic assistance?

Our Episcopal tradition offers a steady theological anchor: the Incarnation. God became flesh and dwelt among us. Presence is not incidental to Christian formation; it is essential. Grace is mediated through embodied community—through voice and silence, song and shared meals, gathered prayer and holy conversation. AI can generate eloquent words about hope. It cannot stand in chapel and feel the weight of communal grief. It cannot sit in a hospital waiting room. It cannot notice the tremor in a student’s voice or the absence of a usually cheerful child.

Much of our most important work as chaplains and educators is profoundly incarnational. It is the embodiment of love in the day- to-day life of a school. It is cheering at the big game. It is sitting in the audience for the school musical. It is listening carefully when a senior worries about college decisions or when a student experiences the loss of someone they love for the first time. When a student asks, “Do you have a minute?” they are not looking for information. They are seeking presence. That kind of attention is sacramental. It shapes souls with grace and in ways no algorithm can replicate in our messy and beautiful world. 

Episcopal education has always been about forming the whole person—mind, body, and spirit. Teaching students to use powerful tools wisely is part of that calling, but so is teaching them to pause, to reflect, and to value relationships over efficiency. Religious formation is about teaching the language of the soul; naming grace, sin, forgiveness, and sacrificial love not simply in chapel but as shared experiences in community in every corner of the campus where we name the presence of God.

In Scenes of a Clerical Life, George Eliot writes that ideas are often “poor ghosts,” passing before us like “thin vapour… But sometimes they are made flesh; they breathe upon us with warm breath, they touch us with soft responsive hands, they look at us with sad, sincere eyes, and speak to us in appealing tones; they are clothed in a living human soul, with all its conflicts, its faith, and its love. Then their presence is a power, then they shake us like a passion, and we are drawn after them with gentle compulsion, as flame is drawn to flame.”

Religious formation in Episcopal schools is precisely this work of making ideas flesh. Faith cannot remain an abstract concept or a well-phrased response generated on demand. It must breathe. It must be embodied. It must be clothed in living souls—teachers, chaplains, and students who love, struggle, forgive, and hope together. AI may offer us ideas. But only an incarnate community can make them come alive.

We can teach students to use AI wisely. We can integrate it thoughtfully. We can examine its theological implications honestly. But we must remain clear about what is uniquely entrusted to us. In a world increasingly mediated by algorithms, the ministry of showing up and being a living example of God’s love becomes even more sacred.

The. Rev. Sandra Curtis is Chaplain at Palmer Trinity School in Miami, FL.