World news and commentary: February 2025

An AI Jesus?

From search engines to self-driving cars, artificial intelligence (AI) is a daily facet of life for many people. But what about AI in church?

The oldest Catholic church in Lucerne, Switzerland, St. Peter’s Chapel, recently held an exhibit that gave parishioners the chance to ask questions and receive a blessing from a visual AI representation of the Lord Jesus. St. Peter’s installed a curved monitor that displayed a computer-generated image in a confessional booth.

Despite numerous news reports, “AI Jesus,” as it’s been called, did not have the ability to hear a person’s confession.¹ What it could do was respond in over one hundred languages to basic theological questions. Some people claimed it “gave great advice,” while others called answers “generic” and the exhibit just a gimmick. One leader from St. Peter’s suggested that perhaps AI priests will be on call 24/7 in the future, since unlike their human equivalents, AI priests don’t need to sleep.

This technological art exhibit was meant to spark discussion about the use of AI in religious settings and showcase the ability of AI to answer questions about the Bible. How Lutheran churches and schools employ technology continues to take discernment. But in God’s divine economy, there is no substitute for humans who share his Word face-to-face. “We have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us” (2 Corinthians 4:7 English Standard Version).

Physician-assisted suicide numbers rise

David wrote, “My times are in your hands” (Psalm 31:15), but more people worldwide seem bent on ending their lives on their own terms. Numbers for 2023 were finally reported: More than 30,000 people died from physician-assisted suicide in countries where it is legal.² This number has been growing exponentially (4,302 deaths in 2010; 18,482 in 2020). Even the way this is reported gives a Christian pause. One person ending the life of another used to be called murder, but legal and colloquial terminology use the term euthanasia, mercy killing.

Physician-assisted suicide is legal in ten U.S. states and the District of Columbia, as well as a host of countries around the world. Wherever these laws have been in place, the same pattern emerges: Initially strict laws give way to looser regulations for those who may be euthanized. In Canada, for example, 1 in 25 people who died last year was legally killed. In the Netherlands, that number was 1 in 20; in addition, children in the Netherlands between the ages of 1 and 12 years old can be euthanized if they are experiencing unbearable suffering.

The reality of such attacks on God’s gift of life is sobering. I pray that God would protect life from conception to natural death. As Christian citizens, we can work to stand for life as well. A person’s time of grace is the time to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus, who gave his life for the redemption of the world. No legal changes can alter that reality.

European Lutheran youth group recognized

A Lutheran movement among youth in Europe called the Corpus Christi Association was welcomed in 2024 as a recognized organization of the International Lutheran Council (ILC). This international association of Lutheran churches led by the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod is similar to the Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Conference, of which WELS is the largest member.

The Corpus Christi Association hosts an annual gathering of about 250 young adults from 20 different countries. The association emphasizes the practice of the historic Lutheran liturgy and the knowledge of Scripture as the foundation of faith.

Corpus Christi welcomes young people from any Lutheran church body, but connecting with the ILC shows what kind of Lutherans they want to be: those who take Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions seriously.

While WELS is not in formal church fellowship with these groups, I’m encouraged by young people who want to confess and practice the Lutheran faith faithfully. I pray that they continue to “contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people” (Jude 3).