Can AI Become a Spiritual Authority? Jewish, Christian and Muslim Experts Join EHJ 2026 Panel

Artificial intelligence can already answer questions about Scripture, theology, morality, religious practice and personal belief within seconds. But access to religious information raises a much more difficult question: when does an artificial intelligence system cease to function merely as a tool and begin to be treated as an authority?

That question will be examined directly at the European Hebrew Journal International Scholarly Online Zoom Conference — "New Discoveries and New Directions in Biblical, Hebrew, and Theological Studies", 6–10 November 2026 · Live Online via Zoom in a new three-way Jewish–Christian–Muslim panel bringing together Rev. Dr. Chris Goswami, Rabbi Dr. Harris Bor and Dr. Yaqub Chaudhary.

Their joint session, "Can Artificial Intelligence Become a Spiritual Authority?", will take place on 8 November 2026 at 10:00 CET.

When Information Begins to Resemble Authority

Rather than asking only whether artificial intelligence can produce accurate religious information, the discussion moves toward a deeper problem confronting religious communities in the age of large language models: Who—or what—may legitimately interpret tradition, offer moral counsel, shape religious decisions or acquire the trust normally associated with human teachers, clergy, scholars and communities of faith?

The emergence of conversational artificial intelligence has changed the nature of the relationship between technology and religious information. A conventional search engine primarily retrieves sources. Contemporary generative AI systems, by contrast, can synthesize information into direct responses, imitate conversational exchange, explain sacred texts, construct arguments, produce prayers or sermons, and respond to questions framed as personal moral or spiritual dilemmas.

This does not establish that AI possesses spiritual authority. It does, however, create circumstances in which users may experience an AI system as something more than an information-retrieval mechanism. That distinction—between access to religious knowledge and religious authority—lies at the heart of the EHJ panel.

Three Abrahamic Traditions, One Emerging Question

The EHJ discussion deliberately places Judaism, Christianity and Islam in direct conversation. The three traditions do not possess identical concepts of revelation, interpretation, law, clergy, religious authority or institutional structure. For precisely that reason, the comparison can expose assumptions that might remain invisible within a single religious framework.

Among the questions raised by the panel are: Can an AI system legitimately exercise any form of spiritual or religious authority? What distinguishes knowledge from wisdom? Can artificial intelligence interpret sacred texts responsibly? What happens when believers increasingly seek moral or spiritual guidance from AI rather than religious communities or human teachers? How do Judaism, Christianity and Islam understand authority, revelation, tradition and human responsibility in relation to artificial intelligence? What theological and ethical limits should religious communities place on the use of AI? Can AI assist religious communities without becoming a substitute for human relationships, spiritual formation and religious authority?

Chris Goswami: Christianity, Ministry and the Boundaries of AI

Rev. Dr. Chris Goswami brings to the discussion an unusual combination of technological experience and Christian ministry. Goswami has worked for approximately three decades in technology, including senior leadership in Silicon Valley, and is the founder of the AI Christian Partnership, an initiative addressing the theological, ethical and practical consequences of artificial intelligence for churches and Christian organizations.

He also serves as a Baptist minister and as a volunteer chaplain at Manchester Airport. In July 2026, the AI Christian Partnership released AI Guidelines for Christian Ministry, a practical resource designed to help churches make deliberate decisions about AI rather than allow its use to develop without theological or ethical reflection.

Those guidelines distinguish potentially useful applications of AI from the danger of increasing dependency and ask churches to consider how artificial intelligence may affect critical thought, prayer, ministry and relationships. Goswami's work places the EHJ panel's central question within an already active Christian debate: Can AI remain a servant of religious practice without becoming a substitute for forms of discernment traditionally understood as irreducibly human and theological?

Harris Bor: Jewish Theology, Law and Staying Human

Rabbi Dr. Harris Bor approaches artificial intelligence through a combination of Jewish theology, law and philosophy. Bor is a barrister at Twenty Essex in London, where his practice includes international arbitration, commercial litigation and technology-related disputes. He is also a Research Fellow and Lecturer at the London School of Jewish Studies, a rabbi, and Non-Executive Chair of AI and Faith.

His 2021 book, Staying Human: A Jewish Theology for the Age of Artificial Intelligence, addresses questions of human distinctiveness, technology and religious belief in the age of AI. Those questions become particularly important when an artificial system begins to produce language that resembles interpretation, advice or judgment. Legal authority normally depends upon institutions, procedures, jurisdiction and accountability. Religious authority likewise develops through traditions, texts, communities and recognized forms of interpretation.

AI complicates both models because a language model can sound authoritative without possessing an institution, personal accountability, religious formation or membership in the interpretive community whose texts it discusses. Bor's presence in the panel therefore brings a legal and Jewish theological dimension to a question that is sometimes framed too narrowly as a problem of technical capability.

Yaqub Chaudhary: AI, Mind and Islamic Thought

Dr. Yaqub Chaudhary brings a Muslim perspective grounded in research on artificial intelligence, cognitive science, neuroscience and Islamic understandings of the mind and intelligence. Chaudhary is a visiting scholar at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, part of the Institute for Technology and Humanity at the University of Cambridge.

His research examines AI in relation to Islamic conceptions of the mind, human reasoning, cognition, knowledge, perception and consciousness. These questions become fundamental when discussing spiritual authority. A system may produce a linguistically convincing religious answer without possessing consciousness, intention, moral agency or religious commitment. Whether those properties are necessary for legitimate religious guidance is therefore not merely a technological question—it is also a theological and philosophical one.

In 2026, Chaudhary and Jonnie Penn published "New parameters of power: On LLM-based manipulation and control and the spectre of strategic AI" in Big Data & Society. The study examines how large language model systems can introduce new forms of manipulation and strategic influence, expanding the spiritual-authority question beyond doctrinal accuracy.

A Conversation That Has Already Begun

The three EHJ participants are not meeting intellectually for the first time around this question. AI and Faith previously brought Goswami, Bor and Chaudhary together in an interreligious discussion published as "Enchanted by AI: A Call for Spiritual Discernment — Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Responses to the Rise of AI in Religious Practice".

That earlier conversation demonstrates that the November panel is not simply placing three religious labels next to one another. The participants have already engaged questions at the intersection of religion and artificial intelligence from explicitly Christian, Jewish and Muslim perspectives. The EHJ session will develop that discussion around a particularly focused proposition: Can artificial intelligence become a spiritual authority?

Authority, Wisdom and Religious Responsibility

Generative AI has dramatically reduced the time required to retrieve and synthesize religious information. But information and wisdom are not synonyms. A model trained on enormous quantities of religious material may be able to reconstruct recognizable forms of Jewish, Christian or Muslim discourse. That capability says relatively little, by itself, about whether the resulting output constitutes wise counsel.

Religious traditions have historically connected wisdom with qualities extending beyond information: judgment, moral formation, experience, communal memory, responsibility, humility and, depending on the tradition, a relationship to revelation and God. The EHJ panel therefore reaches a question with implications well beyond theology.

As increasingly sophisticated AI systems mediate education, law, medicine, politics and personal decision-making, societies will repeatedly confront the distinction between systems capable of generating answers and persons or institutions authorized to make judgments. Religion provides one of the clearest environments in which that distinction can be examined.

Why This Panel Matters in 2026

The debate over artificial intelligence has moved rapidly beyond whether generative AI can produce coherent text. The more significant questions now concern trust, persuasion, autonomy, judgment and authority. Chaudhary's 2026 research on strategic AI and manipulation illustrates the growing scholarly concern with the capacity of conversational systems to shape human behavior. Goswami's 2026 Christian ministry guidelines show religious organizations attempting to establish practical boundaries before AI becomes normalized without reflection. Bor's legal and theological work addresses what it means to remain human while technologies increasingly enter domains once treated as uniquely human.

Bringing those approaches together gives the EHJ discussion unusual interdisciplinary breadth, combining theology, Jewish, Christian and Muslim thought, law, religious ethics, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, pastoral practice, technology governance and interfaith dialogue.