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"Not every pastor treats AI as a mere aid. Rev. Dwight Lee Wolter, of the historic Congregational Church of Patchogue on Long Island, N.Y., turned to ChatGPT at an especially emotional moment: the 2024 assassination attempt on Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania campaign rally. Wolter asked the chatbot what he should tell his congregation the next morning. It produced, he said, a nearly perfect prayer. He also used AI to do the call to worship, the prayers, and to write new hymns complete with AI-generated music.
Wolter, 75, is careful to note he didn’t disappear into the experiment. “Dwight is here,” he said. “He didn’t abdicate.” But he is also blunt about where he thinks things are heading. “I cannot imagine that a time is not coming that AI will present us with a God that’s more attractive and more flexible and 24/7,” he said, a prospect that unsettles fellow clergy more than it does him. “When I bring that up to clergy, it’s like, oh my God.”"
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