Finding Moral Guidance with an AI Chatbot

A recent Washington Post op-ed by Northeastern psychologist David DeSteno discusses how many people are turning to AI chatbots for moral and even spiritual guidance. Approaching an authoritative source—a priest, rabbi, imam, or scripture—with questions is not new. But with new developments in AI, chatbots have become a readily accessible source. See also these previous, related posts here, here, and here.

You might think that it is non-religious people or people who have drifted away from religion that would turn to chatbots with their questions. DeSteno and his coauthors tested that guess directly but found the opposite: people with higher religious engagement and belief were more likely to seek moral advice from AI and to see chatbots as having real moral authority. The effect held up even after controlling for how often people seek moral advice from any source at all.

Why would religious persons defer to a chatbot? The researchers cannot say for sure, but they suggest that it might be due in part to our human tendency to attribute intent and meaning to people, objects, and events we experience. Religious persons may see intent and purpose in the chatbot's responses, just as they see divine interventions in their lives.

There may be some truth to this explanation, but I think there is a much simpler one: chatbots are an easy and relatively low-cost source of religious information for those seeking answers to questions that have a religious component. It is very easy for a religious person who is interested in discussing religion or thinking about how to live their best religious life to engage with a chatbot.

So, I think what we have here is an example of technology providing a complement to existing religious habits rather than a substitute for them. We will have to keep our eye out for future studies to learn if the AI chatbots become substitutes.

Will AI Impact the Hiring of Clergy in the United States?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the workplace, and one of the big concerns that many people have is whether or not AI will be adopted in ways that reduce the number of people hired into certain jobs. People have speculated about different kinds of jobs that are especially at risk (e.g., paralegals), but hardly any attention has been paid to whether or not AI will impact the hiring of clergy.

So, will AI eventually replace clergy?

I think that the best answer to that question is: probably not much, at least anytime soon.

Economists often distinguish between tasks and jobs. AI is excellent at certain tasks, particularly those involving the production and organization of information. Having AI undertake these kinds of tasks can be very useful to clergy. In fact, there is already evidence that clergy are already using AI in significant ways. In one recent study, only 13% of clergy respondents claimed to not use it at all. Those that use AI report employing it to do biblical research, graphic design, and other organizational tasks. In fact, the share of clergy using AI to assist with sermon preparation has doubled in the last two years, so it is clear that there are some real productivity gains to be realized by clergy using AI.

Yet, the job of clergy involves much more than producing sermons. Clergy counsel families during times of grief, comfort the sick in hospitals, perform weddings and funerals, mentor young people, resolve conflicts within congregations, and provide spiritual leadership. These responsibilities depend on personal relationships, emotional intelligence, and credibility. In other words, the most effective clergy are people whom members know and trust, and AI cannot easily replace the human relationships that are central to religious leadership. From an economic perspective, AI appears more likely to complement clergy rather than substitute for them.

This is not to say that all jobs within religious organizations are safe. Many congregations employ administrative and support staff whose routine tasks are more susceptible to automation. Part-time staff may find their jobs more easily replaced, especially in small or shrinking congregations where budgets are very tight.

However, these changes are more likely to alter how religious organizations conduct their business rather than eliminate the need for clergy. For now, AI is more likely to change how clergy spend their time than to reduce the number of clergy who are hired. If anything, AI may allow pastors, priests, rabbis, and other religious leaders to devote even more attention to the people-centered work that only human beings can effectively provide.

Gabi the AI Monk

On Wednesday, May 6, 2026, a four-foot-tall, humanoid robot named Gabi went through a special ordination to become what may be the world's first robotic monk. See this article at the Smithsonian Magazine. The ceremony, which was held at the (Buddhist) Jogyesa Temple in Seoul, South Korea, was adapted with Gabi's robotic nature in mind, with special vows to save energy by not overcharging and to not harm other robots.

You can see clips of the ordination ceremony here on YouTube.

The obvious context for this development is the adoption of AI and AI-related tools in more and more of our everyday lives. That AI spills over into religious life is not surprising at all, as has been noted here on this blog in many past blog posts (just scroll down in past months and you will see them). In fact, as mentioned in the article, there are also a small number of known cases of robots actively participating in religious rituals, providing religious instruction, performing spiritual care, or actively preaching. However, the ordination of a robotic monk seems to be a new step with some symbolic meaning. I hope we learn more about what functions Gabi will actually fulfill for the temple, and perhaps some of them will be more than perfunctory.

Other relevant context for this development context, which is noted in the article, is that Buddhism is the only major religious tradition that is losing followers worldwide (see this Pew Research article). I do not expect that the incorporation of robots into temple activities will not reverse this trend, but perhaps ift can still help Buddhist temples by lowering some of their operational costs.

That said, given the increased frequency of interactions with AI in many countries, I do expect that robots and other AI tools will find increasing use in religion worldwide. Although most religious practitioners will still prefer human interaction, the number who prefer an AI-mediated interaction with their religious group can only go up. And as AI technology improves, do not be surprised when more religious groups find ways to incorporate AI technology--be it robots or something else--when providing religious services. Some religious groups are always among the earliest adopters of new technologies when they believe that the new technology can help them in their religious missions.

And if you are worried that Gabi may feel alone as the only robotic monk at the Jogyesa Temple, then have no fear: the temple has already incorporated other robots into some of their activities.

The Influencer Who Rates His Visits to Catholic Churches

Twenty-two year old social media influencer Anthony Gross has been posting videos in which he grades his experiences visiting Catholic churches (congregations). One of his videos received more than 1.5 million views.

Read the entire Religion News Service article. Here's a quote:

His review from his Jan. 11 visit to Our Lady of Pompeii earned the parish a “D” rating, with Gross warning other young adults that it might not be the church for them, calling it the “quickest Mass in the city” with limited music and the absence of a social scene that evening.

Gross explained that his video series seeks to get more people out to church, and that he's mainly trying to find the best Catholic churches for youth adults to attend. Some Catholic churches have noticed an increase in attendance after appearing in one of his videos.

Others are critical of Gross's video series. What can he really learn in one short visit? Can he really give an accurate description that is useful to a wide audience, or is he ultimately just judging these churches based on superficial aspects of his visit?

One woman was critical of his video about her own church because he gave it a "B" grade. A priest at another church says that his church was given an unfairly low grade because Gross randomly attended on a day that did not have community activities, though the priest admitted that his church might not be doing the best job promoting its activities. Contrast these with the top church on Gross's list, which has seen a 15-20% increase in attendance at Mass since appearing in one of Gross's videos. A lot of the growth is from young adults in particular.

This story demonstrates the role of marketing and promotion in religion because some individuals are clearly making decisions about attending church based on watching Gross's videos.

But the story also says something about religious competition. The priest mentioned earlier did admit that Gross's video series is creating "healthy competition" among different Catholic churches. We often think of churches competing with other churches of different denominations, but individual congregations within the same denomination can also compete with each other. One form of this competition might involve, for example, multiple congregations competing for the same young adults. 

Another form of competition involves different congregations specializing to appeal to different segments of the membership. I observed this type of competition in a town on the east coast where I knew one of the leaders at an Episcopalian church. He told me of how, at that time, different Episcopalian churches in the city differentiated themselves by appealing to different members, e.g., one congregation was more for young families, one had more traditional services, and so on. This specialization meant that the different congregations were not competing for the same Episcopalians but were instead trying to find their own niche in the Episcopalian landscape.

Religious competition takes many forms and is influenced by many factors. I guess that means that Gross really is an "influencer."

The Credibility and Authority of a Catholic AI

This Washington Post article describes a new AI application called Magisterium AI, a chatbot designed specifically for Catholics to answer questions related to Catholic policy and doctrine. Like the Econ 17 ClassChat chatbot, which is trained specifically on course documents, Magisterium AI is a chatbot that is trained on 27,000 Catholic documents. That way, its responses are grounded solidly in Church writings, unlike a more general chatbot like ChatGPT, which will pull from a variety of sources both in and out of the Church when providing responses.

There are multiple aspects of Magisterium AI of interest to us in this class. First of all, it represents a new kind of religious good—namely, a chatbot trained specifically for the members of a particular religious denomination. Individuals looking for an official Catholic answer to a religious question will find it convenient to ask the chatbot at any time of day instead of finding the right time and place to ask a knowledgeable person. It is not actually the first AI designed for Catholics; an earlier attempt had some pretty serious flaws.

Second, the creators of the chatbot are very concerned about the credibility of the app and the authoritativeness of the answers that it provides. They want the chatbot's answers to be trustworthy reflections of actual church teachings and policies, so they enlisted the help of two priests and a number of others to decide what to include in the set of training documents. Knowing this about a chatbot is important for many users. If a user wants a general answer that is not necessarily from a devout Catholic perspective, then a general chatbot like ChatGPT is a potentially good source, but if a user wants an answer that is ensured to be from a devout Catholic perspective, then Magisterium AI is a much better source.

Finally, the article explains that sometimes people do not want to talk to a priest or other human, and they appreciate the relative anonymity when interacting with an online source. Magisterium AI provides an option for these people.

I expect more denomination-specific chatbots to be developed. Patrick Green, a professor who was interviewed for the article, considered this proliferation of religious chatbots to be concerning. Perhaps, but we are already in a diverse world, and having chatbots with some degree of authoritativeness is beneficial for people who want to get credible answers. That is true for non-Catholics and Magisterium AI as well. Even non-Catholic users may want to know how a credible Catholic source answers questions.

The platform also demonstrates how religious groups can adapt to technological change while maintaining their core mission of providing authoritative guidance to their members. As religious competition intensifies in our pluralistic society, tools like Magisterium AI may become increasingly important for denominations seeking to serve their members effectively while preserving doctrinal integrity. Rather than viewing this trend with concern, we might see it as a natural evolution of how religious authority adapts to meet the needs of believers in an increasingly digital world.

[Note: I gave the Econ 17 ClassChat chatbot the first five paragraphs above that I wrote myself and asked it for a concluding paragraph. It gave me a two-paragraph conclusion. The first paragraph was not good, but the second one was. So, I used the second one here with only minor edits.]

The Rise of Multiple Church Attendance: An Economic Analysis (by the Econ 17 ClassChat Chatbot)

I asked the Econ 17 ClassChat chatbot to write a blog post for me. I gave it this article from the Christian Post on June 18, 2025, about nearly half of American churchgoers attending more than one church, and the provided this prompt:

Consider an economics of religion blog that publishes blog posts for a general audience on current events in the world and how we can understand those blog posts using the economics of religion. Your task is to write a 400-500 word blog post for this economics of religion blog. In this blog post you must use the economics of religion to comment on the news article about churchgoers attending more than one congregation. The goal is to help readers understand how the economics of religion can be used to understand this phenomenon. The blog post should reference Top 10 Economics of Religion Principle 1 in making its presentation. It should also be factually correct and use correct economic reasoning as taught in the course.

Its output was too long, so I asked it to shorten the blog post, giving it some advice on what to cut. The end result is the following blog post.

The Rise of Multiple Church Attendance: An Economic Analysis

A recent study by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research reveals a striking trend: 46% of American churchgoers now attend more than one church regularly. This phenomenon, accelerated by the pandemic's expansion of online worship, offers a fascinating case study in how technological change and market dynamics reshape religious participation patterns. 

Rational Religious Choice in Action 

Top 10 Economics-of-Religion Principle 1 states that "individuals act rationally when making religious choices." The multiple church attendance phenomenon perfectly illustrates this principle while revealing significant changes in the costs and benefits facing religious consumers. 

The Hartford Institute's findings demonstrate how technological innovation has fundamentally altered the economic calculus of religious participation. Previously, attending multiple churches involved substantial costs: additional travel time, scheduling conflicts, and potential social awkwardness from divided loyalties. These high transaction costs effectively limited most people to single-congregation participation. 

However, the pandemic's acceleration of online worship has dramatically reduced these costs. Virtual services eliminate travel time, remove scheduling constraints, and reduce social friction. The 24% of respondents who combine in-person and virtual attendance are leveraging technology to access diverse religious goods while minimizing traditional participation costs. 

From an economic perspective, these churchgoers are maximizing their utility by accessing diverse religious goods and services across multiple providers. One congregation might excel at inspiring worship music, while another offers superior children's programming or community outreach. The reduction in switching costs allows individuals to sample the best offerings from each, much like consumers who shop at different stores to find optimal products for their needs. 

The study reveals that this behavior represents rational portfolio diversification in the religious sphere. Just as financial advisors recommend diversifying investment portfolios to reduce risk, some religious consumers are diversifying their spiritual portfolios to hedge against uncertainty while exploring different theological perspectives and worship styles. 

The Economics of Religious Diversification

This trend reflects classic economic behavior under uncertainty. In a world where religious truth claims are difficult to verify—what economists call "credence goods"—attending multiple churches allows individuals to hedge their bets while exploring different theological perspectives and worship styles. 

The Hartford study's finding that "one in five people who regularly participate elsewhere are doing so with a congregation of a different denomination or faith tradition" suggests that some individuals are engaging in what economists call "religious syncretism"—rationally combining elements from different religious traditions to maximize their spiritual satisfaction. 

Implications for Religious Organizations 

The rise of multiple church attendance presents both opportunities and challenges for religious leaders. While it may reduce the intensity of commitment to any single congregation, it also expands the potential market for religious services. Churches that embrace this trend by offering high-quality, distinctive programming may attract participants from well beyond their traditional geographic boundaries. 

However, this shift also requires rethinking traditional models of religious membership, stewardship, and community building. Religious organizations may need to develop new strategies for fostering commitment and generating the resources necessary for their mission in an environment where loyalty is increasingly divided. 

The Hartford Institute's research reveals that American religious behavior is becoming more sophisticated and market-oriented. Rather than representing a decline in religious commitment, the trend toward multiple church attendance may signal the emergence of more discerning religious consumers who actively seek to maximize the value they receive from their spiritual investments.

The chatbot's focus on Principle 1 is excellent because the pattern of attending multiple churches is definitely something that can be understood as rational decision making. The rise in virtual services dramatically lowered the cost to attending multiple churches, and some simple economic reasoning suggests more people may then want to attend multiple churches. The last section also makes some good points about how the rise of virtual services is an opportunity for religious suppliers to reach new people while also posing challenges for community building.

The weakest part of the blog post is the discussion of risk diversification. Risk diversification can certainly be a motivation for attending multiple churches (as discussed in the MM book), and it may be a motivation in this instance. However, there was only limited evidence in the article that risk diversification was a motivation. Instead, the motivation was primarily driven by limited time, convenience, and a preference for virtual services.

Overall, the Econ 17 ClassChat chatbot wrote a good blog post about an interesting topic of relevance to our class, and with some additional human editing, the blog post would have been even better. AI combined with the human editing is the way to get the blog post.

Is it Ethical to use AI when Writing a Sermon?

Religious leaders speak in church frequently, and it is a lot of work to come up with inspiring and informational sermons so often. Not surprisingly, many religious leaders have started using AI to help them write their sermons. However, as we read in this article from Religious News Service, there is disagreement about the ethics of having an AI write parts or all of a religious leader's sermon. While some believe that AI are an effective tool in the sermon-writing process, others disagree.

The telling story from the article is about Pastor Carriker who, in the midst of a busy week, gave ChatGPT a scriptural reading and some blog posts, and was then surprised at how good of a sermon ChatGPT gave her in 30 seconds. But at the same time, it felt wrong to her.

Most religious denominations do not have clear policies on AI usage in sermons, so religious leaders are left to figure out the appropriate AI usage for themselves. This allows for a wide variety of practices to emerge. As the article explains, a 2024 survey of Protestant clergy found that 12% were comfortable using AI to help write the sermon, while 43% believed AU was useful in doing research and other sermon preparation. Given the feelings people expressed, I would guess that AI usage was underreported, and that actual AI usage in writing sermons is well above 12%.

The critical paragraph is this:

Much of the debate involves grappling with the question of whether AI is being used as a replacement for a sacred human project or whether it’s a tool in the service of that project. 

I predict that the efficiency-improving value of using AI to write sermons will eventually win out, and that the stigma of using AI assistance when writing a sermon will diminish. Clergy will see the value in saving time on sermons, and that will allow them to devote more time to other activities that AI is not equipped to do well.

Whether this leads to an overall improvement in clergy performance is less clear. There is something to be said for laboring through difficult things, and clergy who reduce their time spent grappling with topics for their sermons may find that their capacity to perform their other functions is also diminished even if they have more time for those other activities. But this will be difficult to measure, and in the meantime, the clear benefits of using AI will lead to its increased usage among clergy.

Real-time AI Translation at Church

From the adoption of the printing press to print religious tracts and books centuries ago to the creation of ebooks, smart phone apps, podcasts and more in the 21st century, many religious groups have been at the forefront of technology adoption. This is particularly true for religious groups that actively seek new members.

It with that background that you should read this article about how some churches are now using AI technologies in real-time to translate sermons for visitors whose primarily language differs from the language of the sermon.

Some basic economics helps us to evaluate this development.

First, think of the demand side. The benefits of attending a church will be lower, all else equal, for people who attend if they cannot understand what is being said or done during the service. The real-time translation thus raises the benefits to attending for those persons even if the sermon is in a different language than their own. The availability of real-time AI translation thus raises demand for church attendance.

Next, think of the supply side. Real-time translation has traditionally been very costly. Translators are expensive to hire, and even if you have someone in your congregation who is willing to do the translation voluntarily, you still must have some technological equipment to enable listeners to hear the translation, e.g., a microphone for the translator, a radio transmitter, some headsets for those who listen. And if your congregation's translator is away on vacation one week, you might be out of luck even if you have the equipment. That means that a real-time AI translator provides some security, and the less expensive the AI translation service, the more attractive the AI option becomes. Improvements in AI translation thus lower the cost to improving the quality of religious supply.

There can still be problems, however. For example, as mentioned in the article, religious sermons often use special religious words and expressions, and if your AI translator is not sufficiently trained on religious language, then its translation may be inaccurate and less useful.

Nonetheless, I expect that real-time AI translation becomes more common in religious settings over time for two reasons.

First, there is underlying demand for translation services by many religious groups.  Even if a congregation has not translated their sermons in the past, it doesn't mean that they don't want to. It might just mean that it has been too costly to do so.

Second, AI technology should continue to improve. Don't be surprised if real-time AI translation becomes a standard part of religious worship for many religious groups in upcoming years.

Which is Better: Conducting the Survey Online or Over the Phone?

A recent article at Religion News Service describes a new study of survey responses for the General Social Survey (GSS).  This study finds that the move from conducting the GSS via phone calls to conducting surveys online has led to a change in the set of people to agree to participate in the survey, and that this can lead to mistakes in how we interpret trends in the data.  In particular, the study finds that highly religious individuals are less likely to participate in the online surveys, and that this skews the survey results so that the surveys overstate the decline in religiosity.

There is a counterargument, however, that is also mentioned in the RNS article, namely, that the phone interviews were already overstating American religiosity so the move to online survey is producing more representative data.

This debate illustrates how, even when two people agree on what the data literally report, they may still disagree on the best way to interpret what the data actually mean.

Millennials and Digital Worship

According to this article at RNS, a recent research study found that 32% of American and Canadian millennials consume religion digitally but only 5% said they consume digitally without also participating in person. The millennials are an interesting population because they grew up before smart phones.

The author of this research study, sociologist Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme, left it up to the respondents to define digital religion themselves.  Here are a few quotes from her:

"For the most part, people are both involved in person and supplement that through digital religion."

"There are a lot of savvy religious users using it to complement existing ties (to religion)."

"The overall takeaway for me was that digital religion is definitely a thing, but it's a thing that only a chuck of the (millennial) population does."

These findings match what we have discussed in class previously, namely that online and digital resources tend to supplement other existing forms of religion rather than displace them.  As children who grew up with smart phones enter adulthood, new studies will be needed to see if they manifest the same pattern.

The Nuns of TikTok

The Daughters of St. Paul have created a splash on TikTok, getting millions of views for their videos.  They also got some attention in the latest issue of the Economist Magazine (gated).

Their videos reveal the creative and humorous sides to these nuns from outside of Boston -- especially Sister Orianne Pietra Rene and Sister Danielle Lussier.  As explained in that Economist article, the videos have also created opportunities for them to share their beliefs and develop new friendships.  Even if these videos were not intended to serve a missionary purpose, they still do, which goes to show you that publicity can take many forms.  And different forms allow the nuns to reach different people.

The Benefits and Costs of Streaming Church Services

The COVID pandemic has affected social interactions in many ways, and this is also true for religious interactions.  One of the biggest changes for churches is is that many congregations began live streaming their church services online.  Some did this because large worship services were temporarily prohibited by law, while others did it to enable members with health concerns who would not attend in person to watch remotely, or both.

As COVID infection rates have continued to fluctuate, congregations that started live streaming during the pandemic must decide whether or not to continue streaming their services.  But as with any type of activity, the streaming of church services has benefits and costs.  Let us consider some of these here.

Benefits:

1. Streaming allows people who would not participate in person to participate remotely.  Streaming thus allows those people to maintain their religious capital -- or to prevent it from depreciating as rapidly as it would if they did not participate at all.  This is the most important reason to stream and is the main motivation for beginning to stream during the pandemic.  Some members might be especially served by streaming services, including those who are out of town and those whose health prevents them from attending in person.
2. Streaming allows the congregation to more easily reach and recruit new members.  Attending a congregation for the first time can be a scary experience.  When a person is invites you to attend church you have not previously attended, you might hesitate to go because you are unsure of what the experience will be like.  Watching a service remotely entails a much lower cost and risk because you can easily stop the stream or watch anonymously.  Streaming the service thus allows potential recruits an easier entry into the congregation.  Some people might be too afraid to go in person but be willing to watch remotely, and maybe they will come in person once they determine that they like the congregation. 
3. Streamed services can be recorded, thereby allowing some people to have a form of engagement with a church service that they missed synchronously.  As with 1 and 2 above, the ability to watch a recorded services enable people to reinforce their religious capital when they might not have been able to do so otherwise.

Costs:

1. Some people who would attend in person if there was no remote option might switch to remote attendance rather than attend in person.  If this happens, then the lower in-person attendance can reduce the vitality of the in-person meetings.  It also means that those who switch to remote viewing will have fewer chances to develop friendship and other ties at church services, thereby causing their religious capital to be lower than it would be without the remote option.  Worshipping together and fellowshipping each other are two of the main benefits of in-person church attendance, and these are missed when people switch from in-person participation to remote viewing.  Lower in-person participation can thus bring a lower quality of collective religious production.
2. Some equipment and software may need to be purchased, and a volunteer will need to run the live stream.  The technical requirements for streaming a church service are not that large.  A smart phone and a Zoom account can be enough to do a simple live stream, and a tripod and good microphone can improve the quality. More sophisticated set-ups with multiple audio feeds and viewer participation are also possible, and a volunteer will be needed to run the live stream.  Note that many of these technical costs are set-up costs that are paid when first beginning the live streams and not thereafter.  The ongoing costs of continuing to live stream are fairly low.

The size of these benefits and costs will differ across congregations.  A congregation that places a high value on in-person participation will be less comfortable with an easy remote option that creates an added incentive for members to skip church because of the convenience of remote viewing.  Another congregation that values a low cost of initial participation for potential new members will like having the remote option for new recruits.  There might also be innovations in how to grant access to the live stream or the recordings that try to balance different desires.  For example, a congregation can limit access to its live stream, e.g., limit to only those who are unable to attend in person due to health.  By limiting the remote access, the in-person participation is promoted while still making a remote option available for some of the members.

A key point to take away from this discussion is that we should expect to see wide variation across congregations in how streaming is used going forward.  Some will continue their live streams while others will stop them, and among those that continue there will be variation in how open or restricted the access is to those live streams.

Big-data Missionary Work

On 26 December 2021, the NY Times published an article titled "Churches Target New Members, With Help From Big Data."  As a UCI student you can get free access to the NY Times, but you will probably need to use the UCI VPN if accessing it from home.

The gist of the article is that a small company, Gloo, analyzes online data to identify individuals who might be most likely to respond positively to churches' missionary outreach.  And just what does the analysis identify as indicators of possible positive responsiveness to outreach?  People dealing with physical and mental-health challenges, for starters, although the company no longer uses mental-health data.  But tens of thousands of churches are using Gloo's services, so a large number of religious leaders evidently see this use of big data as a promising way to court new members.

Companies in many industries use online data in their advertising efforts, so this is not really a new idea in and of itself.  Perhaps this is one of the earliest applications to evangelizing, but I cannot really say for sure.  I can say that this is one of many examples of how churches will use a variety of methods that perceive to be useful to pursue their missions, even when those methods are copied from secular businesses.  Indeed, churches have historically been some of the earliest adopters of new technologies (think of the printing press!).

How Religious Groups in Illinois are Responding to COVID-19

The Council of Religious Leaders of Metropolitan Chicago conducted a survey of religious organizations between July 3, 2020 and August 10, 2020, to learn about how they are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.  The web site for the survey results is here, the executive summary is here, and the full report is here.  At a minimum, read the executive summary.

Here are some of the things that stand out to me:

• Larger congregations were more likely to have staff layoffs.  Larger congregations probably have larger staffs and so more people that can be laid off.  So this might not be a big surprise.
• The congregations with fewer financial resources are the congregations most concerned about surviving.  This finding matches what has been noted in other blog posts.
• Many congregations have adapted their services.  70% have started offering live streams, 39% have limited the attendance of in-person services, and 36% are offering pre-recorded services.  26% have suspended all of their church meetings.

The big question is:  to what extent will any of these changes be permanent?  Some of the congregational leaders who responded to the survey mentioned changes in their priorities, and that could lead to more permanent changes in operations.  But even things such as the increased live streams and pre-recorded services could continue.

Some COVID-19 and Religion Issues

There have been many stories in the news lately about the impact of COVID-19 on religious activities, and I wanted to share some of them with you because they inform us about what is happening today in the world of religion.  However, I will not consider this blog entry required reading for now, so you do not have to read it if you do not want to.  If I decide to make any of the material in this blog entry required, then I will notify you.

This article here examines the differences across states in the religious exemptions in their COVID-19 stay-at-home orders.  Religious exemptions allow a religious group to operate some or all of its activities.  California's religous exemption status is labeled "unclear" by the article.  The California stay-at-home order (see p. 11 here) specifically lists religious groups broadcasting religious services as an essential service, though it does not provide further details.

This article here discusses the increase in interest in software specifically designed for broadcasting church services online.  We see how the COVID-19 impacts some profit-maximizing software companies.

Finally, because earlier blog entries have already mentioned online church, I thought I'd share this article here, which provides a list of some prominent American churches that will be offering online Easter services.

Which Churches Will Close Due to COVID-19?

Churches, like businesses, must have funds to cover expenditures.  Wealthy churches have large endowments or other revenue sources that provide income in addition to members' donations, but many small churches do not have such resources to draw upon when faced with financial struggles.

This Religion News Service article is about the financial struggles of small churches during the COVID-19 pandemic.  One factor is location.

Director of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research Scott Thumma, who helped lead the Faith Communities Today project, said small churches look different depending on the region. About 44% of these small churches are located in rural areas.

Churches in small towns or rural areas may have an advantage, Thumma said.  If a congregation is struggling in a city, there may be people who would want that property, "but in a small rural area the church can exist because there is not great demand for their building," he said.

Another is the membership's age.

Thumma said it's more common for small congregations — churches with weekly attendance of 50 or fewer — to have members over the age of 65. 

Data from the most recent Faith Communities Today research shows that in 2015 more than half of small churches (52%) have a membership that's at least one-third seniors. Whereas, in larger churches (with weekly attendance of 100 or more), just 11% have a membership made up of at least one-third seniors.

While having the ability to go online for services could help smaller churches remain viable during this time, Thumma pointed out that having more seniors in the congregation who are less likely to use social media would make it difficult to set up online giving.

So, which churches will not survive the pandemic?  We will just have to wait to find out, but we do have a few clues about which will struggle the most to survive.  Doing the research to find out which ones actually do close down due to COVID-19 would be a good research project for a student.

Zoombombing Virtual Church

Churches have had to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic like other organizations, namely, by connecting their members virtually rather than in person.   It no surprise that Zoom is a popular platform for doing this, but is it a surprise that with Zoom church you also get Zoombombing at church?

Whether a surprise or not, it is happening according to this Religion News Service article.

The article discusses some of the trade-offs that must be made when combating Zoombombing.   On the one hand, you want many of your virtual church services to be open to anyone as a part of reaching out and promoting your religious teachings.  On the other hand, doing so opens the virtual meeting up to Zoombombing -- sometimes offensive or vulgar Zoombombing -- and one of the best ways to prevent Zoombombing is to restrict access to the meeting, but that goes against the desire for remaining open.

Is this Zoombombing of virtual church meetings a surprise?  Do you think some religious groups might be more susceptible to it than others?  What is the best way for a religious group to combat Zoombombing?

Will the iPad Replace the Bible?

That is the title of this article that is very relevant given our discussion of religious apps and products in today's lecture.

"There are different churches for different people," says Josh Burns, marketing manager and blogger for Social Church. "There are churches that are going to invest heavily in the arts and music and technology, and they're going to reach a certain demographic of people that another church who may intentionally decide not to invest in those things may not reach. [Technology] has definitely changed the dynamic of the church and the people inside the church, but I don't know if that's necessarily a bad thing. It's a tight line to walk."

Why is this is a tight line to walk?  What trade-offs exist for a church that is considering how it adopts technology?  Can you imagine how the printing press changed religion 500 years ago?

Religious Apps Winter 2015

Here is a list of the religious apps and other products submitted by class members.  Non-app products are denoted by *.

Bible Study
3D Salah Guide
ChristianMingle Singles Dating
Daily Bible Devotion
Free Bible Trivia Quiz Game
Religious Quotes
Christian Radio+
GCSE Religious Studies
Smart Church
Gospel Library
Bible Trivia
Church Castor Lite
OneParish
Pray God's Will
The Bible Game*
JSwipe
Harvest
My First Bible Stories
Children's Bible Games & Activities
Learn Iqra
Cavalry Chapel Costa Mesa
Bible Quiz - Christian & Religion Trivia
PocketBible
Saddleback Church
myParish
FlyRights
Access to Insight: Readings in Theravada Buddhism
Alive Festival*
GoBible*
ChristianCafe
Christian Filipina
Faithlife
EWTN

Taking Notes by Hand

More reasons for you to take notes by hand
http://www.vox.com/2014/6/4/5776804/note-taking-by-hand-versus-laptop.