Practical theologyHow is it lived and shared?
Communication, media and digital culture is the study of how the Christian faith is communicated through media, from film, radio and television to apps, social media and AI. It draws on the social-scientific study of media and religion, on media ecology, which asks what each medium does to the message, and on the churches' own theology of communication.
Study v1.1, 5 November 2026
How faith is communicated through film, apps and AI, which now carry it at scale. AI output misleads without curation, citation and disclosure, which matters for anyone reading Scripture through these media today.
Churches treat communication as part of their theology; film, apps and AI now carry faith at scale, but reach is reported more than effect, and AI output misleads without curation, citation and disclosure.
Traditions divide on depicting Christ and the Father, on AI voicing Scripture or sacred persons, on whether sacraments can be online, and on entertainment beside reverence.
Depicts Christ in icons on the ground of the incarnation: what became visible in the flesh may be shown, though an icon is not a portrait or a historical reconstruction.
No ecumenical canon addresses images of the Father, but Russian councils forbade them in 1551 and 1666 to 1667, and the Orthodox Church in America holds today that it is incorrect to portray the Father in human form; practice has not been uniform. The dove and the fire of the Spirit are read as signs, not forms. The Ecumenical Patriarchate's For the Life of the World (2020), as a 2026 survey of Orthodox views reads it, commends digital tools for pastoral work while warning of addiction and isolation.
Holds that the sacred image principally represents Christ and cannot represent the invisible God; the Council of Trent (1563) allowed the histories of Scripture to be painted on condition that the people are taught that the Divinity is not thereby shown as visible.
Benedict XIV's brief of 1745, as Gesa Thiessen analyzes it, approved the Father shown as the Ancient of Days, a symbol drawn from Daniel's vision. On worship, The Church and Internet (2002) holds that "There are no sacraments on the Internet". Antiqua et nova (2025) holds that AI performs tasks but does not think, and that misrepresenting AI as a person should be avoided.
Luther counted the prohibition of images within the First Commandment and held images useful for teaching though not necessary, and Matthias Flacius classed paintings, statues and crucifixes as adiaphora, things left to Christian judgment.
Irene Dingel judges the question less central to identity than the Lord's Supper or Christology. The ELCA's West Virginia-Western Maryland Synod rejected a "Zoom baptism" in March 2020, holding that "When a pastor is present, the pastor baptizes".
Calvin held that any visible form attributed to God corrupts his glory and that Christians are taught by preaching and the sacraments, though he counted painting a gift of God.
The Heidelberg Catechism (1563) answers that "God can not and may not be visibly portrayed in any way" (Questions 96 to 98).
The Westminster Larger Catechism forbids "the making any representation of God, of all or of any of the three persons" (Question 109), and confessional Presbyterians apply this to films of Jesus.
David VanDrunen defended the view in 2009: Scripture gives no description of Jesus' face, so any portrait is imagined. Others in the same family disagree: a committee of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod reported in 1981 that the catechism goes beyond Scripture here, and a Presbyterian Church in America pastor wrote in 2022 that exceptions to Question 109 are common at ordination examinations.
Its 227th General Assembly in 2026 approved The Algorithm and the Almighty, which calls projecting saving power onto AI idolatry, asks for "clear and consistent public disclosure" with substantial content cited as "AI-assisted", and bars AI from substituting for pastoral counseling.
The Church of England has not authorized Holy Communion through a screen: its bishops' guidance of 2020 said that "Any idea of the 'remote consecration' of the bread and wine should be avoided".
The Episcopal Church's House of Bishops in the United States considered remote consecration in 2020 and stepped back from allowing it. The Anglican Church of Canada's General Synod of 2025 received a resolution to convene an AI ethics task force, and its Council of General Synod adopted an interim AI policy in June 2026.
Its Conference opened a period of discernment from 1 September 2021 in which authorized persons could preside at Holy Communion with some or all worshippers joining online.
On 1 July 2026 it decided that online celebrations should be "generally permitted", a provisional decision referred to the Synods for confirmation or variation in 2027. It had affirmed in principle in 2023 the possibility of churches that meet mainly online.
For Baptists the question is the Lord's Supper as an ordinance, not a sacrament, and Southern Baptist pastors in Texas divided in 2020 on whether it may be held online.
The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission's statement of principles (2019) holds that AI "is not worthy of man's hope, worship, or love", and the Southern Baptist Convention's resolution of 2023 asks users of AI to act in "honest, transparent, and Christlike ways".
The Biblical Research Institute holds that the officiant at a baptism must be physically present, that a baptism may be livestreamed to the church, and that the New Testament nowhere prescribes self-immersion.
Some evangelical churches baptized at a distance: First Baptist Church of Glenarden in Maryland baptized members of its online campus at home, with a family member pouring the water while the officiant led from a distance, and a Florida church held Zoom baptisms in which new believers baptized themselves in bathtubs or pools.
Network211, an Assemblies of God ministry, offers an AI avatar named Luke that answers from Assemblies of God content, is monitored against heresy and refers users to a local pastor.
Its central committee's statement of June 2023 called efforts to build artificial general intelligence "a modern form of idolatry" and asked governments for binding, precautionary regulation.
Its 2025 policy for its own communications requires that "A human must review all AI-generated content before being published or disseminated" and that significant AI-generated content be credited in a note naming the tool and its developer.
Many Muslim authorities oppose depicting the prophets, and Islam counts Jesus among them: in 2014 Al-Azhar renewed its objection to "any act depicting the messengers and prophets of God".
Islamic practice has not been uniform: the Metropolitan Museum of Art holds a manuscript painting from Herat of about 1425 that shows the Prophet Muhammad receiving the first revelation.
Studies how people make religious meaning from media: Stewart M. Hoover's Religion in the Media Age (2006) studies how audiences do so in their homes, by an approach a review calls interpretive and constructivist.
Lynn Schofield Clark found that teenagers drew on their own experience, parents and peers more than on media characters.
Studies how religious groups negotiate their use of new technologies; Heidi A. Campbell, the scholar most associated with the term, has studied how Jewish, Muslim and Christian communities do so.
A mostly Nordic school that asks what media do to religion rather than what people do with media: Stig Hjarvard argues that religion is increasingly mediated through secular, autonomous media institutions and shaped by their logics.
Critics hold that the theory neglects cultural and national context, and Birgit Meyer argues that change comes from the interplay of new and older religious forms.
Asks how each medium shapes thought and society: Walter Ong traced the passage from oral to written, printed and electronic cultures, and Neil Postman argued that television turns public discourse into entertainment.
Reformed critics of film evangelism still cite Postman's argument that television and film are poor media for complex ideas.
The Stoglav council of 1551 bans images of God the Father, and the Great Council of Moscow condemns them again in 1666 to 1667, though the Seventh Ecumenical Council had issued no canon on the matter.1
Benedict XIV's brief Sollicitudini nostrae approves the Father shown as the Ancient of Days, Christ in human form and the Spirit as a dove or tongues of fire, and forbids three-headed images of the Trinity.8
Pius XI's encyclical Vigilanti Cura calls film the most popular form of entertainment, with more influence over the masses than any other medium, and asks for national review offices and published lists classifying films.49
The Second Vatican Council's decree Inter Mirifica holds that the Church has "an inherent right" to have and use the media, and calls for an annual day in every diocese on the responsibilities of media.50
The pastoral instruction Communio et Progressio roots communication in the communion of the Trinity and in the Incarnation, and calls Christ "the Perfect Communicator".51
The JESUS film, a feature from the Gospel of Luke, is made and premieres in 250 theaters in the United States. Its distributing ministry, part of Cru, now reports 2,322 translations, figures that are its own.52
The Pontifical Council for Social Communications' The Church and Internet welcomes the internet's capacity "to overcome distance and isolation" but holds that "There are no sacraments on the Internet".9
An ad hoc group of Catholic and Jewish scholars, convened by staff of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Anti-Defamation League, concludes that a film made from a draft script of The Passion of the Christ "would promote anti-Semitic sentiments". Mel Gibson's picture opens on Ash Wednesday, 25 February 2004, and earns 610,063,438 US dollars worldwide.5657
The Dicastery for Communication's Towards Full Presence reflects on social media through the parable of the Good Samaritan and warns that algorithms create filter bubbles.58
Antiqua et nova, from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Dicastery for Culture and Education, holds that AI is a product of human intelligence rather than an artificial form of it, and warns of falsehood through "hallucinations" and deepfakes.10
Leo XIV's first encyclical, Magnifica humanitas, on safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence, is signed on 15 May, and on 1 July the Methodist Conference in Britain provisionally decides that online celebrations of Holy Communion should be "generally permitted". Article 50 of the European Union's AI Act, on transparency, applies from 2 August.632564
Describe each tradition from its own documents where they can be opened, and otherwise from scholarship or press, named as such.
Weigh each text by its standing: a policy for one body's staff does not bind a church, and a church's policy does not bind other traditions.
Report reach and outcome figures supplied by ministries and companies as their own claims, and do not treat reach as evidence of effect52.
Ask what each figure measures and over which area, since surveys of news use, mobile access and price count different things6667.
Study audiences as well as producers: people make their own meaning from what they watch, so a film cannot control how it is received4041.
Judge the depiction of a community against published criteria, such as the American Catholic bishops' criteria of 1988 for dramatizations of the Passion: no collective guilt, Jesus shown as an observant Jew among Jews, crowds that include his supporters, and Roman soldiers visible68.
Test an AI answer engine by the share of answer sentences fully supported by a cited source, the share of citations that support their sentence, and the rate at which it declines rather than guesses656970.
Where sources differ on a date, give both dates.
The works below shaped the field and are cited in this study, from the earliest to the most recent. Hover over a book, or select it, to see its author and the sources behind it.
Listed because this study draws on their published work; no association with or endorsement of Numa Verse is implied. Suggest a correction.
The words that carry the most weight in this field, each defined from the sources of this study. Turn a card over to read its definition.
The traditions divide. The Orthodox, Catholic and Lutheran traditions depict Christ, while the Heidelberg Catechism holds that God may not be portrayed in any way and the Westminster Larger Catechism forbids any representation of any of the three persons, which confessional Presbyterians apply to films of Jesus11141597. Within the same family a synod found in 1981 that the catechism goes beyond Scripture on this point, and many officers take exception1718. Many Muslim authorities oppose depicting any prophet, including Jesus, though Islamic practice has varied3738.
The churches divide. The Catholic Church holds that there are no sacraments on the internet, and the Church of England and the Episcopal Church have not allowed remote consecration92021. The Methodist Church in Britain has permitted online communion since 2021 and in 2026 decided provisionally to permit it generally, subject to the Synods and the 2027 Conference2425. Southern Baptist pastors divide on the Lord's Supper online27.
None of the church statements cited here permits an AI to speak as God, Christ or a saint, and none explicitly forbids it10281935. They forbid the conditions around it: presenting AI as a person, giving AI the hope or worship due to God, and deceiving users about what they are dealing with102829. Products that gave AI a sacred voice, such as the Text With Jesus app and the "Deus in Machina" installation in Lucerne, drew charges of deception or blasphemy9899.
The published evidence measures reach, not effect. The ministry behind the JESUS film reports 671,316,226 views across all its media in 2025 and 12,224,661 people who "indicated decisions" for Christ since 1979, but these are its own figures52. None of the providers' pages examined reports an effect measured against a control52. Critics and audiences also divide sharply on faith-based films, a gap one peer-reviewed study explains as a dispute over criteria100.
The published tests show frequent errors. A preregistered Stanford study of 2024 found that legal research tools marketed as avoiding hallucination through retrieval still hallucinated between 17 and 33 percent of the time70. An audit of four generative search engines in 2023 found that only 51.5 percent of generated sentences were fully supported by their citations65, and the Tow Center found eight AI search tools wrong on more than 60 percent of 1,600 queries in 202569.
Reviewed and approved by Duane Herholdt, BA (Theology), Chief Executive Officer, Numa Verse
Study version: v1.1, 5 November 2026 (theology map v1.27)
Last reviewed: 9 November 2026
