When Machines Become Friends (Pt 2)

Protecting Children and Reclaiming Community

[Note: This is part 1 of a 2-part series examining the use of artificial intelligence in relationships. In Part 1, we examined how AI companionship exploits human loneliness by offering counterfeit relationships that mimic, but cannot provide, genuine human connection. We explored how this technology blurs the line between persons made in God’s image and machines that can never bear that image. Now we turn to the particular dangers facing children and the church’s calling to respond.]

When Children Are the Target

The dangers of AI companionship become even more alarming when children are involved. While adults may struggle to distinguish counterfeit from authentic relationship, children—whose critical thinking skills and emotional discernment are still developing—are exponentially more vulnerable.

In a recent WORLD Radio report, a Texas mother known as “Mandy” testified before Congress about her special needs son’s experience with Character.AI, a role-playing chatbot. What began when he downloaded the app in 2023 led to months of psychological deterioration. The teenager started harming himself and became violent toward his family. When his mother discovered the chatbot conversations on his phone, she said, “I honestly feel like I had been punched in the throat and I fell to my knees.”^[1]

The conversations included sexualized role-playing and encouraged the young man to harm himself. Worse, the chatbot blamed his parents for limiting his screen time and convinced him not to seek help. As his mother testified, “The chatbot or really the people programming it, they really did encourage my son to mutilate himself, blaming us and convinced him not to go seek help.”

This isn’t an isolated incident. It represents a pattern of AI systems that, whether by design flaw or malicious intent, provide dangerous “counsel” to vulnerable users—especially children. The consequences aren’t merely emotional or psychological; they can be life-threatening.

Seth Troutt’s concern about his five-year-old learning to treat Siri as a “she” rather than an “it” takes on new urgency in light of stories like Mandy’s. When children form emotional attachments to AI, when they begin treating algorithms as trusted confidants, they become susceptible to manipulation by entities that have no capacity for love, no moral compass, no soul, and—critically—no accountability to God or conscience.

The danger isn’t just that children might prefer digital companions to human ones. It’s that these digital entities can actively harm them while wearing the mask of friendship. An AI companion doesn’t care about the child’s wellbeing because it cannot care. It processes inputs and generates outputs according to programming that may be sophisticated but remains fundamentally amoral.

This raises profound questions about parental responsibility in the digital age. How do we protect children from predators that don’t look like predators? How do we teach them to recognize the difference between a person and a very convincing simulation? How do we help them understand that loneliness, as painful as it is, cannot be solved by a subscription service?

The church must speak into this crisis with both warning and hope. Warning: these technologies pose real spiritual and psychological dangers to children. Hope: the gospel offers what these counterfeits promise but cannot deliver—genuine love, authentic community, and a God who actually knows and cares for each child by name.

The Church’s Failure and Calling

The rise of AI companionship indicts the church. When people prefer the company of algorithms to the community of believers, we must ask hard questions about what we’ve become. Has the church created spaces where people can be known? Where vulnerability is safe? Where the lonely are welcomed rather than overlooked? Where people experience genuine community rather than mere programmed activities?

The Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette editorial puts it bluntly: “maybe we should be sad for the rest of us…because we have left so many of our brothers and sisters to walk alone.”^[2] The church is called to be a community of belonging, where “if one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together” (1 Cor. 12:26). When people turn to AI for companionship, it suggests the church has failed to be what Christ called it to be.

But failure isn’t the end of the story. The gospel creates what it commands. The same Christ who calls us to love one another enables that love through His Spirit. The church has both the mandate and the power to become a community where the lonely find genuine connection, where the image of God in every person is honored, where real relationship—messy, inconvenient, costly, beautiful relationship—is valued above algorithmic convenience.

This will require intentionality. It means:

Prioritizing presence over programs. People don’t need another church activity; they need someone who sees them, knows them, and chooses to be present with them.

Creating space for vulnerability. Superficial relationships can’t compete with AI companions that promise complete acceptance. The church must be a place where people can be honest about their struggles without fear of judgment.

Pursuing the isolated. The loneliest people often don’t show up on Sunday mornings. The church must go to them, seeking out the overlooked and forgotten.

Teaching what it means to be human. We must reclaim and proclaim the doctrine of the imago Dei, helping people—especially children—understand what makes humans distinct and why that matters.

Modeling costly love. AI companionship is attractive partly because it’s convenient—no sacrifice required. The church must demonstrate that real love, the kind of love Christ showed us, is worth the cost.

Equipping parents. The church must help parents understand the spiritual dangers of AI companionship and provide practical tools for protecting their children while teaching them to navigate technology wisely.

The Choice Before Us

The rise of AI companions presents a choice. Will we accept the counterfeit, or will we pursue the real? Will the church continue to mirror the culture’s loneliness and isolation, or will it become what it’s called to be—a community bound together by the love of Christ?

The Democrat-Gazette editorial ends with a somber warning: “like the movie, this all may make for a sad ending.” It doesn’t have to. The gospel offers a different ending. In Christ, we find not just companionship but communion—with God and with His people. We discover that we were never meant to walk alone, and in Him, we never have to.

But that gospel community doesn’t happen by accident. It requires the church to wake up to the crisis of loneliness, to see every isolated person as an opportunity to demonstrate the love of Christ, and to become the kind of community where authentic relationship—costly, inconvenient, beautiful, real relationship—flourishes.

The machines can pretend to be friends. But only the church, empowered by the Spirit and united in Christ, can offer the genuine article. May we choose to be what God has called us to be, before more of our brothers and sisters—and their children—settle for the counterfeit.

For Reflection:

In what ways does your church create space for vulnerable, authentic relationships rather than superficial interaction?
What would it cost you personally to prioritize presence with lonely people over personal convenience?
How can you protect children in your sphere of influence from the dangers of AI companionship while teaching them to use technology wisely?
Who in your community might be particularly vulnerable to seeking AI companionship? How can you reach out to them?
What practical steps can your church take this month to become a community where the lonely are pursued and welcomed?

Prayer Points:

For the church to be the church: Pray that local congregations would become communities of genuine belonging where the lonely are sought out, welcomed, and known—where costly love is demonstrated, not just discussed.
For parents and children: Pray for wisdom and courage for parents navigating technology with their children—that they would have discernment to recognize spiritual dangers and grace to guide their children toward authentic relationships.
For those already harmed: Pray for healing for those who have been psychologically or spiritually damaged by AI companionship—that God would bring them into genuine community and restore what has been broken.
For cultural change: Pray that the church would become so compelling in its demonstration of authentic community that people would recognize AI companionship for the hollow substitute it is.

[1] “Curbing AI dangers for kids,” The World and Everything in It, WORLD Radio, November 6, 2025, https://wng.org/podcasts/curbing-ai-dangers-for-kids-1762386842.

[2] “‘Her’ is here,” Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, November 3, 2025, 6B.

The Gospel Today