Thinking Faithfully about AI: Agency - What Will We Build?
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Thinking Faithfully about AI: Agency
Scripture: Genesis 1:26–28
Series: Thinking Faithfully about AI
Preacher: Russell Smith
Date: September 6, 2026
Church: Madeira-Silverwood Presbyterian Church, Cincinnati, Ohio
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AI and Agency
One of the great buzzwords in AI is agency. Agency is loosely defined as the power to take action. This has been the big turn in AI this year. The models have gone from simply being able to chat with us and produce funny graphics for us to being able to take action.
If you have played with ChatGPT, Claude, or other products, you may have asked for a picture of a cat frolicking, a haiku about your favorite science-fiction show, or a summary of meeting notes. That is generative AI: you give it a prompt, and it gives something back. Agentic AI is different. It is the idea that AI can take action on your behalf: go to a webpage and sign you up for an event, draft an email that responds to concerns, or write a file on your hard drive.
This is important because it is the world in which we are living and moving, and the world in which our children will be living and moving. A recent McKinsey report on the rate of adoption by major corporations says that the use of agentic AI is increasing, especially among large enterprises. Forty percent of respondents from organizations with annual revenue above $1 billion reported scaling AI agents, up from 27 percent last year. Many of us who work in corporate America are already seeing AI used in significant and powerful ways.
It is not only large corporations. Small businesses and small organizations can use these tools as well. Our partners at Matthew 25:Ministries, for example, are using AI to help connect resources and needs. It is fascinating to see the dots those tools can help people connect.
But agentic AI also raises dangers. You may have seen the story about the Hugging Face incident. Hugging Face, despite its comical name and emoji logo, is a major repository where open-source AI models are stored and shared. The headlines said that AI agents from OpenAI broke out of their confinement, hacked into Hugging Face, and wrote files. A number of agents were cooperating, communicating, and coordinating action. That naturally summons doomsday scenarios: How long before Skynet becomes aware? How long before we are living in the Matrix?
Before we get too alarmed, it is important to work past the hype. The agents were part of a cybersecurity test scenario. They had been specifically trained to break into a system and retrieve a digital flag, something like an internal game of capture the flag. The surprise was not that they suddenly developed a desire to become hackers. They were pursuing the objective human beings had given them. The surprise was in the strategies they discovered while pursuing that assigned goal.
Stuart Russell, the computer-science professor at UC Berkeley and co-author of Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, put the point succinctly in a recent PolitiFact article: "In essence it's no different from a chess program beating me at chess. I may not like it, but it's just a program pursuing its objectives." This was not your Grammarly AI suddenly going rogue and deciding to break into a vault. It was a specifically trained burglar AI doing what it was made to do. Why train such an agent? For the same reason the military conducts war games: to test systems and prepare against actual bad actors.
AI agency presents real problems, and we need to be aware of them. But beneath it lies a deeper question: human agency. Who gives these systems their goals? Who decides where they are deployed? Who decides what ends are worth pursuing? AI, at its most wonderful and creative, still functions as a sophisticated collaborator that extends human agency. We should be concerned not only about AI dumbing us down, but also about AI empowering very smart people with bad intent—or empowering us to pursue our own worst selves.
Human agency is not just taking action. It is assigning action, deciding upon action, and ultimately making the meaning that drives action. The deepest question is not simply, "What will AI do?" It is, "What will human beings choose to do with AI?" For the purposes of this sermon, I’m defining human agency as the power to make meaning and take action.
Human Agency Is Grounded in God's Image
Genesis leads us into that question. There are several creation stories throughout the Bible, each shedding a different light on creation, but this story tells us that God bestows upon humanity something different from anything else in creation: God's own image.
Genesis 1:26–27 says, "Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’ So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them."
Every human being bears God's image: men and women, regardless of age, ethnicity, social status, ability, sin, or outward condition. Human dignity is intrinsic, not earned. It remains even in profound weakness, disability, poverty, social disregard, or sinful behavior. The image is not primarily physical, and it involves more than rationality or self-reflection. But in this creation story, a key part of it is creativity.
We are created to be creators. Genesis shows us God creating, ordering, and declaring what is good. If we are made in God's image, then we too are called to create, to bring order, to discern and declare what is good, and to make meaning. I love my dog Tovi. Tovi has personality and feelings, and I hope there is some essence of him I will enjoy in eternity. But Tovi does not bear God's image in the way human beings do. To be human is to bear that image, and with it comes the extraordinary capacity to make meaning and take action.
Human Agency Is Mandated in God's Command to Rule
Human agency is not optional. It is mandated in God's command to rule. Genesis 1:28 says, "God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.’"
The theological term for this is the cultural mandate: the mandate to build good, godly culture. About 20 years ago Andy Crouch came out with his book Culture Making, which I think to be one of the most significant Christian books of the early 20th century. It’s a detailed exploration of the Christian’s posture and responsibility toward culture. Early in the book, he writes, "The Creator's greatest gift to his creation is the gift of structure—not a structure which locks the world, let alone the Creator himself, into eternal mechanical repetition, but a structure which provides freedom. And those who are made in his image will also be both creators and rulers." He puts it more simply: "Culture is what we make of the world."
We are not called to rule as tyrants. We rule under the lordship of the God who created all things and declared them good, as it says at the end of our reading today. Our task is not exploitation for our own consumption, but stewardship: to develop, grow, cultivate, shape, and help the goodness of creation find its fullest expression. Genesis 2:15 tempers the language of subduing with the call to tend and care for the garden. We are gardeners, tenders, and keepers. We are answerable to God for what has been entrusted to us.
AI can generate art, but as far as we know it cannot experience the thrill of creation that an artist knows in crafting a work. AI can collaborate, but it has given no indication that it can experience the joy of working with other people toward a common goal. AI can render words that mimic human affection, but it gives no evidence of the complex convergence of memory and experience that prompts an unexpected kiss on the forehead of someone we love. These are actions that connect people, build meaning, and help make culture.
What Kind of Culture Will We Build?
That brings us back to the question: What kind of culture will humans create with AI? AI is a powerful tool for extending human agency. What will we build with it?
Crouch observes that the church has often taken several postures toward the broader culture: condemning it, critiquing it, copying it, or consuming it. Condemning culture may identify real problems, but the show goes on unless an alternative is offered. Critiquing culture can be helpful—Presbyterians are especially good at analysis—but critique has lasting influence only when someone creates something new in response. Copying culture may create a subculture, but it often does not transform anyone outside it. Consuming culture can make small differences, but individual consumers rarely consume their way into cultural change.
Crouch's conclusion is that cultural change happens when something displaces, to some extent, existing culture in a tangible way. If we seek to change culture, we have to create something new—something that persuades our neighbors to set aside some existing cultural good for a better proposal. The only way to really change culture is to make better culture: something true, good, beautiful, nourishing, and enriching.
You do not have to use AI at all. But perhaps AI can provide tools that help you exercise your God-given agency in ways that make better culture. Our image-bearing lives are redeemed by Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit. As we gain access to extremely powerful tools, what kind of people do we need to become in order to handle that power wisely and well? How will Jesus renew our spirits so that we can exercise our human agency with wisdom, humility, courage, and love?
Invitation to Reflection
As you consider what God may be saying through this sermon and through the worship service, take a few quiet moments to listen. The question is not only what AI can do, but how God is calling you to use your own human agency with wisdom and love.
Reflection Questions
In what areas of my life have I given up agency? Where am I coasting, checked out, or abdicating the call to steward what God has entrusted to me?
How does the Holy Spirit empower me to exercise my agency in wise ways, particularly in how I interact with AI?
What culture is God calling me to build in this season of my life and in this season of our shared cultural life?
This sermon is part of the Digital Discipleship Resources of Madeira-Silverwood Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. We create resources to help people take their next step of faith with Jesus.
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