What one Finnish church learned from creating a service almost entirely with AI
A tale of good versus evil played out on the large screen in the sanctuary of St. Paul’s Lutheran church in Finland. Jesus was shown in robes with long hair and a beard, while Satan was dressed in more modern clothes but with a menacing frown and higher-pitched voice — all created by artificial intelligence. Also addressing the flock at the recent Tuesday evening service were avatars of the church’s pastors and a former president of Finland who died in 1986, reading from the Old Testament.
It was the first church service in Finland put together mostly by AI tools, which wrote the sermons and some of the songs, composed the music and created the visuals. The widely advertised experimental service drew over 120 people to the church in northeastern Helsinki, much more than on a typical weeknight. People came from out of town as did a handful of foreigners who admitted they didn’t speak Finnish well enough to understand it all.
“Usually when people talk about AI, they are talking about what AI can do in the future. But the future is now. … AI can do all those things that people think that it can maybe do in 10 years or so,” said the Rev. Petja Kopperoinen, who came up with the idea and brought it to fruition.
Reactions to the AI church service
The clergy and worshippers said they enjoyed it, but agreed it wouldn’t replace services led by humans anytime soon. “It was pretty entertaining and fun, but it didn’t feel like a Mass or a service. … It felt distant. I didn’t feel like they were talking to me,” Taru Nieminen told The Associated Press. The Rev. Kari Kanala, the vicar at St. Paul’s, echoed her sentiment. “The warmth of the people is what people need,” he said.
Other experiments with AI church services
Churches and pastors around the world have been experimenting with AI to try to understand what role it could play in their lives and if it can attract more worshippers. In 2023, an AI-led service was held in a church in Germany. Last year, an avatar of “Jesus” on a computer screen in a Catholic chapel in Switzerland took questions from believers and offered responses based on Scripture. St. Paul’s church likes to try new things, with pastors incorporating screenings of soccer and ice hockey matches into their services, along with dance and film festivals.
Imposing limits
The exercise had clear limits. AI was not involved in forgiving sins at the Helsinki service, and the Eucharist was not performed. Any output needs to be fact-checked and edited by a human, and AI copy is often based on stereotypes, Kopperoinen said.
AI tools generally seemed reluctant to compose religious content. ChatGPT initially wouldn’t write dialogue between Jesus and Satan and went along with it only after Kopperoinen assured it that he was a Lutheran pastor and there was nothing wrong with writing it. ChatGPT also refused to give absolution or blessings, which is a good guardrail, Kanala said.
The importance of human touch
Worshippers said they found the service different, interesting, and entertaining, but also confusing at times. Speech patterns were rapid and hard to follow. “I did like the songs. They were really catchy, although they lacked the kind of soul the humans have,” said student Jeera Pulkkinen, who disliked the tools’ fast delivery of the text. Eeva Salonen, chief development officer at the Helsinki Parish Union, said the service felt “more like a performance,” finding it more impersonal than it would be with real people.
