Issue 6 - Editorial Introduction
At the university where I teach, the faculty hold a variety of opinions regarding generative AI and the educational task. A few are early, eager adopters. They look for creative ways to incorporate AI into their classes, and they actively teach students to use AI in ways that are honest, helpful, and relevant to the discipline. Other colleagues are almost entirely averse to AI, at least in the classroom. They equate AI with some combination of academic dishonesty, intellectual laziness, or even apocalyptic dread. Most, I suspect, are somewhere in between these two views, occupying some middle point along a spectrum.
Because of the disruptive impact of AI across the educational landscape, including Christian higher education, the editors thought it would be fitting for the first themed issue of Integration: A Journal of Faith and Learning to be dedicated to the theme “Artificial Intelligence and Christian Higher Education.” Our purpose is not to stake out our own position on this important topic, but to offer a range of thoughtful opinions. We trust that most any faculty member, regardless of his or her instincts, opinions, or even firm convictions, will find much food for thought. While our primary audience for this particular volume are faculty who teach in colleges, universities, and seminaries, we also trust that teachers in Christian K-12 contexts will find the articles to be helpful as well.
Jason Thacker examines the rapid integration of artificial intelligence into higher education and challenges the prevailing assumption that technological adoption is either neutral or inevitable. Drawing on thinkers such as Neil Postman and Jacques Ellul, he argues that technology is not merely an instrument to be managed but a formative force that reshapes our habits, values, and understanding of education’s purpose. Thacker contends that AI’s bias toward efficiency and convenience can subtly distort the telos of Christian higher education, reducing formation to information transfer and teachers to learning engineers. Rather than banning or uncritically embracing AI, he calls upon Christian educators to recover a robust, teleological vision of education centered on wisdom, virtue, and whole-person transformation, and to engage technology with theological clarity and moral discernment.
Michael Arena, Joseph Hartono, and Darryl Jung of Biola University argue that Christian education must ensure that human formation leads, rather than lags behind, the rapid acceleration of artificial intelligence. Acknowledging AI’s pervasive adoption among students and employers alike, the authors contend that AI literacy is now essential, yet insufficient on its own without the cultivation of enduring human skills and a robust biblical foundation. They propose the “Formation Triangle”—integrating AI literacy, human-centric capabilities such as critical thinking and relational intelligence, and theological grounding—as a balanced framework for preparing students for faithful influence in an AI-shaped world. Drawing on institutional practices at Biola, the authors offer a constructive model for holding technological fluency, liberal arts formation, and Christian conviction together in service of the good life and the mission of the Church.
Martin Jones also offers a framework for engaging with AI. He contends that the rise of generative AI marks a watershed moment for higher education, destabilizing traditional assumptions about authorship, assessment, and the nature of learning. Rather than responding with prohibition or uncritical adoption, he argues that Christian institutions require a coherent theological ethic capable of integrating digital fluency with spiritual formation. His W.I.S.E. framework—Worship, Image, Sent, and Equipped—is a biblically grounded structure for evaluating and employing AI in ways that honor God, affirm the imago Dei, advance the Church’s mission, and prepare students for faithful vocation. He calls for Christian educators to move from reactive disruption to principled discernment, ensuring that AI is stewarded in service of wisdom, responsibility, and Christ-centered formation.
Jason Strandquist explores the eroding vitality of student engagement in the smartphone era through the lens of Jonathan Haidt’s concept of “defend mode.” Sandquist argues that a pervasive “great rewiring” of childhood has replaced the curious “discover mode” of previous generations with a chronic, socially induced anxiety that manifests as classroom silence and a reliance on artificial intelligence. To counteract this epistemological crisis, Strandquist advocates for a “formational anthropology” that moves beyond mere device bans toward what he calls an “invitation model” of learning. Ultimately, he proposes a compassionate intervention centered on embodied rituals and communal inquiry to restore the “magic” of the humanities and the integrity of the human spirit. Of all our contributors, Sandquist raises the most concerns about the incorporation of AI into the classroom, at least in the humanities.
While he is no uncritical apologist for AI, Adam Dodd takes a different approach from Sandquist. Dodd examines the profound theological and pedagogical implications of generative artificial intelligence within the context of Christian higher education. He argues that while AI offers powerful capabilities for efficiency and “intelligence amplification,” its use risks eroding the essential, embodied “relational core” of learning and the cultivation of wisdom. However, Dodd emphasizes that Christ-centered institutions must move beyond merely reactive policies toward a more formational approach, ensuring that technology serves to enhance, rather than replace, the human-to-human attunement necessary for spiritual and intellectual growth. Dodd includes a number of sample prompts that Christian educators can use to incorporate AI into their teaching, assessments, and even grading. Dodd also includes an appendix that offers “An Abbreviated Theological Framework for Approaching AI” that many readers will find stimulating.
We have also reprinted one article that was previously published in another journal. In “Virtue and Artificial Intelligence,” Derek C. Schuurman examines whether automated systems can participate in the ancient project of character formation. He argues that while AI lacks the moral agency and awareness required for genuine virtue, it can function through “virtue-by-proxy,” acting as a medium for the ethical intentions and “encoded normativity” of its designers. Schuurman cautions that these technologies are not neutral; their algorithmic “nudges” serve as digital liturgies that can either amplify human virtue or entrench destructive vices like sloth and envy. Ultimately, he calls for a “liturgical audit” of our AI interactions, suggesting that we pivot from seeking “artificial virtue” toward building systems for “virtue amplification” that assist humans in living out the biblical story. We appreciate the Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith granting us permission to republish Schuurman’s excellent essay.
As always, we have included several book reviews, many of which relate directly to the issue’s theme. We trust reader will find them helpful.
At the risk of extending an already lengthy editorial past the point of interest, I want to offer one more observation. Regular readers may have noticed that the summaries of each article are lengthier and more detailed than is normally the case in our editorials. There is a reason for this. After editing each of the six main articles into their final form, I wrote the following prompt.
I am writing an editorial introduction for a journal, and I need my introduction to include brief summaries of each article included in this issue of the journal. Please summarize the uploaded article in three or four sentences, focusing on the main theme and key takeaways. Write in a style that is appropriate for an educated readership.
I uploaded this prompt, along with three of the articles into ChatGPT. The other three articles and the accompanying prompt were uploaded into Gemini. Both chatbots produced appropriate summaries for their respective articles that followed the prompt. I made various edits to each of the paragraphs—some more than others—and then incorporated them into this editorial. Neither I nor the other editors have done this sort of thing, and we will not do it again. However, this exercise seemed like a suitable example of the many ways Christian educators are using generative AI to enhance their work. We trust our readers—and our contributors—will forebear with us just this one, in the spirit of the issue’s theme.
nathan a. finn
Senior Editor | Integration: A Journal for Faith and Learning
Kalos Chair for Intellectual Discipleship | North Greenville University