Ancestral vs. Artificial Intelligence

NASHVILLE, Tennessee — “I believe in AI,” the Rev. Chebon Kernell, executive director of the Native American Comprehensive Plan of the United Methodist Church, told church leaders gathered for the opening plenary of the 2026 AI & Church Summit from Aug. 24-28. Then he offered a different definition: “I believe in ancestral intelligence.” 

Minutes before Kernell addressed the crowd, organizers of the third annual AI & Church Summit shared survey responses from this year's registrants expressing both curiosity and concern about artificial intelligence. “It can save time, but at what cost?” one respondent wrote. 

Another warned, “I don't want to lose the human soul to AI.” Those tensions framed the opening session of the ecumenical gathering in Nashville, where approximately 50 church leaders participated in person alongside additional online attendees. 

Over four days, participants would explore artificial intelligence and how it helps or hinders ministry and human agency. Organizers began not with presentations about AI’s capabilities, but with Indigenous leaders describing the impacts of the infrastructure needed to support it, laying the groundwork for those practicing ancient wisdom traditions like Christianity to consider how to preserve ancestral wisdom in the midst of exponential growth of artificial models of intelligence.