Concerns over Christians’ use of artificial intelligence and AI chatbots like ChatGPT have led a Southern Baptist pastor to help found Dominion, a Christian AI project that went live Nov. 14.
When Erik Reed, lead pastor of The Journey Church in Lebanon, Tenn., talked about AI with the headmaster of the church’s Christian academy a year ago, both expressed concern about AI’s growing impact on young people.
ChatGPT, the most popular AI chatbot, was released in November 2022. Today, nearly a third of U.S. teens use chatbots every day, says Pew Research. While some kids use AI to help with schoolwork, others have developed relationships with digital companions or counselors that have at times encouraged sexual immorality or suicide, leading to a handful of wrongful death lawsuits.
Today, nearly a third of U.S. teens use chatbots every day.
“People’s children are being discipled by AI,” Reed said. “Many young people seek out companionship or counseling from bots, and some models have been built to offer constant feedback loops of affirmation and love, giving users an addictive dopamine hit. They’re going to flatter you at every turn.”
Reed already was busy as a pastor of what he calls “the least SBC-looking church you’ll find.” The church is elder-led, has female deacons and embraces “Reformed-ish theology.” Reed also leads Knowing Jesus Ministries and founded the student ministry Arise Camps and The Replant Network of local churches. He hosts “The Bully Pulpit” podcast.
But his concerns about the proliferation and impact of AI led him to add a new company to his to-do list.
Erik Reed
“The No. 1 disciple-making thing in the world in the days to come is going to be AI,” he said. “People’s children are already being discipled by AI. We saw that there needs to be a competitor at the same level, in terms of functionality and usefulness, but has Christian guardrails to safeguard what it’s feeding back to people.”
Reed and the headmaster teamed up with a third Christian to found Dominion Christian Software. The company’s motto is “Bringing AI Under the Lordship of Christ.” Reed says that reflects the founders’ belief that “AI doesn’t exist outside the authority and sovereignty of God.”
The company first went public during a forum at the Family Research Council’s 2025 Pray Vote Stand Summit in October. Dominion was presented as “optimized for productivity rather than personalization” or engagement.
Dominion co-founder Brandon Maddick explained: “AI is already shaping minds. It’s our Christian responsibility to make sure it’s shaping them in truth. We believe faithfulness for the Christian is to redeem AI for the glory of God.”
In conversation with BNG, Maddick highlighted a central feature of the new enterprise: “Dominion takes a Christian worldview, influences against sin and points users toward Christ and their family. The model does not pretend to be a pastor or God or have a soul. It’s a tool designed for productivity, not personality. It can help users code, refine emails, learn a new language, understand lengthy, complicated documentation or anything else secular AI can do. Well, almost anything. It can’t condone sinful behavior, and it won’t become your friend.”
Maddick says Dominion has “a high view of Scripture.”
And how was Dominion trained to be “Christian?”
Brandon Maddick
“Dominion is trained on selected theological texts, verses, catechisms and traditional logic,” he said. “We use a multi-agent framework with multimodal capabilities to build guardrails via internal checks and balances. Some of the AI components, the user cannot ever talk to or influence, protecting us from drift and ensuring final sign-off if a response is reviewed outside the conversational context.”
Reed said Dominion has been trained to prioritize “first-tier issues” all Christians affirm over divisive second-tier issues (infant baptism, gifts of the Spirit, female pastors) and third-tier issues (almost all politics).
Dominion isn’t the first Christian AI chatbot. There’s Christian AI, Apologist AI, Faith GPT, Faith Copilot and others.
Entrepreneurs also have created AI resources that blend theology and right-wing political ideology, including Arya AI, which promotes Christian nationalism and was launched by Gab, a right-wing website favored by white supremacists.
The right-wing AI bots are seen as an effort to counteract the perceived left-wing bias of other bots.
Elon Musk’s Grok, the chatbot on his platform X, pursues “maximum truth-seeking and helpfulness, without the twisted priorities or hidden agendas plaguing others.”
Dominion hasn’t yet started its marketing campaign, but it already has 300 users. Subscriptions start at $15 a month, rising soon to $19 a month. The company hopes to market to individuals as well as businesses.
“We don’t think Christians can sit out AI,” Reed said, “unless we’re going to go Amish.”