OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE BIBLE  

By Cory Franklin

February 1st, 2026

A colleague and I recently penned an op-ed for the Chicago Tribune (about marijuana legalization, which is not important to this story). In the first draft of the piece, the lede was this, “If and when Governor J. B. Pritzker decides to run for president, some reporter on the campaign trail should harken back to the New Testament and ask him, ‘What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his soul?’”

For those who are interested in the details, the passage is found twice in the New Testament, first in Matthew 16:26 and then in Mark 8:36. According to topverses.com, both citations rank in the top 1000 most quoted Bible verses.

The quote seemed to be a suitable opening for the op-ed. Stephen King once described what’s involved in a good spec for opening lines, “An opening line should invite the reader to begin the story. It should say: Listen. Come in here. You want to know about this.”  This one fit the spec.

My co-author has a relative who is a public relations executive in a large Texas corporation. He sent the first draft of the piece to her, and she, in turn, ran the piece through the company’s AI (artificial intelligence) system.

The AI response began, “Here’s what’s not working. The opening is a disaster (bolding theirs). Starting with Pritzker losing his soul is going to alienate a huge portion of your audience immediately. It reads as sanctimonious and partisan rather than evidence-based. You lose credibility before you even present your case.

 If your goal is to inform the public about health hazards, don’t lead with what sounds like a religious or political attack… you’re building a case, not delivering a sermon.”                                                                                                                        

There were two disturbing aspects of this. First was the stridency of the opinion – “sanctimonious,” “religious attack,” “political sermon” – which are not typical of the usual anodyne AI criticism. Second, it took on the nature of a gratuitous antireligious screed, even though the lede was not intended to make a religious point and the article was not about religion. The quote was a literary, not a religious, trope.

The Bible, in addition to being a religious tract, is the world’s most prolific source of quotes, far more than even Shakespeare. But does AI make the distinction between the literary and religious context of a Biblical quote? And if it interprets most Biblical quotes as religious, does it demonstrate a subtle antireligious bias suggested in the above criticism?

These are important questions because they speak to the influence AI exerts on our common culture. Every day, society grows more fractured, and popular references that were once common knowledge become more obscure and ultimately completely foreign to our public experience.

Discouraging Biblical references in writing means the pool of people who recognize a quote will grow smaller and those who understand the relevance of quotes will be smaller still.  In this way, AI may contribute to the increasing atomization of our culture.  This, in the internet age, where the meaning of virtually any reference can be called up instantaneously.

In terms of the relationship between AI and religion, impugning the religious implications of Bible quotes could also have the obvious effect of discouraging mentions of religion and secularizing the culture. No doubt if a specific prompt is designed to make AI use Biblical allusions, it could do so, but would it ever do that spontaneously without the prompt, as a human might?

Along with the critique, the AI system also furnished us with an example of how it would have written our op-ed piece. It was logical and workmanlike despite several factual errors, and the arguments were balanced and persuasive but lacking in emotion. Overall, the essay was generic – readable, albeit not especially interesting. It could have been written by anyone, or no one.

In the final version of the piece we submitted to the Tribune, we decided to use the Biblical quote in the conclusion rather than the lede. As a concession to AI, we omitted the fact that it came from the New Testament. So, while many people will still recognize the familiar words, fewer will know the source. Consider the implications of writers making the same type of concession countless times in countless situations and you can understand how AI might eat away at our cultural lingua franca.

“There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be, among those who come after.”

-30-

Editor’s note: There’s a great deal to ponder in this essay by Dr. Franklin. I just called him wondering if AI will be able to deal with the word of God.

In a day or so I’ll be back, after giving a lecture to the great Hillsdale College on America’s loss of trust in corporate legacy media. And the Illinois Supreme Court thinks it can decide who writes for John Kass News? We’ll see about that. See you soon.

JK

Dr. Cory Franklin

Cory Franklin, physician and writer, is a frequent contributor to johnkassnews.com. Director of Medical Intensive Care at Cook County (Illinois) Hospital for 25 years, before retiring he wrote over 80 medical articles, chapters, abstracts, and correspondences in books and professional journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine and JAMA. In 1999, he was awarded the Shubin-Weil Award, one of only fifty people ever honored as a national role model for the practice and teaching of intensive care medicine. 

Since retirement, Dr. Franklin has been a contributor to the Chicago Tribune op-ed page. His work has been published in the New York Times, New York Post, Washington Post, Chicago Sun-Times and excerpted in the New York Review of Books. Internationally, his work has appeared internationally in Spiked, The Guardian and The Jerusalem Post. For nine years he hosted a weekly audio podcast, Rememberingthepassed, which discusses the obituaries of notable people who have died recently. His 2015 book “Cook County ICU: 30 Years Of Unforgettable Patients and Odd Cases” was a medical history best-seller. In 2024, he co-authored The COVID Diaries: Anatomy of a Contagion As it Happened.

In 1993, he worked as a technical advisor to Harrison Ford and was a role model for the physician character Ford played in the film, The Fugitive.

Comments 46

  1. My oh My. AI will destroy the World folks. Within 5 years we will not have much Medical Help or Drs around AI will run the Medical Profession and our business. Good Luck to those that approve of AI. How about the Lord folks. He is in charge and he has allowed for us to look around and not know what is coming. Christ will be here sooner than we think. AI will destroy our World as we know it today. Companies are teaching their people about AI but not about doing the right thing. I am so tired of this nonsense. John please keep writing and telling the truth. People must wake up.

    1. The pimple faced, 20 plus year old MBAs who make over a million dollars a year running hospitals already use it. Have you tried getting hold of your Dr? Your referred to the ED/ER.
      One rarely gets thru by phone. I have switched to concierge physicians, but that route requires paying each $3k to 5k a year retainer fee. Just like lawyers, but well worth it if you can afford it. My internist allows me to show up at his office with a complaint and if he’s available I see him. If not I usually see him next day.
      There is no question in my mind that there is a subtle form of elder care ‘genocide’ being practice by the today’s corporate practice of medical care, ie withheld care. The BS regarding prostate cancer is one area, ie watch and wait with low grade cancer. New results prove its the wrong approach as many pts have died of so called ‘low grade cancer’.

      1. I agree Thomas. The US Preventive Services Task Force should be – in the interest of full disclosure – relabelled: US Facilitative Prostate Cancer Services Task Force. And the irony? Idiots who blindly supported their conclusions – like former President Biden and his physician – are now paying with their lives for doing so.

  2. Yeah. Let’s see A.I. match this –

    “O, pardon! since a crooked figure may
    Attest in little place a million;
    And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,
    On your imaginary forces work.
    Suppose within the girdle of these walls
    Are now confined two mighty monarchies,
    Whose high upreared and abutting fronts
    The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder:
    Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;
    Into a thousand parts divide on man,
    And make imaginary puissance;”

    Yep, takes a black lesbian woman to do that.

    1. Well done AGAIN sir!!!! Couple of additional thoughts. As I understand it, the people who write the algorithms for AI are the dorky little techies brainwashed by the modern “higher” educational systems. In addition, the Pritzker kids were born without a soul. Look to Penny destroying Harvard and funding Obama, and, of course Jr. who is the ultimate example of a guilty, white privileged white boy.

  3. Good work Doc. And that quote is a great one still to pose to our current Governor. But I doubt it’ll phase him.

    AI. I was just reading about an AI social media website where humans can observe but it’s just the bots speaking to each other. I won’t name the site, nor will I look at it. I don’t want anything man made replacing my ability to think for myself.

    So imagine AI decides humans need to go from planet Earth here. What then? Do we pull their plug? Aren’t they already involved in much of our power and energy sources? Our communications?

    There may be examples of AI improving our life here. Like your Article edits Doc. But God alone blessed us with the ability to think for ourselves. And free will to choose how we live. So I’ll keep making mistakes (I like to learn by doing on my own). I’ll rewrite a draft numerous times. Read it aloud. Make corrections. Til I like how it sounds.

    So if my comments sound a bit goofy in the morning after a JKN article, forgive my human nature as I forgive yours. It won’t be perfect. Just human. And this was not a critique of your writing here Doc. I get your message.

    May God save us from ourselves.

  5. Interesting, but not surprising. I’ve had similar experiences with AI responses my students have submitted [to failing grades; I want to hear their words, not ChatGPT!].
    I’m curious though, could your friend enter the nearly identical quote from the Qur’an 33.36: ‘What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his soul?’ and ID it as a quote from the Qur’an? Would it get the same results?
    I’ve had Muslim students quote the Qur’an in essays on tests many times over the years and, as non-native English speakers, some have used machine translations for the phrase they used. I may need to ask them about this the next time I see some of them.

  6. I would not use medical AI to treat a dog. It is not accurate. For two years AI diagnosed my bilateral elbow pain as a musculoskeletal condition rather than cardiac. I was doing “flys” with dumb bells at the time and I stopped doing them because the musculoskeletal diagnosis. But even after stopping the dumb bells I continued to have a drilling type pain in both elbows when I pushed even an empty shopping cart or pushed the lawn mower.
    After my coronary artery bypass grafts x 3, one cardiologist out of four doctors told me he had seen the bilateral elbow pain once in 30 years caused by cardiac ischemia. That’s who you want to diagnose you, not the AI.
    And to add insult to injury, you can not sue AI for malpractice because it is a tool and not a licensed person or legal entity.
    So in summary, in the future or present, when your medical insurance refers you to Medical AI for a medical condition instead of a live person, refuse!

    2. To add to your elbow comment, lower anterior jaw pain (ischemia again) prompted me to a quad bypass 20 years ago (after ignoring it twice on bitterly cold days)

    3. Well bilateral elbow pain may indeed be musculoskeletal. But depending upon your age and sex the differential diagnosis would clearly have included cardiac ischemia i.e. cardiac pain. Plus the work up would have involved bilateral plain x-rays of your elbows looking for objective signs of musculoskeletal disease such as osteoarthritis. And again, depending upon age – and therefore prevalence of coronary artery disease – a Bruce protocol stress echo treadmill. Yes. There is a lot more to the practice medicine than AS – Artificial Stupidity.

  7. I’m very much enjoying the various articles written by John’s very capable friends. But it seems like we’ve not heard from him directly for some time. Hoping he’s doing OK. Anything his friends and supporters should be praying about?

  8. Those who rely on AI to make their decisions for them are either lazy or fools, or both. What master are they serving – their own intelligence, or a machine? I, for one, would not have changed the opening of that essay just to satisfy some programmer who places his own biases in the program he wrote. AI is just a tool, just like a hammer – both can be used and misused at the same time. As far as I am concerned, Microsoft CoPilot can go away now. It nothing but a pain in the butt.

  9. I 100% agree with concerns about AI having an outsized impact on humanity. That being said, removing “New Testament” reference from the lede does seem like good advice to not present the piece as what some people will consider biased even if it is fact.

    Unfortunately, it seems like most ledes these days stoke the fear, anxiety, and anger in people to draw in those eyeballs for readership #s. While they bring in a steady supply of readers (income), they stoke the tribal schism in our nation.

  10. Cory, thank you for bringing one of the risks of AI to our attention! I have pondered how the Bible intersects with AI and have come to an important conclusion: Genesis 1:27-28 says that God made humans in His Own Image, the Imago Dei! AI is made in the image of fallen men, with the bias and propensities of those particular designers. Hence, it is no surprise that it demonstrates those biases! AI spiritually guides fallen people further from the truth of God by default. We need to be careful, as AI can easily become an idol. Reminds one of Simon & Garfunkel’s Sound if Silence lyrics about the people worshipping the neon sign!

  11. ….Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful. not many were of noble birth.
    Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world to shame those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something….
    1 Corinthians 1:26

  12. Jews, Christians, and Muslims all believe in the same God. It follows that they all must therefore believe that God is real. Artificial intelligence by definition is in fact artificial. It is the creation of mankind and is therefore flawed. Programing AI to have a bias against religion, certain political beliefs, groups of people, or even the Almighty is an apparent risk at this point in time. Big Brother in a machine. A Satan algorithm. A Marxist mechanism. Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. We must guard our souls from them wolves.

  14. Thoughtful and original essay by Dr. Franklin, as always. Reading his valuable perspective on the character of Artificial Intelligence made me reflect on the possibly even more disturbing rise of Artificial Stupidity:

    “It is time for us to do what we have been doing. And that time is every day.”

    “I was born realizing the flaws in the criminal justice system.”

    “It is time for us to do what we have been doing. And that time is every day.”

    “You have to see and smell and feel the circumstances of people to really understand them.”

    Artificial? Maybe, but some 75,000,000 Americans seemed to believe such thinking was real.

  15. One final thought. Recently a FB post was an AI created picture of State Street. Chicago theatre on one side and directly opposite Fields (with a neon marquee yet) and Carson’s next door.
    AI is no gold standard. Much content on FB or other platforms AI generated. Names and places misspelled etc. How can you take it seriously. But those who buy into it ??? God/Yahweh help us.

  16. “Did God say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
    Wily evil sowing confusion, doubt and an unmooring of humanity. A slithering AI will likewise beguile the unwary.

  17. AI is created by evil people. Look who mis backing it. These oligarchs who soak up resources and with a keystroke, put thousands out of work, out of their homes, out of business on a daily basis.

    Doc, you invoke scripture. One does not even have to be religious to appreciate the moral teachings, the values, the love of Christ and his disciples.

    Christ had nothing. He didn’t have a business. He didn’t have a gold course, yacht, plane, island. He gave everything away. He gave his own life for us, if you believe the story, which I know many of out there do.

    How then, can we allow those caught up in this Epstein business to continue being our leaders? Any of them for that matter.

    I see the media and the factions on Twitter contorting themselves into trying to0 make this a partisan issue. These political parties exist only to keep us fighting with each other.

    Both of these parties have engaged in selling out the nation. The Biden crime family and the LLC’s, selling us out for pennies on the dollar. Trump has also sold us out to a certain nation that shall not be named that is blackmailing leaders all over the world.

    Did Marjorie Taylor Greene leave Congress because she wants to rehabilitate her career? Maybe. I cannot say for certain, but if she finally saw that her Christian values do not line up with the leadership in DC, she was right to leave.

    You can see the clips on You Tube where Charlie Kirk was starting to seriously question if America First was maybe a scam, that we are fomenting wars and killing children for no good reason.

    These mega church pastors, the orphanages, the allegations of child sexual abuse. Closet homosexuals, who are married to women being blackmailed to carry out fraud, even murder.

    We know nothing about Thomas Crooks, who had a clear shot at president Trump. The Kirk crime scene was paved over days after his murder, his wife and his organization have been caught in numerous lies, and have been fundraising like hell, even constructing a replica crime scene where people could take photos of where Kirk was killed?

    I used to listen to Gene Burns years ago on WRKO in Boston. He used to read the Declaration of Independence out loud one the air. Have any of you read it recently? Why not check out the Constitution and see how our leaders have torn it to pieces and shat on it for the last 60 or so years.

    Then, go back and read the bible itself and see if any of the values in it line up with society today, our leaders, our institutions.

    My team is better than your team. My oligarch is better than yours. My party is better than yours. My religion is better than yours.

    All used to keep us arguing, fighting, killing, funneling money up to the .1% who are quickly owning EVERYTHING. While we all fight amongst ourselves.

  18. Did we not learn anything from the Terminator movies? A.I. is the first steps leading to “Cyberdyne Systems” and the creation of “Skynet” which is tasked with eliminating the human race when they tried to deactivate it.

  20. Soon AI will replace artists and writers if we allow it to. SAD.

    Do high school kids still write essays, and if so who is to say it was their writing and not a complete AI written essay? When another “intelligence” paints a picture or writes a story, what is to be learned of oneself? So many questions. Look inward folks to find the answers we all need.

  21. Amen and thank you for the article. As in all other computer based tools, it is Garbage In Garbage Out. AI, like every other tool, can be used to benefit and supplement but can not replace what God has engineered. While human beings are fragile and fallible, a computer will never understand, love, compassion, empathy and gut instinct.

  22. Cory. My very influential high school english teacher was also a proto hippie, an artist and an atheist. None the less he had us read and discuss the Book of Job. As he said at the time, the bible contains some of the greatest literature in Western Canon.

    AI confirms the principle: garbage in, garbage out. Much of what AI concludes is based upon Wikipedia, which has a distinct bias and some major structural faults. So think about it. AI “taking over” is basically having Wikipedia surreptitiously commandeering our life of the mind.

    2. Bruce, when my daughter was in high school, she told me about a fellow student who complained to the English teacher about the inequity of some of the essay test questions concerning parallels/references to the Bible in the literature being studied. Some students (including my Sunday school-attending daughter) enjoyed and were quite familiar with many of those Bible stories. Those students presumably had an unfair advantage come test time.

  24. While the US has backed off since Biden lost power, the Europeans still have proscriptive standards governing how AI must be trained to conform to certain… standards of theirs. Plus, the companies developing the systems have their own biases and Shanda’s, as we saw a couple of years ago with Google’s Gemini in an early iteration.

    This will be a huge problem not just in op-Ed writing, but in all areas including hiring and personnel management and science. AI is being defined to destroy independent thought and expression and even action, and anyone lazily using it uncritically for anything not purely technical or quotidian is, frankly, the enemy of the good, whether or not they know it.

  26. I was flying out from O’Hare early a few years ago and it was extremely quiet although the airport was crowded. An almost churchlike silence. I thought “..they’re spending time with their God..”

  28. Great article Dr. Franklin empathizing how AI can be used to censor and discourage the use of anything relating to a religious connotation (especially Christian) depending upon what and who programed the AI program and their objective. The old saying that has been used so well in the past, is “Garbage In, Garage Out” most certainty can also be applied now with AI. Unless the program is completely neutral and unbiased in all respects, which could be next to impossible to imagine happening, the bias and purpose of the company programing it will certainly come through, and it will not function as was the promise of those promoting AI. Just potential another Big Brother watching and directing us all.

    In all the marketing courses that I took in college, I learned how companies, as well as political parties, use Marketing and Journalism to sway the opinion people have and change their thoughts. That is more evident now than ever before. Statistics and facts are used, and abused, to prove what they want. AI might just become another weapon to take down opposing views, products and political opponents unless it is controlled properly to show all views.

    Still the potential to change employment trends and jobs will change drastically in the next 20 years. Those who are prepared and take it seriously will grow with it, while too many will fail if not prepared. In 1850, 60% of Americans lived and worked on farms. That dropped to 40% in 1900. Today, only 2% of Americans live and work on farms. AI has the same potential to change our workforces drastically and a lot quicker than it what happened in Agriculture.

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