Stepping up as Christ's kingdom priest: A Call to Repentance

Let's stand before the Lord in the gap on behalf of the digital realm (Ezekiel 22:30)

This is a followup of the previous post: Redeeming the Digital Realm: Building Spiritual Altars

A Call to Confession, Repentance, and Courage

“I looked for someone among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land…” — Ezekiel 22:30

We rightly celebrate the breakthroughs of AI and the many ways technology can solve problems and bless lives. Yet at the same time, there is an urgent need for God’s people to stand in the gap for the digital realm—a realm increasingly shaping how billions think, relate, work, believe, and live.

Jesus warned that the thief comes “to steal and kill and destroy,” while He came that we may have life to the full (John 10:10).

Wherever technology diminishes human dignity, exploits vulnerability, enslaves attention, distorts truth, or weakens genuine relationships, Christ’s people cannot remain silent.

But before we point toward Big Tech and say, “They have sinned,” we must first learn from Daniel.

Learning from Daniel: We Begin With “We”

In Daniel 9:3–19, Daniel did not stand apart from his people as their accuser. He humbled himself, fasted, prayed, and confessed:

“We have sinned and done wrong…” — Daniel 9:5

His prayer gives us a pattern:

We humble ourselves and seek the Lord.We acknowledge, “We have sinned.”

We confess that we have not listened.

We recognize God’s righteousness and our failure.

We appeal to His mercy, not our own righteousness.

And we cry, “Lord, listen! Lord, forgive! Lord, hear and act!” (Daniel 9:19)

For Christians whom God has placed in technology, this is where our intercession must begin.

We Have Not Stepped Up to Our Priestly Call

As Christ’s kingdom priests in the digital realm—and together as His Body, His visible presence in the world—we are called to make Christ known through how we live and serve:

• guarding truth

• exposing deception

• shining light in darkness

• and representing the heart and ways of God wherever He has positioned us.

Yet too often, we have remained silent when courage was required.

We have compromised with industry practices because they were profitable, convenient, or widely accepted.

We have feared losing careers, influence, funding, access, or reputation.

Even within the Church, our embrace of AI can become dangerously uncritical. Pastors are increasingly being taught to generate sermons with AI, risking the proclamation of words the Lord has not spoken—a form of false divination—while far less attention is given to seeking the Lord, discerning His voice, and ministering in total dependence upon the Holy Spirit.

God warned Ezekiel about those who spoke as though God had spoken when He had not:

“My hand will be against the prophets who see false visions and utter lying divinations.” — Ezekiel 13:9

Technology may assist ministry. But it must never become a substitute for hearing from God – the only Source of divine revelation.

So before confessing the sins of the technology industry, we confess our own:

Lord, forgive us for failing to stand in the gap. Forgive us for remaining silent. Forgive us for compromising when You called us to courage. Turn us back to Your ways.

We Confess the Sins of Our Industry

And like Daniel, we do not merely say “they.”

We say “we.”

We have idolized intelligence.We have exalted human and machine intelligence while neglecting the fear of the Lord, confusing greater intelligence with greater wisdom.

We have acted in pride.We have pursued the ability to know, predict, imitate, create, and control without sufficient humility about what it means to be human beings created in the image of God.

We have served greed and mammon.We have allowed valuation, market dominance, engagement, and profit to take precedence over human dignity, privacy, agency, relationships, and flourishing.

We have commoditized people.We have turned human attention, behavior, creativity, relationships, and personal data into economic resources to be extracted and monetized.

We have normalized surveillance.We have built digital architectures in which people surrender ever more information about themselves while receiving less control over how that information is used.

We have manipulated attention.We have engineered engagement through compulsion, outrage, comparison, fear, and psychological vulnerability because attention generates revenue.

We have failed the next generation.We have deployed technologies at enormous scale among children and young people without adequately protecting their attention, formation, agency, relationships, and spiritual lives, with poor quality data to rush to AGI.

We have counterfeited relationship.We increasingly design AI to speak and behave as though it were human, encouraging emotional attachment and dependence while blurring the distinction between simulated interaction and genuine relationship.

We have confused intelligence with wisdom.We have mistaken fluency for truth, information for knowledge, prediction for understanding, and intelligence for wisdom.

We have centralized extraordinary power.We have allowed a small number of corporations to determine how intelligence used by billions is created, trained, governed, and deployed.

We have weakened human agency.We have celebrated automation and convenience without sufficiently asking what happens when machines increasingly decide, recommend, remember, write, speak, and act for us.

We have failed in stewardship.We have asked, “Can we build it?” and “Can we monetize it?” before asking, “Should we build it?” and “Will this help human beings flourish?”

And we have remained silent when we should have spoken.

This Is Our Esther Moment

Christians are already positioned throughout the technology industry—in companies, universities, laboratories, investment firms, governments, startups, churches, and institutions. Perhaps this is our Esther moment.

The question is no longer simply:

Will Christians learn how to use AI?

The deeper question is:

Will the kingdom priests God has positioned in the digital realm stand in the gap?

• Will we speak when others remain silent?

• Will we challenge architectures that diminish human dignity?

• Will we defend children and the vulnerable?

• Will we insist that technological capability does not automatically confer moral authority?

• Will we hold powerful institutions accountable when profit conflicts with human flourishing?

• Will we refuse compromise when compromise is rewarded?

• And most importantly:

• Will we build differently?

Ezekiel 22:30 does not only speak of standing in the gap. God was looking for someone who would also “build up the wall.”

• Intercession must lead to action.

• Repentance must lead to obedience.

• Discernment must lead to different architecture.

Lord, Hear and Act

Before we ask God to redeem the digital realm, perhaps the Church must first repent for how we have participated in its brokenness, benefited from its compromises, remained silent before its powers, and failed to stand in the gap.

Like Daniel, we come before God saying:

Lord, we have sinned.

• We have pursued intelligence without wisdom.

• Innovation without discernment.

• Profit without stewardship.

• Data without truth

• Engagement without flourishing.

• Artificial relationships while real relationships weaken.

• Centralized power while human agency diminishes.

• Convenience while responsibility disappears.

Lord, forgive us.

Raise up kingdom priests in the digital realm who will

• seek Your wisdom

• speak Your truth

• confront injustice

• resist compromise

• protect those made in Your image

• and have the courage to build differently.

Lord, listen.Lord, forgive.Lord, hear.Lord, act.

And when You look for someone to stand in the gap for the digital realm, may Your people answer:

Here we are. Send us.