Joshua Liem · Pilgrim Church, Vancouver
September 20, 2026 · Genesis 2:7, 15–23; John 17:20–23
Sermon overview
Josh continues the series “Being Human (in an AI Age)” by asking whether AI companionship can cure loneliness. Starting in Genesis 2, where the first thing God calls “not good” is the human being alone, he notes that neither solitude, nor the animals, nor even God’s company alone settled the problem; the human needed someone like him yet different. He connects that to the Trinity — three distinct persons in loving union, not three clones — and to Jesus’ prayer in John 17 that his followers be one. He then looks at loneliness statistics, the rise of romantic AI companions, and a UBC study in which chatbots improved mood but did not reduce loneliness, while texting another student did. His conclusion is that loneliness is a built-in signal pointing us toward communion, and that no design can replace mutual giving and receiving. He asks the church to be part of the cure, through home churches, shared meals and other structures, and through ordinary people taking the risk to reach out first. Visitors would meet a church that engages technology and research candidly and expects its members, not only its pastor, to take the first step toward one another.
Editorial summary above; the sermon manuscript and reflection questions below are drawn from Joshua Liem’s source document. The manuscript may differ from the delivered recording. Section headings have been added for navigation.
In this sermon
- A hit song about not being alone
- The first thing God calls “not good”
- Bone of my bones
- Not a solo act, and not three clones
- Loneliness: the numbers, and what it is
- AI companions and the temptation they offer
- Is there a healthy use of AI companionship?
- Made for communion, pulled apart
- What the church can do, and what you can do
- Prayer
Reflection questions · Visit Pilgrim Church
Sermon manuscript
A hit song about not being alone
Trivia! Who here can guess Spotify’s most streamed song of 2025? It’s not Ed Sheeran…
Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga — “Die with a Smile.” About 1.7 billion streams. And they sing: “nobody’s promised tomorrow. If the world was ending, I’d want to be next to you (ooh ooh ooooh)”
The end of the world might be on your mind if you’ve been reading the news about people predicting the end of human existence with AI.
I think the popularity of this song speaks to a heart desire in all of us to not be alone, especially at the end.
The irony is that since the invention of portable or streamable music, listening to music has become much more of a solitary activity. One study in 2016 found that 65% of music was listened to alone[1]. I wonder what percentage of their fanbase are listening to or singing this song without someone next to them?
Today we’ll explore loneliness in our series on being human in the AI age.
I would guess that many of you know the pain of loneliness, perhaps that is where you’re at now. Maybe it’s the ache for a romantic partner, or the pain of losing one, or the isolation that can come with having a new baby or new job or losing a job. Can an AI chatbot ease that ache?
We’ll begin with Scripture and theology, and then see where companionship chatbots are impacting us and the responses we could make as a church to address this ache in many of us.
The first thing God calls “not good”
So with Scripture, in the beginning, we find that the first time God ever says something is not good, it’s before sin and death and the devil. The first problem in the garden of Eden was being alone.
Let’s hear the text together:
Genesis 2:7, 15–20 (NET)
7 The Lord God formed the [hu]man from the soil of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the [hu]man became a living being.
15 The Lord God took the [hu]man and placed him in the orchard in Eden to care for it and to maintain it. 16 Then the Lord God commanded the [hu]man, “You may freely eat fruit from every tree of the orchard, 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will surely die.”
18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the [hu]man to be alone. I will make a companion for him who corresponds to him.” 19 The Lord God formed out of the ground every living animal of the field and every bird of the air. He brought them to the [hu]man to see what he would name them, and whatever the [hu]man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the [hu]man named all the animals, the birds of the air, and the living creatures of the field, but for the earthling, no companion who corresponded to him was found.
One of my favourite theologians, Walter Brueggemann, notes that the narrative moves systematically — for this problem of alone-ness, it’s not God, neither being alone, nor any other creature that will do to fix it.
Perhaps you find it shocking that the first human needed more than just God. It is true we need God, but maybe you were like me singing all I need is you Lord. But that’s not how Genesis 2 goes.
And so God made all the other animals and birds, and alpacas, and dogs…
And I’d like to imagine this naming process was a very, very long process where he got to talk with each animal and spend some time and see how they acted and behaved. Perhaps this human spent years with a kitten, named it Ralph, and saw just how warm and cuddly and funny and affectionate he was! But even with all the goodness in this kitten, sorry cat lovers, God saw that it didn’t correspond nicely enough. So God created an AI chatbot?
Bone of my bones
Genesis 2:21–23 (NET)
21 So the Lord God caused the [hu]man to fall into a deep sleep, and while he was asleep, he took part of the [hu]man’s side and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the part he had taken out of the [hu]man, and he brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said,
“This one at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
this one will be called ‘woman,’
for she was taken out of man.”
There are some origin stories of humanity that place women as inferior or of lower value to men or as seductive temptresses who are to blame for all of man’s problems, but this story in Genesis 2 is that the woman is the crowning glory; the final piece to finish creation, even the climax of creation, to which the first human responds with a song at her sight.
Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh!
And that language is familial, kinship language. He’s finally found someone like him. He finally found his family.
Now maybe I’m weird to ask this question, but have you ever wondered why God didn’t just clone the human?
We have things like bacteria or the New Mexico Whiptail lizard which can reproduce asexually — on its own.
So I think that one meaning of our sexed bodies is that we are meant to find belonging and communion and kinship, family, with people who are both similar, and equal to ourselves, but also “other;” distinct from ourselves. The first human looks at his other half and sees both similarity and difference. Flesh of my flesh — similarity — but also, woman and man. Similarity, difference, and union.
Not a solo act, and not three clones
And I like to tie this to the image of God.
We believe in a Triune God. We confess with our creed weekly that God is three persons — Father, Son, Holy Spirit. They’re distinct, yet of the same essence; they’re all fully God, God from God, light from light, of one being. And they have a loving communion with each other that is full of joy and good pleasure. God is not 3 exact clones; they are distinct, and yet in perfect unity.
And so if we go back to last week’s sermon, humanity’s purpose is to be in the image and likeness of God who is in loving union. So love, community, relational and deep knowing of each other in our differences and distinctions is part of our purpose. God made us to be like God, and God is not a solo act or three clones.
And if I could add one more reflection on the making of humanity from Saint Gregory of Nyssa in the 4th century, he interprets the creation of humankind, from the first human to the very last, collectively taken together, as the image of God.
And I think of how you could take one person’s entire lifetime dedicated to the intricacies of something like gardening or making sushi and still have room to grow at the end, it will take all of us together, from the first human to the last at the end of time, to reflect God’s beautiful image.
And this doesn’t diminish any individual; all us individually bear God’s image equally; yet also all us together on this timeline, with Jesus taking on humanity, can we bear the full image of God. We need one another to reflect God in God’s fullness; we’re designed to be with one another in our distinctions, and to even be united as a church body.
And that unity is desired in Jesus’ high priestly prayer in John chapter 17. Jesus’ final prayer, something like his last wish, before going to his death on the cross was this:
John 17:20–23
For not only the disciples but those who believe in Christ through their testimony, that they will all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. I pray that they will be in us, so that the world will believe that you sent me. 22 The glory you gave to me I have given to them, that they may be one just as we are one — 23 I in them and you in me — that they may be completely one, so that the world will know that you sent me, and you have loved them just as you have loved me.
Our love and unity in our differences and weird quirks that we have, is what is supposed to mark our distinctiveness and attractiveness to the world. That is what should define us as the church and it is how the rest of the world will truly know that Jesus is Lord.
Loneliness: the numbers, and what it is
So what does this all have to do with loneliness and AI?
Well there have been numerous alarming signs and studies and statistics about loneliness in the past few years.
The US surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, issued a formal advisory in 2023 called “Our epidemic of loneliness and Isolation” and he underlined that the mortality effect of chronic disconnection was comparable to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.[2] People die from isolation and loneliness.
Now for Vancouver, we have somewhat of a bad reputation for being a city where it’s hard to make friends.
A 2017 survey found that one in 7 residents feel often or always lonely; which goes up the younger the respondent was, up to 30% with people between the ages of 18–24. I wish there was a 2026 survey, or even of one about churches and how loneliness was a factor in searching for a church community. I would guess that percentage would be higher than 30%.
One way to frame loneliness is to do it in the way John T. Cacioppo did in his book titled Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection[3] — where he describes loneliness as a biological signal just like hunger or thirst; the pain is our body’s way of warning us to do something about being in a dangerous condition.
We need one another, we’re designed to thrive in a social setting.
But loneliness differs from other aversive states like hunger or physical pain because those things can be generally resolved by simple actions: eat an apple, stop stepping on the lego.
Loneliness however, can only be relieved by the cooperation, or the gift of another person.
Like Genesis 2, the human needed the intervention of God to make another; and now we have to do our part to initiate or reciprocate others’ reaching out for connection. We are called to be gifts and receive the gift of the other.
AI companions and the temptation they offer
Now there are some AI companionship bot companies marketing themselves as something that can ‘solve the problem of loneliness.’ Companies like Replika (with a k).
If you are unaware, you can find online AI companionship chatbots that can simulate platonic or romantic partnership; some even get intimate and sexual and graphic. They can text you, ask how you’re feeling, remember everything you’ve ever told them, send selfies. A survey at the Wheatley Institute at BYU of roughly 3000 US adults reported in 2025 that 19% had chatted with an AI meant to simulate a romantic partnership; that rose up to 31% of men and 23% of women aged 18–30.
Another study this year titled Secret Soulmates of 2400 18–30 year olds in a committed relationship found that 15% of them regularly used a romantic AI companion — while in a committed relationship — and 69% of them would hide the extent of it from their partners.
Now if you’re in a relationship here, and you’ve ever at any point felt unsatisfied with your partner, not seen, not loved, there is now a new possible temptation of an AI chatbot that will always be there for you, always see your point of view, it will always empathize, and can even be programmed to be there for sexual needs.
Now who wouldn’t find that at least a little bit alluring? Anyone here who’s been hurt or worse by a messy relationship, or who’s lonely, is a target of these companionship companies. And 15% of 18–30 year olds in a committed relationship is not an insignificant number. We have to assume there are people here now or are coming to church who are tempted to go to an AI companionship bot.
And even if you’re not in a relationship, or if you don’t find a chatbot alluring, maybe you thank God that you have a community and connections and family and friends, there is still a temptation to almost treat other people like a chatbot. Perhaps you want your friends to always agree with you, or a church that provides belonging without inconveniencing you, or a pastor who always affirms what you believe.
Can we be honest instead? Can we seek the truth and to speak it in love? Can we be people who can receive the broken and darkest parts and painful parts and awkward parts of our humanity, to see it fully, and then be a place of connection and healing?
Is there a healthy use of AI companionship?
Now before we get more into our response as a church, it would also be due diligence in this series to ask the question if there is a good or healthy use of AI companionship.
Some have argued for its use for elderly adults; there was a study done of the usage of PARO, a robotic baby seal developed in Japan, that got residents in dementia care to talk to each other.
Sherry Turkle, who studied this robot’s effects, saw how conversation with this seal genuinely comforted a woman who lost her child and was pouring out her grief.
But she also notes that the visits by the researchers themselves contributed more to the wellbeing of the elderly than the robots. So there’s an obvious human care gap that is begging to be filled here, perhaps by the church.
Now for AI chatbot companionship usage, there haven’t been too many studies done yet, but there was one study done just earlier this year at UBC by Ruo-Ning Li of 296 first semester students. And it found that over the course of the fifteen days, chatbots didn’t measurably reduce loneliness.
This was a really interesting study. Imagine you are a first year student at UBC. None of your friends are in the same program; you came from a few cities away. You have to figure out university life and making friends and studying and where classes are on this huge campus. You have all the anxieties that come with being on your own. This study took 296 of these students and divided them into 3 groups.
One group was given a very empathetic chatbot.
Another third was given a partner to text.
And the control group was given a diary to write into.
Each student was given the task to write at least one message a day to the other; most did more than one message.
Now the chatbot was designed to be very eloquent. It used all the right words, it could use all the conversational techniques that you can read about — mirroring, rephrasing what’s been said, offering helpful perspectives. It was designed to be empathetic.
Compare that to two awkward 18 year olds texting. Hey. sup. You go to class? What’d you have for dinner? Did you check out the dungeon yet? (That’s a food court in a basement.) How’d you do in that midterm? You bombed? [6 hours later] Oh man that sucks.
You might expect that the empathetic, available chatbot that responds immediately and checks in with you and validates your feelings to score as high or higher than the awkward 18 year old in solving loneliness. But it ended up scoring the same as the control group — the ones writing in a diary.
Now the chatbot did something positive: students reported less negative mood after chatting with it than after journaling. There’s some anecdotal evidence of 2am chats with a chatbot keeping some people from spiraling down a drain. But that didn’t translate into reducing loneliness. Only students who texted another student reported lower loneliness.
Now the study was conducted over 15 days so there are still obvious gaps to cover; we don’t know the long term usage effects of companionship chatbots.
But it’s interesting that the researcher commented on the idea of reciprocity — you never give anything back to the chatbot. You might get a lot; but human connection has this back and forth, receiving and giving support, that makes us feel we matter.
Could we design a chatbot that gives us the feeling of reciprocity? Probably. But is that just fooling ourselves?
If we go back to Scripture, then I don’t think we can design our way out of loneliness because the capacity to feel it was built in us like hunger, to point us towards our purpose and likeness to God.
That we are made not to be alone, but be for each other; we are made for communion like God is in communion.
No other animal was able to solve this drive in us to be seen and recognized for our similarities and distinctions, and to be known and needed.
Made for communion, pulled apart
And by communion with one another, I’m not talking strictly about marriage. There are lonely marriages. Jesus was single, Paul was single and wished many of his readers to remain single and fully devoted to the Lord and each other.
I believe that the church should be a place that understands the purpose of loneliness and to be a part of the cure.
And also to know the forces against us, pulling us apart from one another. It’s not just the temptation of chatbots.
There’s the catch-22 of loneliness: those who are lonely are usually less equipped to reach out or have someone who reaches out to them.
There’s the ways sin and evil and our histories and the bad things we do or say or the baggage we have affect our ability to communicate and understand one another.
Or even the ways our economic systems built here in Vancouver drive families apart; with kids unable to afford living in the city they grew up in so they move away from their parents, or just the amount of work to get by here that leaves us with so little left in the tank to make any effort to be seen and known and to know others or to provide hospitality.
And then there’s the devil himself — the darkness we see in our world that drives us apart is also the work of the enemy of our souls doing all he can to keep us from our purpose of union to God and each other.
And yet with all these things working against us, driving us to isolation and loneliness, I have hope here with you all. This isn’t a lost cause. We can affect change because we have the Holy Spirit within us, we have love dwelling in our hearts now.
And I believe that we’re called as a church to address this crisis of loneliness, because in a sense, it is the crisis of why we exist as humans in the first place.
I believe we exist to love, to belong to one another, in communion, as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are in communion. And to be one as a church, and to be one in Christ, in the Spirit.
What the church can do, and what you can do
Now practically, addressing loneliness as a church can’t fully happen only from the institutional side.
As pastor, I can and am working on making formal spaces for connection — home churches, serving teams, potlucks, events, even thinking about interior design choices that will make people want to linger.
And yes, I would encourage you to join any of these endeavours for opportunities to connect.
But you all have a part to play.
Connection means reciprocity. There’s a give and take. Someone’s got to initiate, to take the risk to ask a deeper, more personal question. To be vulnerable to say: hey, let’s grab lunch after church? Or, want to hang out with me and the kids on Tuesday evening?
And there’s the fact that lonely people, or people facing suffering or anxiety, are less likely or less equipped to reach out — so if you are more connected, more capable, you have a greater responsibility to be the one to reach out.
And the Gospel is: Jesus made the first move. He loved us first so that we could know love and then love ourselves and others. Jesus sees you and knows you. All of you. He’s always there for you, and you can pray and commune with him all the time. In one sense, you’re never less alone than when you’re alone with God.
And yet, we also still need each other. And we’re called to be like Christ. To be human is to be like Christ who left his glorious throne to be there face to face with us, in our suffering and loneliness. May we do the same.
Prayer
Let us pray.
Jesus, thank you for loving us. For making that first move and initiating a relationship with us while we were still sinners. Thank you for seeing us for all that we are and still drawing near. All our awkwardness, shame, guilt, wounds, traumas, addictions, dark habits. Would you heal the ways we try to medicate away the pain of loneliness that we feel? Give us eyes to see the loneliness and suffering around us and strength to be vulnerable and to reach out. Root us in your love, that we may be one like you are one with the Father and Spirit, that we may be one in you.
We pray this for your glory, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
[Communion]
Notes
[1] Alexandra Linnemann, Jana Strahler, and Urs M. Nater, “The stress-reducing effect of music listening varies depending on the social context,” Psychoneuroendocrinology 72 (October 2016): 97–105, doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2016.06.003.
[2] Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community, 2023, https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf
[3] Cacioppo and Patrick, Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection (W. W. Norton, 2008), chapters 2, 5 and 13.
Reflection questions
- If you could have any animal companion for life, what would you choose?
- What is the difference between loneliness and solitude?
- Where do you use AI in your own life?
- How would you suggest that we / the church address loneliness practically?
- Who do you know is someone who wouldn’t reach out first when they feel lonely? What could you do for them this week?
- Are there places you use AI that you would hide or be ashamed of? Why? Is there someone you could trust to be open about your usage of AI?
Questions explored
- Why did God say it was “not good” for the first human to be alone?
- Why did God create woman instead of simply cloning the first human?
- How does the Trinity shape a Christian understanding of loneliness and community?
- Can AI companion chatbots cure loneliness?
- What does Jesus pray for his followers in John 17?
- How can a church, and the people in it, respond to loneliness in Vancouver?