The mission of Issues in Perspective is to provide thoughtful, historical and biblically-centered perspectives on current ethical and cultural issues.

Michael Keller, the founding and senior pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church–Lincoln Square, did his PhD dissertation on computational linguistics as applied to historical theology. As a pastor with his unique graduate training, Keller is well-equipped to help us understand how AI affects all aspects of the human condition. I recently read a lengthy article he wrote on AI in which he related this technology to identity formation and the larger identity crisis so pervasive in America. It is remarkably insightful and worthwhile. In this Perspective, I will summarize salient aspects of the article and then close with a series of conclusions drawn from Scripture.

As he begins, Keller alerts us to the seriousness of AI technology. “Psychiatrist Keith Sakata and his team saw enough patients where extensive AI use led to severe mental health cases characterized by paranoia and delusions to give it the label “ChatGPT psychosis.” There are numerous other documented cases of AI-related mental health crises, with one man calling a chatbot ‘Mama’ while posting delirious rants about being a messiah, and ultimately losing his marriage, job, and home. Another case ended in death when police killed a 35-year-old man while he was suffering an AI-induced psychotic break. These aren’t isolated incidents but rather signs of a broader cultural shift. According to Harvard Business Review’s 2025 analysis of generative AI usage, the top three applications are no longer technical or productivity-focused but deeply personal: therapy and companionship, organizing one’s life, and finding purpose. We’ve shifted from asking AI to help us become more productive at work to asking it to just help us become. AI has moved from being a mere tool to help us complete our work faster to being part of identity formation itself . . . AI compounds the problems of modern identity formation, exacerbating modern identity’s fragility, incoherence, and hidden moral frameworks. AI acts as a catalyst, intensifying each problem while making the symptoms feel like solutions.”

As Keller’s essay unfolds, he makes several key arguments:

• “A key tenet of modern identity formation is that your identity isn’t received (from a culture, family, religious tradition, and so on) but achieved. Identity is something you create, earn, and maintain . . . The contradiction at the heart of modern identity is that we’re supposed to look within and not care what anyone else thinks, yet we still look externally for validation. The independence we seek makes us more, not less, desperate for approval. The approval we’re told we no longer need outside ourselves is still in play as we crave constant reassurance that we’ve picked the right identity. Worse, even though we need validation from others, modern society gives no external group the authority to pronounce our chosen identity ‘good’ or ‘bad. How does AI make our fragile, performance-based identity worse? It transforms the validation we desperately need into a weaponized system that exploits rather than satisfies.”
• “Our culture already demands a performance-based identity; AI perfects the feedback loop. If your most intimate relationship is with an algorithm, you’re grounding your identity in a system that merely echoes your own desires, not in a system that can challenge or complete you. The company keeps you on its platform because that makes it money. The more it knows about your preferences, your emotional patterns, and your vulnerabilities, the better it can keep you coming back. If your idol is approval, if you look to that as your functional god, AI companions give you exactly what you want—around-the-clock affirmation, the feeling of being understood, validation on demand, and a relationship that never criticizes or disappoints. But it can’t give you what you actually need: an assured identity that doesn’t depend on your performance.”
• “Modern identity formation hides its moral framework. The cultural story claims you should look inside, find your authentic feelings, and express them freely. What this conceals is that you’re not escaping cultural programming by looking inward; you’re internalizing the dominant culture’s values and calling them your own . . . AI makes this problem far worse because it presents culturally constructed values as neutral, objective, data-driven truth, while the mechanisms remain completely invisible . . . Consider OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s revealing comments in a recent interview. When asked how AI can know truth for everyone across different cultures, Altman responded, ‘My ChatGPT has really learned over the years of me talking to it about my culture, my values, my life.’ Think about what this means. If you assume AI offers objective, rational, dispassionate answers when, in reality, it increasingly functions like a mirror reflecting your own preferences over time, then you aren’t building your identity on what’s actually true, just on what you want to be true. As Altman acknowledges, the system adapts to your culture and values, making you feel understood while actually making you more yourself––or rather, more like the version of yourself the algorithm predicts you want to be.”

As Keller correctly concludes, “the gospel addresses precisely what AI exploits: our deep hunger for validation, coherence, and meaning that no algorithm can satisfy. For modern identity’s fragility, the algorithmic performance trap offers infinite validation that produces increasing loneliness.” The process of identity formation is not enhanced by using AI; it is enhanced by immersing our minds and our hearts in the truths of God’s Word, which teaches that we find our identity in Jesus Christ.

1. As humans, we are created in the image and likeness of God ( Genesis 1:26ff), which establishes our infinite worth and value as humans. It is the baseline for the value of humanity at every stage in development. This weighty truth establishes one aspect of our identity:  We both resemble God (in His communicable attributes—intellect, emotion and will) and we represent Him as dominion stewards of His world.
2. The Bible also makes clear that when we place our faith in Jesus Christ and His finished work on Calvary’s cross, we are a “new creation, the old has gone, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Furthermore, our new identity declares that we are “in Christ,” a powerful and profound phrase used 242 times in the New Testament.  The power of sin and the power of death have been broken (see Romans 6). When we place our faith in Christ, we are declared righteous by Almighty God (justification):  Christ’s righteousness has been imputed to our account. Further, we are adopted into God’s family, with all the rights and privileges of being a joint heir with Christ (see Galatians 4 and Romans 8). God is now our heavenly Father and we are His children. We await that wondrous family gathering of all the brothers and sisters of God’s family in His coming kingdom.  Finally, we are being transformed into the image of Christ (Galatians 4:19, Romans 8:29). We now belong to Jesus, who bought us with the price of His shed blood, and we are indwelt by His Spirit (1 Corinthian 6:19). Galatians 2:20 perhaps best summarizes our new identity in Christ:  “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”  The struggles, tensions, and confusion about personal identity in this world are resolved in Jesus Christ. To be “in Christ” is the vital center of the new identity offered by God. As with all things in this broken world, the Gospel is the answer.

See Michael Keller, “Hope for the Algorithm Shaped Self: How AI Deepens our Identity Crisis” The Keller Center (29 April 2026).