The Gospel Coalition received a grant of $200K to speak out and create content against the present and future dangers of AI, according to a recent report in
Effort News. Founded in 2014, the
Future of Life Institute is a left-wing nonprofit organization whose mission is to “steer transformative technology towards benefiting life and away from extreme large-scale risks,” with an emphasis on opposing “developing or deploying AI technologies that pose large-scale and extreme risk to humanity.”
Far from being measured, critics have accused them of promoting hysteria and baseless impending apocalyptic scenarios as a result of the use of AI.
Future of Life Institute is one of the groups that have been plying religious NGOs like seminaries and religious-affinity groups with grants in exchange for pronouncements and statements against AI, including awarding 16 grants in 2026 totaling $1,560,276.
Within the Protestant stream of recipients, some of the winners of these grants include World Council of Churches, American Shield, Wheaton College, Lausanne Movement, Project Imago Dei, and The Gospel Coalition.
According to the grant page on FLI’s website, The Gospel Coalition received $200,000.00 for addressing theologically sound use of AI in its Silicon Spiritualities podcast, chiefly, with the assurance that it will be a topic at the Keller Center Annual Fellows retreat, the TGC Women’s Conference, and various ministry leader training sessions.
Michael Graham, the Program Director for The Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics, is overseeing the grant project.The grant was announced on May 12 and the first episode of the “Silicon Spiritualities” podcast was released on July 13.
Hosted by ‘Biblical Critical Theory’ author Christopher Watkins, the show features a rotating guest list of TGC mainstays, such as Rachel Gilson, Michael Keller, Brett McCracken, and Michael Graham. They have released 8 episodes so far, with metrics on YouTube ranging from a high of 2,000 listeners for episode 8, to 621 for episode 6.
As far as we can see, there is no disclosure on TGC’s website that they received a grant for this effort, or that its creation was funded by an outside anti-AI organization.
In the same vein, TGC released “Our Line in the Sand on AI: TGC’s Missional Opportunity,” last month, reportedly one of the deliverables.
They also announced the release of a new book, The AI Apocalypse, featuring all the guests from the podcast.
Notably, TGC has also posted seven articles in the last two weeks warning about the dangers of AI, making it unclear how much of focus on AI simply reflects all the writers’ shared preexisting views, or the fruit of a narrative funded by outside sources.
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For a helpful discussion on the shortfalls of TGC’s AI position, see this article by Jason Swan Clark.
