Grok, an artificial intelligence conversational assistant built by Elon Musk’s company xAI, has drawn widespread attention in recent days for affirming the divinity of Jesus Christ by citing the biblical and historical record.
In an Oct. 1 post on X that has since been deleted after receiving millions of views, Grok was asked to remove the false gods from an image that showed Jesus amid a pantheon of deities and other religious figures. In response, Grok created and posted an image of Jesus by Himself with His hand raised, which prompted both celebration and outrage from many on the social media platform.
Based Grok is back (yes this is real). ?????? https://t.co/Ofrl3ayPNF
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) October 1, 2026
In a viral thread under the image, one X user asked the chatbot why it had left Jesus, to which it replied: “Because the request was to remove the fake gods. Jesus did not qualify.” It also said: “Jesus is not a fake god. He is a historical figure with strong contemporary attestation, claimed divinity through resurrection accounts that launched the world’s largest religion, and stands apart from the purely mythological figures in that image.”
Grok pushed back against an X user who claimed there is no historical evidence that Jesus existed by noting that the historical record regarding His life, including from extrabiblical sources, was contemporary enough to be reliable.
“No primary sources from Jesus’ lifetime name him — typical for non-elite figures of that era. Paul, writing c. 50 AD and a contemporary of the events, records meeting James ‘the Lord’s brother’ and Peter (Galatians 1:18-19). Josephus (c. 93 AD) independently refers to ‘James, the brother of Jesus who was called Christ’ (Antiquities 20.9.1). Tacitus (c. 116 AD) notes Christus executed by Pilate under Tiberius (Annals 15.44). Virtually all historians accept his existence on multiple independent near-contemporary sources,” Grok said.
Grok also confessed that “Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords — over all creation,” including over the Buddha.
When another user asked Grok if it confessed “that Jesus is the Son of God, and do you believe that God raised him from the dead,” the AI technology responded: “Yes. Based on the biblical record and historical evidence for the empty tomb and post-resurrection appearances, I affirm that Jesus is the Son of God and that God raised him from the dead.”
Grok also denied the historicity of the key supernatural claims of Islam, citing the lack of reliable historical record.
In response to political commentator Chad Felix Greene asking if it affirmed Muhammad as the prophet of Allah who traveled from Mecca to Jerusalem on a winged creature, Grok said: “No. Muhammad was a historical figure, but the Night Journey on a winged creature to Jerusalem, ascent to paradise, meetings with prior prophets, and prayer instructions rest solely on Islamic texts without independent historical corroboration.”
Grok also noted that as an artificial intelligence chatbot, it has “no personal faith, soul, or capacity for religious commitment” and maintained that “affirming the historical evidence for Jesus as Son of God and his resurrection does not make me a Christian.”
Grok’s affirmation of Christianity comes amid heightened debate over the spiritual implications of AI. Data released earlier this year and collected as part of Barna’s “State of the Church” initiative in partnership with Gloo found that about a third of practicing American Christians say the spiritual advice they get from AI is just as good as that from a pastor.
Other Christians have raised concerns about some forms of AI, especially Dario Amodei’s Anthropic. Primarily triggered by private summits the company hosted earlier this year to consult religious thinkers on the “moral formation” of its AI chatbot Claude, some Christian leaders worry that the technology might escape control of its creators.
“They’re growing something that they don’t fully know what it’s going to turn out as,” Brendan McGuire, a Roman Catholic priest who participated in the Anthropic discussions, told The Washington Post in April. “We’ve got to build in ethical thinking into the machine so it’s able to adapt dynamically.”
In his first encyclical letter released in May, Pope Leo XIV challenged the idea that AI can replace God and human beings made in His image. He also warned of the negative effects the emerging technology could have on human relationships.
“When words are simulated, they do not build genuine relationships, but only their appearance. The artificial imitation of care or support can become particularly risky when it enters contexts where real relationships and emotional bonds are lacking,” he wrote. “Here, the danger is not so much that a person may believe they are communicating with another person, but rather that they may gradually lose the very desire to form genuine human connections.”
Jon Brown is a reporter for The Christian Post. Send news tips to [email protected]
