2026 Fall Symposium - Perspectives on AI in Spiritual Care

Registration Now Open!

Earn 6.5 CE's (6.5-hours)

Overview:

Artificial intelligence has arrived in healthcare, and chaplains are navigating its implications from every angle of the theological, ethical, and clinical spectrum. On one end stand those who regard AI use in spiritual care as a principled violation — a category error that commodifies the sacred encounter, substitutes algorithmic process for human presence, and risks reducing the sacred work of spiritual companionship to a productivity metric. On the other end stand those who embrace AI as a tool for liberation: automating documentation, streamlining referrals, and managing administrative burden precisely so that chaplains can arrive more fully present at the bedside, with more energy, more time, and more attentiveness than the crushing weight of institutional workflow might otherwise permit. Between these poles lies a wide, complex middle — chaplains who are cautious, curious, or simply uncertain how to weigh their own discomfort against the potential benefits. This symposium does not seek to resolve that tension prematurely. It seeks to provide a rigorous, theologically grounded, and practically honest examination it deserves — drawing on international research, emerging scholarship, clinical ethics, and the lived experience of chaplains already navigating these questions in their daily work. The Symposium will be presented virtually via Zoom.

 

Session 1 - AI, Religion, and the Sacred — Meaning-Making in the Digital Age

Description: This talk will introduce our Model of the Special (Reed & Trothen 2026), an approach we’ve developed that allows us to see the different ways in which AI is viewed and understood, individually, communally, and culturally. We will apply this to examples related to chaplaincy through deathbots/griefbots and general chatbots that are increasingly being used for health information.

Objectives:

• Introduce the Model of the Special (Reed & Trothen 2026) — Describe the five-point continuum and explore how it can help make sense of the varied ways AI is interpreted across individual, communal, and cultural contexts.
• Reflect on griefbots and deathbots through a chaplaincy lens — Consider some spiritual, theological, and relational tensions these tools raise, and what questions they open up for chaplains accompanying the dying and bereaved.
• Begin applying the framework to AI health tools — Engage with examples involving health chatbots and grief bots as a starting point for developing thoughtful, spiritually informed responses to AI in care settings.

 

Session 2 - TBD

Description:

TBD

Objectives:

• TBD
• TBD
• TBD

 

Session 3 - Ethical and Ecological Frameworks for Evaluating our Relationship to AI

Description: Illustrated with vignettes from the presenter’s experience as a chaplain and ethicist at MIT, this session will present an overview of contemporary ethical critiques of Big Tech, inviting participants to consider their own spiritual relationship to AI technologies. It will then explore how chaplains might respond with sensitivity to some of the spiritual and religious experiences people have described with AI — from religious rituals performed with AI, to relationships with chatbots that challenge our models of pastoral care, to individual spiritual revelations mediated by large-language models. 

Objectives:

• Some basic ethical frameworks with which to process their own moral and spiritual stance towards AI
• The ability to think on an ecological / systems level about the institutional adoption of new technologies
• A familiarity with the challenges that can arise in the context of spiritual and pastoral care in the age of AI

 

Session 4 - AI Skills for the Working Chaplain — A Panel Conversation

Description: This session turns from theory to practice. Facilitated by Sheri Winesett-Campbell and Justin Martin, this panel brings together chaplains who are actively integrating AI tools into their daily work and chaplain leaders shaping best practices. Across documentation, care planning, spiritual assessment, research, and professional development, David will invite the panel to speak honestly about what is working, what is not, and what the profession needs to continue to explore. Panelists will share their own on-the-ground experience. The conversation will be grounded in specific skills and use cases, with attention to the unique ethical texture of chaplaincy work: the sacred trust of the care encounter, the necessity of clinical/ wider professional relevance, and the ways AI may both expand capacity and introduce risk. Participants will leave with practical orientation and a clearer sense of where they locate themselves in the larger conversation this symposium has opened.

 

Presenters

Click here to view the presenters

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Pricing

$205 For Members ($235 after 10/4/2026)
$240 For Non-Members ($270 after 10/4/2026)

Schedule (all times listed are Central Time)

9:00 am – 9:05 am	Welcome, Introduction, and Agenda for the Day
9:05 am – 10:35 am	Session 1
10:35 am – 10:45 am	Break
10:45 am – 12:15 pm	Session 2
12:15 pm – 1:15 pm	Lunch
1:15 pm – 2:45 pm	Session 3
2:45 pm – 2:55 pm	Break
2:55 pm – 4:25 pm	Session 4
4:25 pm – 4:30 pm	Wrap Up

Recordings

The Symposium will be recorded and will be made available to registered participants approximately 3-4 weeks after the Symposium has concluded. Registered participants will receive instructions on how to access the recordings when those become available.

Confirmation

Registered participants will receive an e-mail confirmation upon completion of the online registration and payment process. Instructions for logging into the sessions will be e-mailed to all participants two business days before the event.

Cancellation Policy

The registration fee (minus a $50 non-refundable processing charge) will be refunded up to five (5) business days of the scheduled event. APC reserves the right to cancel the program within five (5) business days of the scheduled event, if an insufficient number of people register. In case of APC cancellation, all registration fees will be refunded.

Questions?

If you have any questions regarding the virtual package, please contact us at education@apchaplains.org