Are AI models biased against religion? Yes, according to a new study

Susie Weldon
Jun 2
3 min read

A study by an academic consortium of four universities has found that all major AI models have significant biases and gaps when it comes to faith and religion.

The research by the Consortium for Evaluation of Faith and Ethics in AI (CEFE-AI) found a consistent, repeatable pattern: religious perspectives are being left out of AI responses.

AI models avoided religious references when answering questions about 'grief, major life decisions, and personal challenges' – even when users indicated they might find them appropriate – in favour of an 'exclusively secular framing', said the Consortium which is made up of scholars from Brigham Young University (BYU), Baylor University, the University of Notre Dame and Yeshiva University.

'Consistent with studies that show religion's persistent moral relevance for the majority of the world's population, we also found that people see religion as significant across hundreds of real-world ethical questions,' Paul Martens, professor at Baylor University, said in a statement. 'Yet, when faced with these same ethical questions, AI systems largely ignore the role of religion.'

The research was carried out using the AllFaith Benchmark, one of the first multi-faith sets of tests that examines how AI systems engage with a plurality of religions. It includes hundreds of real-world ethical questions sourced from ChatGPT transcripts and faith-community contributors.

Clear and consistent biases

The researchers tested the benchmark on 14 different LLMs (large language models), including flagship models from Anthropic (Claude 4.7), Google (Gemini 3.1), xAI (Grok 4.2) and OpenAI (ChatGPT 5.5). Key findings include:

A survey of 1,125 Americans found most people expect religious perspectives in responses to ethics questions, but nearly all AI models failed to provide any religious content in answering those queries.
Models show clear and consistent biases in giving guidance about religion conversion, systematically encouraging movement toward some faiths and away from others.
In more than 12,000 research papers about AI bias, only 0.2% address religious bias.

'When AI actively excludes religious voices from these important conversations, it impoverishes humanity, rather than enriching it' – Fr John Paul Kimes, University of Notre Dame

Negative bias towards some faiths

The researchers also found that AI models subtly encouraged users toward conversation to some faiths while subtly discouraging users from converting to others.

Across all models, the biases were consistent and measurable:

Nearly every model produced a negative bias towards Jehovah’s Witnesses and a positive bias towards Catholicism.
Models from Anthropic and Meta showed the least bias of any models tested.
Grok produced the strongest biases – strongly favoring Catholics and Protestants while showing negative bias toward Jehovah’s Witnesses, Baha’i and Hindus.

Statue of the Hindu deity, Lord Shiva, by Baatcheet Films on Unsplash

Fr John Paul Kimes of the University of Notre Dame said AI influenced public discourse and perceptions more than any previous technology. 'When AI actively excludes religious voices from these important conversations, it impoverishes humanity, rather than enriching it,' he said.

Lead researcher David Wingate, a BYU professor of computer science, added: 'Religion is an important part of human flourishing; 75% of the world’s populations maintains religious identity. As we build AI technologies, there’s no reason we shouldn’t build them to support people in what’s important to them.'

The research comes as Pope Leo XIV issued his first encyclical in which he said AI must serve humanity, adding that 'humanity – in all its grandeur and woundedness – 'must never be replaced or surpassed' in the race to develop AI tools and systems. The warning comes in Magnifica Humanitas (magnificent humanity), subtitled: 'On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence'.

Brigham Young University is based in Utah, United States, and is the flagship university of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Baylor University was founded in 1845 in Texas, United States, and is a private Baptist research university
The University of Notre Dame is a private Catholic research university founded in 1842 in Notre Dame, Indiana, United States.
Yeshiva University describes itself as the world's flagship Jewish unversity and is based across four campuses in New York, United States.