For more than a century, Hollywood has shaped how Americans imagine love, marriage, family, justice, courage, sacrifice, and even God. Films have done more than entertain us. They have helped define our culture’s heroes and villains, aspirations and fears, virtues and vices.

Now another revolution is upon us.

On June 22nd, Google announced a $75 million investment in acclaimed independent studio A24, partnering with its DeepMind unit to develop artificial intelligence tools for filmmakers. It marks the first time the technology giant has taken a stake in a movie studio. The stated goal: to build “new workflows, tools and techniques for filmmaking and distribution.” That is not merely a business transaction. It is a declaration that powerful institutions understand the battle for storytelling has begun.

Christians should not miss it.

Five hundred years ago, another invention transformed civilization. Most Christians remember what the Gutenberg printing press produced: Bibles, theological works, and Reformation literature. But the press did something even more significant. It democratized communication. The ability to publish ideas no longer belonged only to governments, universities, and wealthy patrons. Ordinary men and women could suddenly participate in shaping public thought.

Artificial intelligence may do something similar for visual storytelling.

For decades, producing a high-quality film required enormous budgets, specialized equipment, and access to Hollywood’s tightly controlled ecosystem. Those barriers are falling. Small production companies, churches, ministries, Christian schools, and gifted individuals are gaining access to tools that only major studios could afford a few years ago.

That carries real risks. We have already seen artificial intelligence used to generate deceptive images, imitate voices, spread misinformation, and produce content that degrades rather than elevates human dignity. Those dangers are genuine. I have warned about them repeatedly because Christians must never confuse technological wonder with wisdom.

But caution must not become paralysis.

In “AI for Mankind’s Future,” I argued that artificial intelligence must remain a tool under human stewardship, guided by moral truth rather than treated as an authority in itself. That principle applies directly to storytelling. Technology can assist creativity, but it cannot supply truth. It cannot know grace, repentance, forgiveness, sacrifice, or redemption.

I also argue in “The New AI Cold War” that this competition will not be decided solely by faster chips, larger data centers, or military platforms. It will also be shaped by the stories that form the next generation. Every civilization tells stories that teach people what is true, what is just, what is beautiful, what is evil, and what is worth dying for. Authoritarian governments understand that. Hollywood has long understood it. Silicon Valley understands it now. Christians should understand it better than anyone.

God has always used stories to shape His people.

Before Israel possessed kings, it possessed stories. Jesus could have delivered abstract lectures, yet He most often taught through parables. The prophet Nathan confronted King David not with a policy argument but with the story of a rich man who stole a poor man’s lamb. The Bible itself unfolds as the greatest story ever told, revealing God’s plan of redemption from Genesis to Revelation.

Stories reach places that arguments often cannot.

Children learn courage from stories before they can define it. They learn sacrifice before they understand theology. They begin forming ideas about marriage, family, justice, forgiveness, and hope long before they encounter those subjects in a classroom. Long before a culture changes its laws, it usually changes the stories it tells about itself.

In my forthcoming book, “The Final Algorithm,” I argue that every generation eventually answers the same question: Who has the authority to explain reality? For centuries, children learned that answer from parents, pastors, teachers, and trusted storytellers. Algorithms are now competing for that role. Artificial intelligence is becoming one of history’s most consequential storytellers.

That is the real issue.

Technology never determines the message. It amplifies the messenger. Every film, whether produced in Hollywood or in a church basement, answers the same profound questions. What does it mean to be human? What is wrong with the world? Where is hope found? Who or what saves us?

Those are not technological questions. They are theological ones.

No machine can answer them faithfully. A system built on data cannot understand redemption because it has never sinned. It cannot portray grace from the inside because it has never received mercy. It cannot comprehend sacrificial love because it has never loved. Those truths belong to human beings created in the image of God and redeemed through Jesus Christ.

That is why Christians should not simply complain about what Hollywood produces. We should ask what faithful Christians might create.

Scripture does not leave this as an aspiration. When God equipped Bezalel to build the tabernacle, He filled him “with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship” (Exodus 35:31, ESV). God has always gifted artists for purposes larger than decoration. The question for the church today is whether we will recognize and commission the Bezalels He has already placed among us.

Consider what that might look like. Christian filmmakers producing biblically grounded dramas that once required tens of millions of dollars. Missionaries creating compelling visual stories in dozens of languages. Churches equipping young artists not merely to entertain but to communicate truth, beauty, goodness, and redemption.

The world does not need more content.

It needs better stories.

The proper Christian response is neither fear nor naïveté. The Apostle Paul traveled Roman roads and used the common Greek language to spread the gospel. The Reformers embraced the printing press. Radio, television, and the internet all became tools for Christian witness. Paul’s governing standard holds: “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31, ESV). That standard applies to code, cameras, and creative work alike.

Families should teach children to evaluate stories biblically, not merely consume them. Churches should encourage artists alongside pastors and missionaries. Christian colleges should prepare students to think seriously about beauty, truth, technology, and moral formation. Congress should protect human creators, safeguard intellectual property, require disclosure when content is substantially machine-generated, and shield children from manipulative personalized entertainment.

But no law can accomplish what only the church can do.

Perhaps the next C.S. Lewis will never live in Oxford. Perhaps the next great Christian filmmaker will never need Hollywood’s permission. Equipped with biblical conviction, artistic excellence, and tools unimaginable only a few years ago, faithful storytellers may emerge from local churches, Christian schools, homeschool families, and small independent studios across America.

That possibility should excite Christians — not because artificial intelligence is our hope, but because it is another instrument that can be placed in the hands of those who already know the greatest story ever told.

Google and A24 have made their move.

Will the church?