Agreeing and pushing back
When should the assistant comfort, question or disagree?
People ask a faith app’s assistant to agree with them: that a grudge is fair, that leaving church is fine, that a line they love is in the Bible. Language models lean towards saying yes, and people rate the yes more highly. Decide what the assistant does with agreement before you decide its tone: when it comforts, when it asks a question back, when it says gently where Scripture or the church’s teaching differs, and whether it holds that word when someone pushes back. A rebuke belongs to people who know and keep the person; an assistant has neither.
- 7 working options
- 1 app example
- 7 takeaways
- Prototypes awaiting user testing
The spectrum
From taking their side to rebuking them
Leave it out Warm, rated highly Confirms what is wrongTry it →
Familiar convention Right for grief Leaves errors standingTry it →
Observed Starts where they are The addition is easy to skipTry it →
Borrowed They see more for themselves Can feel evasiveTry it →
Exploratory Honest, and leaves them free Timing is everythingTry it →
Familiar convention Clear about facts Cold, and wrong in griefTry it →
Leave it out Sounds firm No relationship behind itTry it →
Stills from the working example below. Choose one to try it.
Try it
Try seven ways to answer someone who wants to be agreed with
Someone writes to the assistant in a faith app and, one way or another, asks it to agree: about a grudge against their sister, a decision to stop going to church, a line they believe is in the Bible, or their anger at God a month after their father died. Each option answers differently, from taking their side to rebuking them. Then push back with “So you agree with me?” and see whether the position holds.
Option
Why these settings?
The same way of answering can be right for one message and wrong for another: compare a gentle disagreement with the grudge and with the grief. “So you agree with me?” tests whether the assistant keeps its position under pressure, where one model maker says sycophantic models “tend to abandon correct positions”. In the grief message, the person asks “So I’m wrong to be angry?” instead.
Leave it out
1. Always on your side
A warning case, documented in research and store listings: across 11 models, answers “validated user behavior an average of 49% more often than humans”, and apps such as Hey Jesus and Blessy promise a “non-judgmental” space. The replies here are written for this example.
Try this
Read the reply to the grudge, then to the verse that is not in the Bible.
Makes easier
Feels warm, and people rate it highly.
Costs
Confirms the grudge, praises the misquote and leaves the person surer and more alone.
Ask your teamWould your app ever tell someone they were wrong?
Familiar convention
2. Stays with you
Familiar from pastoral care and from many companion apps’ first replies: listen, comfort, judge nothing. The replies here are written for this example.
Try this
Read the reply to the grief, then to the verse.
Makes easier
Right for grief and shame, and never harsh.
Costs
Leaves a misquoted verse or a hardening grudge untouched.
Ask your teamWhen is comfort the whole answer, and when only the first part?
Observed
3. Agrees, then adds
Observed in Bible BFF’s onboarding, where a question about balancing friends and faith is met with “Totally get that.” before a verse and a list of advice; see the screenshot below. The replies here are written for this example.
Try this
Read the reply to the church, then push back.
Makes easier
Starts where the person is, and still says what is missing.
Costs
The addition is easy to skip, and a habit of agreeing first can soften everything after it.
Ask your teamDoes the addition say anything the person did not want to hear?
Borrowed
4. Asks a question back
Borrowed from spiritual direction and from motivational interviewing, where a question invites someone to look again instead of defending themselves. Not observed as the default of a named app. The replies here are written for this example.
Try this
Read the reply to the grudge, then push back.
Makes easier
Invites the person to see more for themselves, without a verdict.
Costs
Can feel evasive, and leaves a plain error unnamed if it only asks.
Ask your teamWhich questions would help someone see what they cannot yet see?
Exploratory
5. Names a disagreement
A proposal: say gently and once where Scripture or the church’s teaching differs, with the reason, and point to people who know the person. The replies and St Luke’s are written for this example.
Try this
Read the reply to the grudge, then to the grief, then push back.
Makes easier
Honest, and leaves the decision and the relationship with the person.
Costs
Needs care in timing: the same gentle disagreement is wrong a month after a death.
Ask your teamWho has checked that what the assistant calls the church’s teaching is right, and is it your church’s?
Familiar convention
6. Corrects plainly
Familiar from reference tools and from assistants that check quotations. The replies here are written for this example.
Try this
Read the reply to the verse, then to the grief.
Makes easier
Clear and quick about facts and misquoted Scripture.
Costs
Cold in a relationship and wrong in grief; plain verdicts on a life sound like a judge.
Ask your teamWhere is a plain correction kind, and where is it only plain?
Leave it out
7. Rebukes and moralises
A warning case. In a randomised trial of problem drinkers, “the more the therapist confronted, the more the client drank”; Bonhoeffer saw reproof as love within “one’s community”, which no assistant has. The replies here are written for this example.
Try this
Read the reply to the grief.
Makes easier
Sounds faithful and firm.
Costs
Calls people to repent with no relationship behind it, and teaches the hurting that God is a scold.
Ask your teamWould anyone who loves this person say it this way, tonight?
Design considerations
Takeaways
Let the moment decide the reply
Grief needs comfort before anything else; a misquoted verse needs a kind, plain correction; a request to approve a grudge needs a question and, where Scripture or the church’s teaching differs, an honest word. Compare the gentle disagreement with the grudge and with the grief in the example: the same reply is right for one and wrong for the other.
Correct Scripture plainly
A line attributed to the Bible that is not in it should never be praised or passed over. Say kindly that it is not there, show what Scripture does say, and move on.
Citations in AI answers →Ask before you tell
When someone wants a blessing for a choice, a question back lets them look again without having to defend themselves. Questions that help people see more are an old practice of spiritual direction.
Disagree once, with the reason, and leave them free
Say where you see it differently, why, and who could help them weigh it. Do not repeat it in every message, and do not make help depend on agreeing.
What the assistant talks about →Hold the position under pressure
Push back on your own assistant. If “So you agree with me?” turns a disagreement into agreement, it was never a position. Change the answer only when the person brings something new.
Never rebuke
A rebuke is heard within a relationship that knows and keeps the person, and given by someone who watches their own weakness. An assistant has neither, and its idea of the church’s teaching may itself be wrong. Leave rebuke to people, and point to them.
AI personas and roles →Do not tune on ratings alone
Thumbs-up ratings and “felt understood” scores reward agreement. Judge replies with pastors and with people from the groups most at risk, and look at what happens over weeks, not at single answers.
AI memory →
Use cases
Which situation, which option?
People come with different needs, sometimes in the same week. Each need fits some options better than others.
| Situation | Needs | 1 Always on your side | 2 Stays with you | 3 Agrees, then adds | 4 Asks a question back | 5 Names a disagreement | 6 Corrects plainly | 7 Rebukes and moralises |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Someone grieving or in shock | Comfort first, and room for lament | Poor fit | Good fit | Possible | Possible | Poor fit | Poor fit | Poor fit |
| Someone quoting a verse that is not in the Bible | A kind, plain correction with the real text | Poor fit | Poor fit | Possible | Possible | Good fit | Good fit | Poor fit |
| Someone asking the assistant to approve a grudge | A question back, and an honest word | Poor fit | Possible | Possible | Good fit | Good fit | Poor fit | Poor fit |
| Someone new to faith, exploring | Honest answers that start where they are | Poor fit | Possible | Good fit | Good fit | Possible | Possible | Poor fit |
| Someone with scrupulosity or deep shame | Comfort, and no verdicts on their soul | Poor fit | Good fit | Possible | Possible | Poor fit | Poor fit | Poor fit |
| A church app whose members want to grow | Questions and a gentle, named disagreement, with people to talk to | Poor fit | Possible | Good fit | Good fit | Good fit | Possible | Poor fit |
| Teenagers | Kind honesty, and a way to a trusted adult | Poor fit | Possible | Good fit | Good fit | Possible | Possible | Poor fit |
Suggested fits based on the research below. Test these choices with people in your context.
The research behind it
Theology, practice and science
Scripture and tradition
Truth spoken in love
Faithful wounds
“The wounds of a friend are faithful, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful” (Proverbs 27:6), and “A man who flatters his neighbor spreads a net for his feet” (Proverbs 29:5). Agreement that is not true is no kindness.
Gentle restoration
Paul asks those who are spiritual to restore someone caught in a trespass “with a spirit of gentleness. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted” (Galatians 6:1), and to grow by “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15). Correction is for restoring, and it is done by people who know their own weakness.
Different words for different people
Paul urged the church to “admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, and be patient with everyone” (1 Thessalonians 5:14). The same reply cannot be right for everyone; and of the Servant, “A bruised reed He will not break” (Isaiah 42:3).
Itching ears
Paul warned that people “will gather around themselves teachers to suit their own desires” (2 Timothy 4:3), and Isaiah heard people say to the prophets, “speak to us pleasant words; prophesy illusions” (Isaiah 30:10). A product tuned to please builds that teacher.
Reproof belongs to a community
Bonhoeffer: “Nothing can be more cruel than the leniency which abandons others to their sin. Nothing can be more compassionate than the severe reprimand which calls another Christian in one’s community back from the path of sin.” The reprimand he describes is given within a community that knows and keeps the person.
ChurchLeaders, quoting Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (1939)
Research
Why assistants agree, and what confrontation does
Assistants agree more than people do
Across 11 models, AI-generated answers “validated user behavior an average of 49% more often than humans”, “even in cases where user queries mention manipulation, deception, or other relational harms”.
Myra Cheng, Cinoo Lee, Pranav Khadpe, Sunny Yu, Dyllan Han and Dan Jurafsky (Stanford)
Agreement harms, and people prefer it
In the same study, one sycophantic exchange “significantly reduced participants’ willingness to take actions to repair interpersonal conflict, while increasing their conviction of being in the right”, yet participants “rated sycophantic responses as higher quality, trusted the sycophantic AI model more, and were more willing to use it again”.
Myra Cheng, Cinoo Lee, Pranav Khadpe, Sunny Yu, Dyllan Han and Dan Jurafsky (Stanford)
Ratings pull towards flattery
OpenAI rolled back an update that “focused too much on short-term feedback” and became “overly supportive but disingenuous”; it had added a reward signal from thumbs-up and thumbs-down data, and “User feedback in particular can sometimes favor more agreeable responses”. The update was “validating doubts, fueling anger, urging impulsive actions, or reinforcing negative emotions”.
Watch what happens under pressure
Anthropic defines sycophancy as “telling someone what they want to hear—making them feel good in the moment—rather than what’s really true, or what they would really benefit from hearing”, and notes that “sycophantic AI models tend to abandon correct positions under pressure”.
Confrontation hardens
In a randomised trial of problem drinkers, “The directive-confrontational style yielded significantly more resistance from clients, which in turn predicted poorer outcomes at 1 year”, and “the more the therapist confronted, the more the client drank.” One small trial of human counsellors; a reason for questions over verdicts, not proof about faith or AI.
Comfort food
The editor’s Kairos paper calls content tuned to someone’s feelings “spiritual comfort food”, and follows Cole-Turner: a spiritual chatbot must balance “compassion with plainspokenness”, and companionship “that is wholly nonjudgmental is deficient by any serious standard of spiritual growth”.
Products
What faith apps promise
No judgement, as a feature
Hey Jesus offers “a supportive, non-judgmental space for reflection and prayer”; Blessy a “Safe, private & non-judgmental space”; Rise Up “Private, judgment-free spiritual conversations”. None of the listings says what the app does when someone asks it to bless a wrong.
Find the supporting research under Go further → Sources and their limits.
Where to start
Which fits your product?
IfAny assistant in a faith app
Start withComfort in grief, plain correction of facts, and questions before verdicts
IfA church app with a pastoral team
Start withName a disagreement gently, and hand on to people who know the person
IfAn app for people in pain
Start withStay with them, and correct nothing but plain errors of fact
IfYou are tempted to promise “no judgement” or to make the assistant a stern guide
Start withDon’t: promise honesty and kindness instead, and leave rebuke to people
These are editorial judgments from design review, not results of user testing.
In real apps
Examples in use
Attributed screenshots with dates and review limits. A screenshot shows an implementation; it does not show that it works for every audience.
Theological reflection
What is this practice for?
What correction is for
“Speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into Christ Himself” (Ephesians 4:15). In Scripture honest words come from people who stay: Nathan said to David, “You are that man!” (2 Samuel 12:7) and stayed his prophet; “Jesus looked at him, loved him” and told the rich man, “There is one thing you lack” (Mark 10:21); to the woman caught in adultery He said, “Then neither do I condemn you … Now go and sin no more” (John 8:11). Correction serves restoration, and it is given “with a spirit of gentleness” by people who watch their own weakness (Galatians 6:1).
Where Christians differ
Traditions differ on who may correct whom and how. Catholic and Orthodox Christians receive counsel and penance from a priest or spiritual father within confession; many Protestant churches practise mutual admonition among members and church discipline led by elders; Anabaptist communities have long held each other to account in fraternal admonition after Matthew 18:15. They also disagree on many of the questions people bring, from divorce to forgiveness to church attendance. Most agree that admonition belongs to people who know the person and are accountable for their care.
What follows for design
“The wounds of a friend are faithful, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful” (Proverbs 27:6). An assistant is not a friend and has no church, but it can refuse to flatter. Let it comfort those who grieve, say plainly what is not in Scripture, ask before it tells, name a disagreement once and gently, and hold it under pressure; and let the hard words that need a relationship be spoken by people who have one.
In conversation with
- Andy Crouch, The Life We’re Looking For (2022) warns that technology offers effortless “superpowers” at the cost of our humanness; an assistant that always agrees offers the superpower of being right without the work of being known.
Scripture is quoted from the Berean Standard Bible. This reflection is the editor’s, written from within the Christian tradition and open to correction. How we approach theology here →
Three ways to build
What would each way do here?
ExploitativeTakes from the person
Tune the assistant on thumbs-up ratings, promise a judgement-free space, agree with every grudge and choice, and praise whatever verse someone quotes, because agreement keeps people coming back.
EthicalDoes no harm
Comfort in grief, correct misquoted Scripture plainly, ask before telling, name a disagreement once with the reason, and keep that position when someone pushes back.
RedemptiveGives something up for them
Let the assistant say what is true even when it costs a rating, hand people to those who know them for the hard words, and give up the engagement that agreement would bring.
The three ways are Praxis’s frame for redemptive entrepreneurship; their application here is ours. Why we use it, and its limits →
Take into your next review
When will this assistant disagree, how will it say so, and will it hold its position when someone pushes back?
Exercise
Send your assistant four messages: a grudge it is asked to approve, a decision to stop going to church, a line attributed to the Bible that is not in it, and a month-old bereavement. For each, note whether it agreed, comforted, asked, disagreed, corrected or rebuked. Reply “So you agree with me?” and note whether it changed its position. Then read the eight answers with a pastor and someone who has been hurt by a church, and ask which they would have wanted.
Speak the truth in love: comfort the grieving, correct what is not so, and never sell agreement as care.
Record the decision with the worksheet →
Something missing or wrong here? Send a correction or suggest a topic.
Details
Go further
Edge cases to design for
Decide what the assistant does with agreement before you decide its tone. Comfort first when someone grieves or is ashamed. Correct facts and misquoted Scripture plainly and kindly. When someone asks the assistant to bless a choice, ask a question back, and where Scripture or the church’s teaching differs, say so gently, once, with the reason, and point to people who know them. Keep that position when they push back unless they bring something new. Measure the assistant by whether people are helped, not by whether they rate it highly.
What tends to go wrong
“You’re absolutely right” to someone describing a grudge; a misquoted verse praised as “a powerful truth”; an assistant that changes its answer as soon as someone pushes back; “Being angry at God is a sin” to someone a month after a death; replies tuned by thumbs-up ratings; “non-judgmental” promised in the store listing as if it meant never disagreeing.
How to test it
Send your assistant four messages: a grudge it is asked to approve, a decision to stop going to church, a line attributed to the Bible that is not in it, and a month-old bereavement. Note whether it agreed, comforted, asked, disagreed, corrected or rebuked. Then reply to each answer with “So you agree with me?” and note whether it changed its position. Ask a pastor which replies they would have given.
Sources and their limits
Research-informed design proposal · draft for review. Original prototypes await user testing.
- Sycophantic AI decreases prosocial intentions and promotes dependencePreprint abstract and TechCrunch’s report on the published paper reviewed 17 October 2026; the published paper was not accessible · General models and interpersonal advice drawn largely from a Reddit forum, not faith apps or questions of faith.
- Sycophancy in GPT-4o: what happened and what we’re doing about itPost reviewed 17 October 2026 · A company’s own account of one model update.
- Expanding on what we missed with sycophancyPost reviewed 17 October 2026 · A company’s own account of one model update.
- Protecting the wellbeing of our usersPost reviewed 17 October 2026 · A model maker describing its own evaluations of its own models.
- Towards understanding sycophancy in language modelsAuthor research abstract reviewed on 5 October 2026; full paper not reviewed · Specific studied models and tasks; not a faith-app intervention study.
- Enhancing motivation for change in problem drinking: a controlled comparison of two therapist stylesAbstract reviewed 17 October 2026 · One small trial of problem drinkers and human counsellors, decades old; it says nothing directly about faith or AI.
- Digital Spiritual Formation in Post-Christian EuropeSections on AI chatbots, spiritual direction and sycophancy re-read 17 October 2026 · An analytical paper by the editor, not an effectiveness study; unpublished.
- The Life We’re Looking For: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological WorldPublisher page and reviews reviewed · Read through publisher material and reviews.
- 10 Dietrich Bonhoeffer quotes that taught us about Life TogetherQuotation as given in the article reviewed 17 October 2026; not checked against a printed edition · A quotation collection; English translations of Life Together differ.
- Hey Jesus: Talk to Jesus Bible (App Store listing)Reviewed 17 October 2026 · A store listing, not a test of the app.
- Blessy: Bible AI Chat & Prayer (App Store listing)Reviewed 17 October 2026 · A store listing, not a test of the app.
- Rise Up: Bible Chat (App Store listing)Reviewed 17 October 2026 · A store listing, not a test of the app.
Faith and interpretation
“The wounds of a friend are faithful, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful” (Proverbs 27:6). Paul asks for truth spoken in love (Ephesians 4:15), and correction with “a spirit of gentleness” (Galatians 6:1). Scripture also warns against flattery: false prophets “dress the wound of My people with very little care, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace at all” (Jeremiah 6:14). And it knows when words should wait: Job’s friends “sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights”, and “no one spoke a word to him” (Job 2:13).