Nnadiebube Journal of Religion, Culture and Society

Christian leadership in Nigeria now operates in an environment where algorithmic systems shape judgement. Nigerian churches have already embraced digital platforms for evangelisation, pastoral care, and religious education. Two challenges follow. AI mimics reasoning and empathy while possessing only functional abilities, lacking intentionality, conscience, or reference to meaning and values, so leaders risk surrendering the judgement constitutive of their office. Structurally, tools developed in the Global North and distributed through opaque platforms reinforce algorithmic coloniality and inequality. This paper develops a theological and ethical framework for Christian leadership in Nigeria in the algorithmic age. It proceeds by a dual-source method, reading Catholic Social Teaching—the Rome Call for AI Ethics, Antiqua et Nova, Dignitas Infinita, and Pope Leo XIV's Magnifica Humanitas—alongside the African communal ethics of ubuntu and igwebuike, and applying both to the Nigerian ecclesial context. Three findings emerge. The wisdom of the heart (sapientia cordis)—the integration of intellect, conscience, affect, and relationship—is the competence the age requires and no system can simulate. Nigeria's leadership crisis is a crisis of ethical embodiment, aggravated by a power differential between pastors and congregations that digital tools can either moderate or magnify. And ubuntu and igwebuike converge with Magnifica Humanitas on the common good, the universal destination of goods, and subsidiarity. The paper recommends relational presence, discernment against algorithmic opacity, prioritising the digitally vulnerable, servant leadership, and accountable delegation mediated by subsidiarity, along with formation in digital competence for clergy and lay leaders.

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