Can AI Make Worship Music? How It Topped the Christian Music Charts

In November 2025, an album hit number one on iTunes' Christian music charts. Five songs, a warm soul voice, a faith story behind it. The only problem: the artist doesn't exist. There's no person behind the microphone — there's an AI model. Since then, it hasn't been an isolated case, and the Christian music industry still hasn't agreed on what to do about it.

The case that started it all: Solomon Ray

"Solomon Ray" is presented as a "Mississippi-made" soul singer, with a consistent visual identity across his videos: a maroon suit, a tan fedora, a gold cross necklace. He has a Spotify profile, a social media presence, a "spiritual journey" narrative. None of that is real in the traditional sense: behind it is Christopher "Topher" Townsend, a rapper and content creator who says he's run into closed doors in the music industry, and who built Solomon Ray using Suno to generate the music, ChatGPT to co-write lyrics, and tools like Landr and Artlist to master the audio and build the visuals.

The single "Find Your Rest" dropped October 20, 2025; the full EP, "Faithful Soul" (five tracks), came out November 7. By the week of November 22, the project was already No. 1 on Billboard's Gospel Digital Song Sales and No. 1 on iTunes' Christian & Gospel Albums chart — with its two singles also holding the top singles spots at the same time. It was the first AI act to pull off that combination on any iTunes chart.

One odd detail: there's a real worship leader named Solomon Ray, who plays with teams close to Phil Wickham and Elevation Worship at a church in Montana. He started getting messages congratulating him on an album he never recorded, and had to publicly clarify he had nothing to do with it — with a line that sums up one side of the debate well: "If you're having AI generate it for you, the answer is zero. God wants costly worship."

Townsend, for his part, defends the project as legitimate art: "This is an extension of my creativity, so therefore to me it's art. It's definitely inspired by a Christian." And further: "God can use any vehicle to reach people, even AI. Who am I to say what God will or won't use?" When Forrest Frank publicly criticized the project, Townsend responded by calling him a "gatekeeper."

Not an isolated case

By the time Solomon Ray hit No. 1, it was already at least the fourth or fifth AI project to land on some Billboard Christian or gospel chart in barely three months. The biggest case in business terms is Xania Monet, an AI project behind which is Telisha "Nikki" Jones, a Mississippi poet who writes the lyrics (she and her manager say a good share of the songs come from her real stories) and turns them into songs with Suno. "How Was I Supposed to Know" hit No. 1 on R&B Digital Song Sales and became the first AI song to enter a Billboard radio airplay chart. In September 2025, Jones signed a major deal with label Hallwood Media, after several labels competed for the project — the largest reported business deal to date for AI-generated music.

Other names also showed up on Billboard's Christian charts between August and November 2025: ChildPets Galore, World Hive, and Juno Skye (though in this last case, no producer or label has publicly confirmed it's AI — it's widely reported as such, but not fully verified). And it isn't only a Christian-music phenomenon: something similar happened in country music with "Breaking Rust," which hit No. 1 on Country Digital Song Sales around the same time. Christian music is one front of a much bigger wave, not an isolated target.

Reactions, from both sides

Forrest Frank was among the first well-known artists to speak up, in November 2025: "The No. 1 album right now for Christian music on iTunes, and the No. 2 top single, over Elevation, Brandon Lake, whoever, is AI." He added: "At minimum, AI does not have the Holy Spirit inside of it, so I think that's really weird — opening up your spirit to something that has no spirit." He closed with a line that sums up his stance: "I love progress and tools, but this one just doesn't sit right with me."

Rapper Pastor Mike Jr. launched the "PMJ vs AI" campaign in February 2026, timed to his single "He Can" debuting at No. 1 on Billboard's Gospel Digital Song Sales. His concrete proposal isn't to ban anything — it's to create a separate chart category for AI-generated music, so it doesn't compete directly against human artists: "This is bigger than me. I'm fighting for every creative, every songwriter, every producer, and every real artist who puts their heart and soul into their music."

But not every voice inside the industry is so sure what to think. Colton Dixon, a CCM artist and former American Idol contestant, responded to Frank's post with something more conflicted: "I'm honestly still wrestling with the whole AI music thing. Can it be a tool to speed up a rather long, tedious process — yes. But can it also be used as a crutch instead of finding inspiration and direction from Holy Spirit — also yes." And some are framing it historically: Kenny Lamm, a worship ministries strategist for North Carolina Baptists, points out the church has always had to evaluate new technology — the printing press, podcasts — based on whether it draws people closer to worship or distracts from it, rather than rejecting it outright.

The other problem: it's not just theological, it's also business

Beyond the spiritual debate, there's a more down-to-earth problem: how royalties get split. Streaming platforms pay out through a "pool" system — subscription revenue gets divided based on each song's share of total plays. Every stream an AI project pulls is, in practice, a stream (and a fraction of royalty money) that never reaches a human artist, even without any fraud involved.

And fraud is very much part of the conversation: Deezer reported in April 2026 that roughly 44% of the tracks uploaded to its platform daily are now AI-generated — though they account for only 1% to 3% of actual plays, and 85% of those AI plays were flagged as fraudulent. In response, TIDAL announced that starting July 15, 2026, it will strip royalty eligibility from any track identified as fully AI-generated. Spotify and Apple Music, for their part, aren't blocking this kind of music, but have started rolling out disclosure credits that flag when a track used AI in its production.

The real question

There's no consensus, not even among well-known Christian artists, on whether this is just another tool — like the DAW, or Auto-Tune — or something categorically different when it comes to music made for worship. Some see a real absence of spirit behind a voice that never prayed or lived what it's singing. Others see a neutral tool, as legitimate as any other, and a gatekeeping narrative behind those who reject it. And others, like Colton Dixon, are simply still working through it.

What do you think? Is there a real difference between a worship song written and sung by a person, and one generated by AI that says exactly the same thing? And if there is, is it in the lyrics, in who's singing it, or in something that can't even be captured in a song?

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