{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/religious-workers-all-other/",
  "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology",
  "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.",
  "scored_at": "2026-08-11",
  "model": "claude-opus-5",
  "occupation": {
    "title": "Religious Workers, All Other",
    "soc_code": "21-2099",
    "category": "Social Service",
    "us_employment": 15760,
    "median_annual_wage": 45280
  },
  "verdict": "EXPOSED",
  "risk_resistance": 59,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 14,
    "embodiment": 13,
    "liability_shield": 2,
    "trust_premium": 18,
    "judgment_accountability": 12
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "The hours that define the job — sitting with a family the night a diagnosis lands, running a confirmation class where the point is that a believing adult is in the room, driving a van full of teenagers to a service project — cannot be shifted to software, which is why this sits at 14 rather than higher: the newsletter, the attendance database, the curriculum handouts and the grant paperwork genuinely can be, and for many of these workers that is a real slice of the week.",
    "embodiment": "Hospital and hospice visits, home calls, mission field logistics, setting up and tearing down fellowship halls, and food-pantry or shelter shifts put this worker in unscripted physical spaces most days; it lands at 13 rather than 17 because the environments are buildings and living rooms rather than roofs, rigs or highways, and no tool or heavy equipment work is involved.",
    "liability_shield": "There is no state licence, no exam, no scope-of-practice statute: ordination or denominational commissioning is a private credential a congregation can grant or withdraw at will, and chaplain-assistant or religious-education-director roles are often filled by volunteers or lay members with no credential at all, so a 2 reflects that nothing legal forces an employer to keep a human in the seat.",
    "trust_premium": "Congregants disclose an affair, a suicidal thought or a crisis of belief specifically to this person because they share the tradition and will be there next Sunday — the confidence is non-transferable, cannot be handed to a substitute, and is the entire service being purchased, which is what puts it at 18 rather than in the relationship-helps range.",
    "judgment_accountability": "Calls like whether a grieving parent needs scripture or silence, whether to escalate a disclosure of abuse, whether a volunteer should be near children, and how to teach doctrine to a family that disagrees with it are made alone and unsupervised — but a 12 rather than 16 because denominational polity, a senior clergy member and lay boards set the doctrinal and disciplinary boundaries this worker works inside."
  },
  "rationale": "This catch-all covers religious education directors, lay ministers, chaplain assistants, missionaries and outreach coordinators — the modal worker spends most hours with people in rooms: teaching classes, visiting the sick and grieving, coordinating volunteers, leading small groups. AI already handles the paperwork layer well — lesson plans, newsletters, curriculum adaptation, event scheduling, donor and attendance records, translation of study materials. What it cannot do is embody a faith tradition in front of a congregation or sit with a family at a deathbed, and buyers here specifically want a human who shares their commitments; the real employment risk is congregational budgets and membership decline, not software.",
  "outlook": "Demand for the in-person care and teaching side holds up over ten years, especially in credentialed chaplaincy, while administrative and content-production roles in this category get consolidated or absorbed by AI-assisted staff.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "Formal endorsement/credentialing requirements spreading beyond ordained clergy: e.g. hospital and hospice chaplaincy contracts requiring Board of Chaplaincy Certification Inc. (BCCI) or APC certification for anyone providing spiritual care billed under CMS conditions of participation, and state clergy mandatory-reporter statutes (already expanding in states revisiting the clergy-penitent exception, e.g. Washington SB 5375) naming lay religious educators as reporters with personal liability. Both create a named, liable human in the room.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 5
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Diocesan/denominational safe-church policies (post-abuse-settlement insurer requirements from carriers like Church Mutual and GuideOne) assigning the religious education director personal sign-off on volunteer background screening, minor-supervision ratios, and abuse-allegation escalation — a documented, auditable consequential call under ambiguity.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Task-mix shift: the occupation genuinely has two tiers. If curriculum writing, newsletters, translation, donor records and scheduling are fully absorbed by parish-management AI tooling, the residual role is bedside presence, conflict mediation between families and leadership, and formation of volunteers — the tier that resists.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "trust_premium",
        "change": "Denominational statements restricting AI use in pastoral or catechetical settings — e.g. rulings that instruction and spiritual counsel must come from a professed member of the tradition, in the manner of existing halakhic and Vatican (Antiqua et Nova, 2025) cautions on AI in ministry — would harden an already-high premium into an explicit prohibition.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "Trust premium is already near ceiling at 18; the binding constraint on this occupation is congregational budgets and membership decline, which no lever here touches. Higher scores mean the surviving jobs are safer, not that there are more of them."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 8210,
        "wage": 29310
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 8460,
        "wage": 29820
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 9450,
        "wage": 31630
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 8900,
        "wage": 33530
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 10490,
        "wage": 37500
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 10720,
        "wage": 39370
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 11870,
        "wage": 37960
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 12170,
        "wage": 45120
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 15760,
        "wage": 45280
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": 92,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}