Why are some of the richest people in the United States suddenly talking about demons, apocalypse, and even the “Antichrist”?

On Monday, Peter Thiel—Palantir co-founder, Trump ally, and one of the most powerful figures in Silicon Valley—will launch a secretive four-part lecture series in San Francisco. His topic? The Antichrist.

What’s the deal? And why does Thiel keep tying his ideas about the Antichrist to Nazi political theorist Carl Schmitt?

We pull back the curtain in our latest podcast, The Antichrist Playbook: Peter Thiel & Silicon Valley Apocalypse Hype. Featuring Dr. Robert Fuller, author of Naming the Antichrist:The History of An American Obsession, and theologian Dr. Matthew Fox, we expose how the Antichrist myth has been used to demonize enemies, justify extremism, and even push society toward violence.

“Once we label our adversaries in these cosmic terms—all good versus all evil—there's now going to be no compromise,” says Dr. Fuller. “No rational discourse is possible, because the Antichrist is a deceiver, so all the arguments that might be brought for the worth of an opposing point of view are ‘deception.’ And so there can be no rational compromise. It only will bring out all-out tribal cohesion, tribal loyalty, unquestioning commitment. And so it usually leads to...sometimes violent consequences.”

Thiel has suggested climate activist Greta Thunberg as a potential Antichrist, showing a willingness to use biblical framing against political opponents.

“The effort to paint a Greta, or anyone who's working on behalf of the survival of the planet, as Antichrist...is saying more about the speaker than it is about Greta,” said Dr. Fox. “Here's this young woman who’s put herself in a lot of dangerous situations to support the survival of Mother Earth, And she’s been called an Antichrist by a powerful billionaire in America.”

If you want to understand why certain tech billionaires are suddenly talking about the end of days—and what it means for our future—don’t miss this one.

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Transcript: Silicon Valley and the Antichrist Playbook

Transcripts are auto-generated, lightly edited for clarity, and may contain errors.

Gil Duran: Why does tech billionaire Peter Thiel keep talking about the Antichrist? And why are Silicon Valley figures like Nicole Shanahan, who recently described Burning Man as “demonic,” suddenly embracing the language of apocalypse?

Next week, Peter Thiel will begin a secretive four-part lecture series on the Antichrist. The public won't be allowed inside to hear what's being said, but we're pulling back the curtain to expose what all this Antichrist talk really means and why it matters.

To help us make sense of it, we first turned to Dr. Robert Fuller, Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at Bradley University and author of Naming the Antichrist: The History of an American Obsession. Decades ago, Fuller examined how fears of the Antichrist shaped American religion, culture, and politics. And he's seen firsthand how these apocalyptic stories can spill into real life with horrifying results.

Our second guest is Matthew Fox, a world-renowned theologian and spiritual teacher. For 34 years, he served as a Dominican priest before being silenced and eventually expelled by the Vatican for his insistence that spirituality must confront injustice, ecological destruction, and the abuse of power. Fox is the founder of the Creation Spirituality movement and has written more than three dozen books, works that directly challenge traditional notions of sin and apocalypse.

At a time when Silicon Valley is flirting with dark religious symbolism, Fox offers a strikingly different lens. Now, as billionaires dust off this same apocalyptic narrative, we ask: What happens when visions of the Antichrist migrate from the margins to the mainstream?

What dangers and what revelations lie in our culture's enduring obsession with the end of days? And why is Silicon Valley pivoting from talk of godlike AI to worries about demons, devils, and Antichrists? It's time to expose Silicon Valley and the Antichrist playbook.

Interview with Dr. Robert Fuller

Gil Duran: Dr. Fuller, thanks for joining us here today to talk about this dark but important subject.

Dr. Robert Fuller: This topic is an enduring one. It's been around in Western civilization for over 2,000 years, and it has its moments of ascendancy when it seems more in the air and people are thinking this way. It recedes for a while, but it just continues to be a part of who we are as Americans.

Gil Duran: Today we've got tech billionaires in Silicon Valley talking an awful lot about the Antichrist. Peter Thiel, the Palantir billionaire, is giving a four-part lecture on the Antichrist in San Francisco starting this month. Over the weekend, Nicole Shanahan, another billionaire and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s running mate last year, declared that Burning Man was demonic and went deep into demonology on Twitter. Last week, another well-known venture capitalist posted a photo of St. Michael the Archangel and called on people to fight evil.

Silicon Valley is mostly known as a secular place driven by innovation and greed. But suddenly there's this movement there in the throes of this apocalyptic religious hysteria that seems to me is just beginning. And much of it centers around the Antichrist, demons, or biblical evil. We'll get to these billionaires later in the show, but first I want to give people a base level of knowledge here. You wrote a book Naming the Antichrist: The History of an American Obsession back in 1995 that explains a lot of what is going on today. So first off, who is the Antichrist or what is the Antichrist and what does the Bible actually say about the so-called Antichrist?

Dr. Robert Fuller: When I launched into a project on the concept of humans' obsession with this notion that they're being persecuted or deceived by an Antichrist, I thought it would be prominent in the Bible. And I was as surprised as anyone when I started to look into scripture and realized that it's only mentioned four times in the most obscure books of the Bible, in two little letters called First John and Second John. It appears nowhere else in the Bible. Specifically, it does not appear in the two end times or sometimes we use the word apocalyptic for end times books of Daniel and Revelation—the word never appears.

And when it does appear in First and Second John, it's referring not to some cosmic enemy, some invisible demon. It's referring to people in their own community who are very popular and show a radiant spirituality, but their doctrines aren't the narrow doctrines. They have a more broad, liberal flair to them. So they're called the Antichrist deceivers. And that's the only time the actual word Antichrist appears.

But Gil, what we find happens over time is that it gets associated with the notion of a beast who will confront all of God's faithful in the end times. And this beast is referred to in the book of Daniel and the final book of the New Testament, the book of Revelation.

Gil Duran: So it gets conflated—the Antichrist and the Beast—and that's something you say in your book.

Dr. Robert Fuller: It absolutely is a conflated concept. So there's no scriptural warrant for any of the people who go talking about signs of the Antichrist. They usually then go to the book of Revelation, which again, doesn't ever use this term whatsoever, and they find this feared beast who will come to do battle with the forces of God in the end days. And whatever attributes to this beast in the end days gets associated with the Antichrist, but again, it's not scriptural. And what's odd is the people who advocate this usually claim they're being very biblical and scriptural, and they're being the least scriptural and the least biblical.

Gil Duran:It seems really that the Antichrist had a very specific meaning that was more vague, not necessarily the beast—those who oppose Christ or Christian doctrine. And they've melded with the beast of Revelation, which also had a specific meaning at the time dealing with Rome, the Roman Empire, the enemies of early Christendom. So now we've got this in the 21st century, these people who surely know better melding the two together, but also using it in this very particular way.

And I guess the question is, if the Bible says so little about the Antichrist, how did it become such an important and powerful figure in the Christian imagination? And so that's one question. But the second one is, in your book, you trace how in American history, people have constantly tried to name the Antichrist from Native Americans to King George to Abraham Lincoln to communists, even computer chips were considered possibly the Antichrist. So how did this idea get so big and how do we see it playing out as a political weapon?

Dr. Robert Fuller: Eric Hoffer wrote a book called The True Believer 60 years ago. How do you become a true believer in a cause? Someone for whom rationality is now gone. It's an all-out emotional—I'm the true believer. I do not question. And he observed something. You can have a true believer, you can have a vibrant fanatic cause without a God, but you cannot have a fanatic cause without a devil. And when we rally around a common enemy, there's cohesion, unity, and all-out effort. The whole concept of the Antichrist or there being some satanic adversary that we must compete fosters a crisis mentality. And with the crisis mentality, now we put aside all other differences. There's a tribal cohesion, a tribal unity, and it justifies even immoral acts because to defeat an evil enemy, a satanic enemy, you must then do whatever's necessary. So it can therefore justify extremism and it can justify what would otherwise be reprehensible behavior is now looked at as even holy, sacred and a duty for the true believer.

Gil Duran: Walk us through some of the people or groups who have been named as the Antichrist in American history and how that works.

Dr. Robert Fuller: Well, you know, part of the American identity is we define ourselves by who we're not, right, and who we must displace. The early colonists found themselves here in a land that they didn't own, and yet the Native Americans must be—and sometimes, by the way, people are named the Antichrist or agents of the Antichrist. So, for example, a little bit when we talk about computer chips or other things, that would be more agents of the Antichrist, something coming together to do the Antichrist work. And before we go even one step further, let's just separate Antichrist from Satan. Just as Christ is viewed in Christianity as God's son or God's way on earth of having an advocate to lead God's way, Antichrist is Satan's earthly agent.

But from naming the Native Americans—once they were viewed as in league with the devil and leading people into pagan heresies and devilish ways of life—then of course the justification of killing them, displacing them and murder becomes a sacred duty. And there is no moral problem with that kind of action. As we fast forward, all kinds of causes—anything associated, for example, with Freemasonry, because that was kind of an intellectual group that went outside of Christianity. That often was considered to be part in league with or agencies of the Antichrist.

Fast forward, Southern preachers always viewed the North to be Antichrist, but Northern ministers were doing the same thing with the South. It all gets, I think, much more fun and interesting and complicated as we switch into the 20th century. And this is when for the first time we get people calling themselves fundamentalists. And that is they are for the fundamentals of the Bible as they read and interpret the Bible and anything coming against that. So that, for example, the whole concept of evolution, Darwinism, is viewed as an agency of the Antichrist to lead people away. As we go through anything about secularism or modern trends for whom religion is indifferent, that also is looked at. So to get into eventually in the 20th century, rock music or feminism are looked at as causes going on in popular culture that lead people away from the narrow straits of biblical Christianity. So even this is associated with Antichrist.

Antichrist, by the way, can be really one of two things: an external tyrant, and then there's absolute oppression against the faithful. So physical even oppression or, along with that oppression and being a tyrant comes a second—deception. And anything that might deceive and it instantly seemed to an average person, say you're in a high school biology class and evolution is being taught, evolution might deceptively to you seem to be true and logical and absolutely based on fact. But this of course is deception, leading Bible-based Christians away from a narrow reading of the book of Genesis.

So deception, in some instances, tyranny or oppression in the other, and it would a little bit fluctuate so that it's sometimes Soviet leaders during my childhood, during the Cold War, anything associated with the Soviet Union was thought to be somehow in league with the Antichrist coming against Christian America. As that fades, Arab leaders become part of it.

My files at home, once this book was published in the mid-90s, my book on the Antichrist brought me mail that is usually handwritten, scribbled, but particularly Barack Obama was the subject of many of the letters written to me, scribbled out about all the evidence from scripture that they could find because he was so foreign. His name being foreign, his skin color being foreign to kind of white evangelical Christianity.

Remember, believing in the Antichrist and attacking him gives you an identity. It reminds you of who you belong to. So this is a little bit of an identity forming, and it helps identify the inside versus the outside. And to the extent that someone like Barack Obama is definitely an outsider to white evangelical Christianity, you can see why he was an easy target.

Gil Duran: And it resonates with me. I grew up in apocalyptic religion in the eighties and the early nineties. And I remember the Soviet Union being depicted as the Antichrist. People in my family who didn't like Ronald Reagan thought he was the Antichrist. And I got really into heavy metal at a certain point. I had all these posters and little mirrors you get at the fairground and my aunts underwent a born again conversion and forced me to destroy all of my heavy metal paraphernalia, which I really wish I had now because it was like cool AC/DC, Slayer and she convinced my parents that I was being sucked into Satanism and it was just really—I liked that music and, you know, they do play with those themes obviously in heavy metal as well, but you mentioned this idea of deception and that's often one of the things that people who focus on the Antichrist talk about though some of them also are engaged in a bit of deception themselves.

And you say this in the book that the Antichrist is sort of a mirror to point the finger at the people accusing everyone else of being the Antichrist and say the same things are true about them. For instance, we have with AI pretending to be human intelligence. We've seen news stories where a lot of what people get into with some of these chatbots is a discourse on the Antichrist or evil, a computer telling them to go ahead and kill themselves or whatever. So it bubbles up again in our technological age and becomes a framework through which we view things. And you say that to call someone the Antichrist is to declare them the embodiment of evil and enemy with whom no compromise is possible. Can you explain what's going on there in the mind when people do, what does it usually lead to when you're up against the Antichrist?

Dr. Robert Fuller: Right. Once we label our adversaries in these cosmic terms, all good versus all evil, there's now going to be no compromise. No rational discourse, because the Antichrist is a deceiver, all the arguments that might be brought for the worth of an opposing point of view are deception. And so there can be no rational compromise. It only will bring out all-out tribal cohesion, tribal loyalty, unquestioning commitment. And so it usually leads to a very even sometimes violent consequences.

You know, sometimes when I read things that Antichrist obsessed individuals are against in American culture, sometimes I can see their point that there is some pointing out to problems we have. What I find disconcerting is the language and worldview into which it's put this cosmic battle between all good versus all evil, which again, no compromise, no shades of gray, no sliding scale of thought and nuance is possible. And this is when it just becomes any action as long as it's for the perceived godly side of the battle. All action would be totally thought of as a divine duty.

Gil Duran: I was thinking a little bit about this last year because it was a book that came out called Unhumans. And in Unhumans, the basic thesis of it is that communists are bloodthirsty demons from hell who seek to be on earth and murder everybody. But then the book goes on to basically say that communists are essentially Democrats and liberals and progressives. And anybody who might say vote for Kamala Harris or listen to NPR, it's done very subtly. But you get the idea that what communists want is what Democrats want. And then people are pushed to believe that the only way to deal with this demonic, unhuman threat is by treating them as they plan to treat us, which if you read the book, seems to be that if the unhumans are going to murder us, we should murder them first.

And I found that very concerning because this is the language of genocide—complete dehumanization, preparing people for some kind of genocidal civil war where we have to kill off the other side. And that's really kind of what the Antichrist concept does. It dehumanizes your enemy and justifies, as you said earlier, anything you might do against them. And what was very concerning is that the book was praised by J.D. Vance and the foreword was written by Steve Bannon, who I believe was in prison at the time. So these are people who were right next to Donald Trump pushing this theme, and this is a year before this new Antichrist narrative starts up. And so it does seem this danger of pushing people toward violence and worse than violence by applying to our political debates a cosmic final framework, an apocalyptic framework that's really a choice and not necessary.

Dr. Robert Fuller: And not necessary and isn't, as a historian, somewhat pessimistic about the probable outcome as long as this narrative is the narrative used to frame differences of opinion about American life and culture. Can I point something out that when apocalyptic thought in the West emerged initially, if you look at the community that gave rise to the Book of Daniel or the Book of Revelation, these were the poor. It was always, and you always find apocalyptic thinking most widespread among people for whom there is little chance of worldly gain. Their biggest hope really is if God acts decisively to turn in—the last shall become first and the haughty rich first shall become last in an act of God, because there's little worldly mechanism for the desperately poor for their life to improve.

What is so unusual about some of the examples you've been giving are that this apocalyptic thinking is now being found among the richest, among those for whom have all the worldly goods. So the only benefit of this, again, is for redoubled down effort for tribal loyalty, cohesion, and no compromise with our cultural adversaries.

Gil Duran: In your book, you cite Richard Hofstadter's The Paranoid Style in American Politics. And he wrote that the enemy, quote, "seems to be on many counts a projection of the self. Both the ideal and the unacceptable parts of the self are attributed to him." And it seems like the Antichrist figure functions in that same way as a paranoid projection of the self. And Peter Thiel has actually very explicitly talked about how this connects to Carl Schmitt's political theology, the idea that you have secular politics based on theological concepts and that you must clearly define the enemy.

You know, it seems like to your point, these are people who know better than to play with these religious ideas because they could be dangerous. In addition, Christianity, famously not a great religion for billionaires. I think one of the few groups that Christ speaks against is wealthy. And so what do we make of the fact that we've got all of these Silicon Valley elites suddenly invoking Antichrist, a demon language? What are they up to in your opinion?

Dr. Robert Fuller: Listen, I wish I had a simplistic and all out answer for you. I'm going to let you down here. I'm as mystified as anyone, other than the fact that this kind of language, once again, means that nuance doesn't need to be considered. We don't even need to consider these educated elites at Ivy League or the top universities across the world. We don't need to listen to them because it's going to be simple and it's clear cut. Something is either part of what's all good or it's part of what's deceptive in trying to lead a US stray and therefore is all evil. And it doubles down on tribal loyalty and justifying any kind of extremism. It's shocking to me that those with the most in this world see benefit from a mentality that doesn't want people to be held accountable for their thinking or to justify kind of extremist self-centered behaviors. So I'm a little bit head scratching of why this doubled down.

Gil Duran: What does seem interesting when I look through the transcripts what Thiel has talked about before, he names Greta Thunberg as a possible Antichrist. He kind of suggests that tech regulation might be an agent of Antichrist because only the tech innovation can save the planet and save humanity. So it sort of mixes in with this messianic view of Silicon Valley as the savior of humanity, again, playing with biblical concepts. And every year the Founders Fund, one of Thiel's funds, hosts a ball called Hereticon, which is a celebration of heresy, heresy in the form of challenging ideas from Silicon Valley. But the language around the ball is always sort of this mock biblical ideas that they're playing with. And so it seems like this is something that is important to him.

He was also a student of René Girard at Stanford who wrote about mimetic desire, the need, the finding of a scapegoat, that we have a tendency to look for scapegoats. So this all sort of melds into this philosophical idea of defining who the enemy is and who the allies are. Which brings me to my next point. You said earlier, we usually see a different group of people talking about this. And it does flare up like in the battle against the Soviet Union after 9/11, right? When Obama became popular and was going to be the president. We see in these moments of crisis on the right, especially, this emergence of the Antichrist meme. And it seems to me that kind of part of what's happening right now, if I'm going to be completely rational and cold about it, is that these right-wing reactionary tech billionaires are trying to find common ground with the religious right in this country, who are a lot more familiar with how to use this Antichrist meme. You know, I think there was demon Antichrist talk around January 6th. We saw some of it around the pandemic and vaccines. It's been a decade of crisis really. And so we're really seeing this emergence of this theme, but more so a weaponization of it by people who it would seem should know better than to do that. Yeah.

Dr. Robert Fuller: Well, first of all, if you look at who's most commonly used this language, I'm sorry if I'm not directly—I'm getting around use the language of apocalypse say take the Jehovah's Witnesses. They are among the poorest religious group in terms of income and you know, socioeconomic measures. They're sociologically on a disadvantaged group. Disproportionate members of the Jehovah's Witnesses, but when you see their literature, what do they hope for in the long run? Their literature is: We hope that the poor have better medicine. We hope that the poor have better housing. We hope that they have better education or just a more secure violence free life. And it's all about improving the quality of life of the most economically and socially disadvantaged people have used that apocalyptic literature.

So to see now the Silicon Valley billionaire types using this, can only mean that there's certain things at a more fundamentally psychological level for them. At some level, psychology does tell us, whether you come from Freud's psychoanalysis or today's more evolutionary psychology based, the human brain is wired for our self-interest. And we have to be taught—Freud taught of being taught a super ego, a moral conscience, but we have to be taught by culture ways that we have to take our fundamental wanting to grab every toy at kindergarten class or something. And no, we have to learn to share.

A lot of what we've seen on the political right, especially in the last 15 years is a, "I'm not going to be woke anymore. If woke means I got to care about other people." And no one's going to regulate me and no one's going to tell me I can't use all the electricity or gas that I want to. And what I think I see is using this literature just to double down efforts at anyone who would tell us that we have to make some kind of self adjustment to become a better socially conscious person. And it's a total rejection of any need to be have empathy to have to be responsible for any larger group. And so it's this rugged individualism. And so this—The Antichrist is viewed as anyone who's trying to thwart that, whether that's regulation of our industries or taxing or having an IRS or anything that would force us to put ourselves slightly aside to consider other people is now being linked with the Antichrist here. And so it's just the, what Freud would have called the id, the self-centered pleasure seeking self, running amok and even using now for the first time that I know in American culture, apocalyptic imagery to make that battle seem righteous.

Even empathy is being considered now by many conservative Christian pastors. Empathy, why you can't have empathy for sinners. You know, the Jesus that I grew up with was more like Mr. Rogers, I guess. I was taught that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes. I was told that the whole point of this Good Samaritan story was that people for whom society might on its own tend to marginalize, among those people you find not only good people, but some of the very best people, to be more sensitive to the good in people who otherwise seem different than ourselves.

That's not God. Jesus is not Mr. Rogers for today's Christians in this apocalyptic imagery. It's a Rambo. And it's a Rambo coming to destroy, and for once and for all, all of those who try to oppose us. So it's a very different Jesus.

Gil Duran: Dr. Fuller, you've seen in your own lifetime this Antichrist narrative lead to real-world violence. Tell us about that experience and what happened.

Dr. Robert Fuller: An analyst from National Public Radio called me right after the Waco, Texas, where there was an apocalyptic community got in a standoff against agents of the federal government. And I was asked not only to explain how apocalyptic ideas factored into this community, but to it. Does this shed me any light? Did I have any prediction of how it would end? And I told them in the first or second day of the standoff that it would not end well, that it was going to end in violence because this group, having labeled their worldly adversaries as in league with the devil, they can't compromise. They can't sit at a negotiating table and hand something over to the devil that it could only end in death. Indeed, that's exactly how it happened. So again, I think that when we see that the logic of this narrative being applied to the world, it never leads to anything other than brutal confrontation.

Gil Duran: So this is a pretty dark subject, but I think it's good to shed light on it. I think that's how we defeat this weaponization of the Antichrist concept is to tell people what it's really about, to demystify it and clarify what it is, how it's been used and how it's being used now. What message would you leave people with given your knowledge, your history of this subject? What should people know and what can people do?

Dr. Robert Fuller: What we can do, I think, is remind people that the apocalyptic books of Revelation and Daniel have always been at the margins of the faithful community. They're about a world ready to end rather than sustaining and building a world that is based on God-centered principles, if you will. And so I would think that what's called upon for people who are conversant with Scripture, whether you yourself are very scripturally and religiously oriented, or not, if you know it, point out the vast bulk of the Bible is not about preparing for the end of the world, but what's called upon us to help build a more righteous, just world. And in here, when we look at Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, when we look at his parables, they're about love, empathy, compassion, and loving thy neighbor as thyself. And I think that any version of Christianity that isn't first and foremost about those concepts really isn't Christianity. It's going into a very hateful, mean-spirited diatribe that is just about if you're not me, then you must just be cosmically awful and hence part of the Antichrist.

So that I think that it's, be not just clear about what you're against, but be clear what you're for. A spirituality, in this case, Christian spirituality, that's about world building. And world building by uniting people together by the concept of loving thy neighbor as thyself. And I think it's pointing to those passages in scripture that support that, as opposed to the just two books that are these dark, mean-spirited books of the books of Daniel and Revelation.

Gil Duran: It does seem that with so many people in Silicon Valley publicly proclaiming their faith that there should be more of an emphasis on the words of Christ. To me too, I grew up with Christianity, and that is what we're to aspire to and obsess on and reflect on. And it seems like these billionaires who have had the biggest bounty of all would be in a great position to push the world toward a better place with their resources and their abilities. And instead we're seeing this sort of divisive focused on the darkest parts of it. And I think we're going to see a bigger development that I think we're going to see a bigger development of that idea over the coming months and years, unfortunately. But thank you for taking such a deep dive on this 30 years ago. And I read it and it just seems like it could have been written yesterday. And that shocks me more than it should.

I guess your thesis was pretty correct and probably if there's still a human civilization 100 or 200 years from now, there'll be somebody dealing with this concept, this meme, unless we find a way to completely expose it and break it now. Thank you for joining us today. We really appreciate it.

Dr. Robert Fuller: It's been fun conversation.

Transition and Plugs

Announcer: We'll return to the pod with our next segment in a moment, but right now it's time to break for some plugs for our great guests.

First up, Dr. Robert Fuller from Bradley University, where he's the author of 13 books, including one we recommend, Naming the Antichrist: The History of an American Obsession. It is, sadly, even truer today than when it was written.

Our next plug is for our next guest, Dr. Matthew Fox. He's the author of more than 40 books and is founder of the University of Creation Spirituality in Oakland, California. To find out more about Creation Spirituality, we recommend his book, Original Blessing.

Finally, we plug ourselves. Sign up for the Nerd Reich newsletter and become a paid subscriber today so we can keep bringing you all the context nobody else is covering. Go to thenerdreich.com. And now back to the pod with Dr. Fox as we go from Antichrist history to Antichrist religion.

Interview with Dr. Matthew Fox

Gil Duran: Dr. Fox, we're seeing another outbreak of Antichrist energy in American politics. And last year, you wrote a book, Trump and the MAGA Movement as Antichrist, that examined this archetype of the Antichrist in American politics. What does it mean when people evoke the literal Antichrist in political debate?

Dr. Matthew Fox: It is stunning, isn't it? And even without their invoking it, they're playing it out on their own terms. So you have this new religion emerging from Silicon Valley of all places, and people at very prominent places of power, such as Peter Thiel, who anointed our vice president. So it really is this ultimate mix of government and religion and politics. You know, Mussolini defined fascism as the marriage of government and corporations. And it seems to me that this is that marriage on steroids was coming out of Silicon Valley. And it's stunning really the language they use. And some of them use the term Antichrist.

One hand is visible. I mean, it makes you laugh when Peter Thiel, as powerful as he is, and of course a billionaire, and the billionaires are right out front in our government today, and they were there at the inauguration of 2.0. When Mr. Thiel calls Greta Thunberg the Antichrist, I'm sorry, but I have to laugh. It's just so stunningly on target for what the Antichrist would do. Here's this young woman who's put herself in a lot of dangerous situations to support the survival of Mother Earth. And she's been called an Antichrist by a powerful billionaire in America. From their perspective, someone who's saying no to fossil fuels and yes to the future of the planet is the Antichrist. They're creating their own logic as well as their own God. We have a God here, and the God is technology. So the whole thing is almost beyond words.

Gil Duran: One of the reasons why Thiel has named Greta Thunberg as a possible Antichrist is because he says that the Antichrist would be someone who talks nonstop about the end of the world and promises to save the world, which is interesting because Peter Thiel talks nonstop about Armageddon, the Antichrist, and apocalypse, and positions technology as a potential savior of the world or, in some cases, a danger to the world. And what's interesting about it is that he is not a theologian. He does not have a background as a priest or any kind of religious figure. He's a surveillance billionaire and venture capitalist who apparently has a lot of time to sit around kind of coming up with his own homespun theories about who to accuse of being the Antichrist.

So we talked to historian Robert Fuller, who wrote a book called Naming the Antichrist, and he said, kind of like you said, the Antichrist tends to be a mirror or a projection. And those who call others Antichrist are often overlooking the fact that they could very easily be accused of being the Antichrist themselves by their own criterion, as in the case of Thiel. At the same time, it's important to avoid getting into the Antichrist game because that is often what folks want. When we're all arguing over who the Antichrist is, then we're in the Antichrist framework. What is it really about? What are the elements of Antichrist energy? What are people trying to say when they call someone the Antichrist?

Dr. Matthew Fox: I think they're trying to say this is what Christ stands for and this is what its opposite would represent. I mean, at least that's to me the down-home logic of it. And that's where I lay out some of Jesus' obvious teachings about justice and the treatment of the poor and the most vulnerable, and of course the survival of the planet. If you're at all grateful for this planet, to me, Jesus stands for all that. And so it's—And Antichrist, especially in our time, would stand against that, would forget gratitude, would run with hubris and arrogance and hatred for others. The effort to paint a Greta or anyone who's working on behalf of the survival of the planet as Antichrist is saying more about the speaker than it is about Greta. And I'm sure it runs off her back like water on a duck.

And of course, the word apocalypse has two meanings in Greek. One is the apocalypse, meaning everything coming to an end. But the other is revelation, the unveiling of who these billionaires are. I think that's something we want to pay attention to because they're telling us about themselves and they have a lot of power, especially in the present version of American politics and democracy.

Gil Duran: At the beginning of the year, Peter Thiel wrote an op-ed for the Financial Times in which he talked about apocalypse and its Greek meaning as unveiling. And he said that Trump's return to power would be an unveiling of sorts for the United States and really use this sort of revelations doom language to suggest that everything would be exposed and everything would be revealed and suggested this would mean the toppling of all the great institutions of the United States to some degree. And we've certainly seen an effort to tear those things down.

You know, Thiel, you know, the reason we're talking right now is that Thiel is giving a four part secret lecture on the Antichrist in San Francisco starting on September 15th. There's definitely lately been this trend of Silicon Valley gazillionaires and venture capitalists publicly proclaiming their Christian faith in a very overt and aggressive way. Yet at the same time, it seems they're mostly focused on evil, the apocalypse and the Antichrist. It's clear that what they're trying to do is point to others as the Antichrist, but it seems that newer converts to Christianity, or people who suddenly feel the need to profess their faith, should be doing a lot more to talk about Christ himself, the message of Christ, especially those who should be so grateful for all that they have, who have more than anyone else. But Christianity is not really the greatest religion for billionaires, necessarily, if you pay attention to the words of Christ.

So if Christ came back to Silicon Valley today, what do you think he would say about what he saw? And what do you think he would say to those people who are at the height of power in Silicon Valley?

Dr. Matthew Fox: Well, first, I'd like to respond to your first part, which is really important, and you've led the way in this in shining a light on this upcoming series on the Antichrist by Thiel in San Francisco. It is significant that a political activist who is a billionaire has his own theology, if you will, and that he's proclaiming these lectures on Antichrist. I mean, that's rather unusual. As you say, he's not a theologian, he's not a priest, but he's there imploring this language. And when he said the coming administration would be unveiling all kinds of deep secrets, one of them that is named is the Epstein secret. And here we are right in the middle of that, where the very people who proclaimed a few months ago that they were going to expose the big secrets about Epstein are doing everything they can to cover it up.

Back to the subject of what would Jesus say, well, he, as you say, he was pretty severe about the power structures of his day. And he continually and continuously in his parables, his stories, his teachings, takes on the power of the affluent of the powerful. And of course, the very use of the term kingdom of God or kingdom of heaven, which was common to his teaching, he knows he's taking on the Roman Empire, the kingdom of the day. And that's what got him killed at around 30 years of age, which is really very young. Clearly, he's an obstacle to those who don't make a decision of conscience to put whatever resources they have toward a relief of the poor. So Matthew 25, do it to the least, you do it to me. But the whole Peter Thiel theology, and it is a kind of theology, seems to be that the rich people of Silicon Valley are the ones to dictate laws. In fact, he has confessed that he doesn't believe in democracy anymore. So they want to replace democracy. And that, of course, is happening at many levels in the current administration.

I have whole chapter in my book on the Antichrist about how really behind Jesus' teaching, there is a teaching about democracy because there's a teaching about the equality of all people, that we're all made in the image and likeness of God and that the poor must be included in the social program of justice and compassion that we're all about. We all participate to make a world that works for everybody. And that was the insight, I think, of the enlightenment and of the American Constitution. As flawed as it was and is, I think that's the ideal. That somehow we're here to see that all people are treated with respect. So you do have some billionaires, Gates is an example, who were trying to do good things with their money. And then there are others who want to hoard and use the money to put their theocracy to work. And I think that Thiel is one of those. But I think that he's giving a series of lectures on the Antichrist is significant and we should watch it carefully. I hope there are to be some people present. I know it's a small group, but I hope there's someone there who will tell the truth about what he's saying.

Gil Duran: Well, he's overtly tied his interest in the Antichrist to the philosophy of Carl Schmitt, the Nazi jurist and legal theorist, and also to René Girard, who was his professor at Stanford. So it seems like what he's evoking when he talks about the Antichrist is the idea of defining a clear enemy in politics, the idea of how scapegoats are chosen and targeted. You know, Antichrist is often used to scapegoat people throughout history. The Native Americans were considered agents of the Antichrist to the colonists. Abraham Lincoln was considered the Antichrist to people in the South, and the South was considered the Antichrist by people in the North. So it's often a way to weaponize, scapegoat, and dehumanize your opponent. And with Girard, you also get the idea of mimetic desire, mimetic rivalry. So it does seem like he's able to move others to adopt this framework. And of course, we've seen this framework before.

Usually it's the far religious right defining someone on the left or the democratic side of the spectrum as the Antichrist. And so it's a kind of a dangerous political weapon more than anything. Unfortunately, Thiel's lecture is going to be off the record secret. So we're not going to know exactly what he says, but when he does speak publicly, he puts it in this framework of what he calls a political theology. And that's interesting because it really breaks it down to the idea that politics are based on secularized religious concepts. So it's acknowledging that you don't actually believe in God or Jesus or a literal Antichrist, but that you understand the power of those frameworks and those concepts. And Thiel has actually said too that he is religious, but not spiritual, which seems like a kind of a strange thing to say. I take that to mean that he likes the order and the hierarchy of religion without the mystery and the presence of necessarily a literal God. He may have a different definition of that. We'd love to hear it. But that seems to be what he's saying. What do you make of very secular forces in Silicon Valley attempting to weaponize religious concepts at this particular moment in American history?

Dr. Matthew Fox: I mean, that's such an interesting statement by Thiel that I'm religious but not spiritual because everyone else these days is saying I'm spiritual but not religious. And it's interesting your take on that, that he's borrowing structures, but of course he's borrowing language and that's what we've been talking about. And of course, that's a very important dimension to any organization, to any community, is who owns the language, if you will. And so he's—It's confusing. He's trying to confuse it and turn it inside out by using the name Christ as we talked about earlier. So that's part of it, but it's kind of a war on many fronts.

I think also by saying he's religious and not spiritual reveals he's interested in that sociological dimension that religion holds. To keep a community together, you sometimes need to appeal to people's fear of death. Therefore to immortality and by the way, that's a big deal in this whole movement from Silicon Valley. There's some there who think they can buy their way to immortality and the next achievement of AI will be to make us immortal or make a few people immortal and able to go to Mars. I wish them well and bon voyage and I think Earth will be better off if they make that choice. Yeah, the whole thing is so convoluted. It's kind of hard to get your head around it and to talk about it. But to say that you're not spiritual is quite a statement, especially in today's world. And I think what it means is he's not self-critical. He's not looking for his deepest self or his truest self, that he's satisfied with structures. And he wants to manipulate the structures. And that's what, of course, you can do with a lot of money. It's obvious you can pay for a lot of vice presidents if you have the cash.

Gil Duran: What can people do about this? How can they take action that helps to fight back against this weaponization of religious concepts in politics?

Dr. Matthew Fox: First of all, is becoming aware and educating oneself about what's happening here. It's so interesting that, and it's kind of unique to American politics, I think, that the religion thing gets all wrapped up into the political. And of course, that was predicted years ago, that when fascism comes to America, it'll be wrapped in a flag and with the Bible or the cross. So that's part of the underbelly, I think, the soft underbelly of American culture. So we have to become more critical, and hopefully that's what spirituality means, that you can criticize oneself, but also others, and look deeply into the implications of what is being said here. That's what Antichrist means, that what's being said is taking the language of Christ, but perverting it, turning it inside out.

And then to find allies. I mean, you and I are talking about this and you've been writing about it and I wrote about it in my way. But find out where our allies are. And there are many people out there who are disturbed by this alliance of far right-wing religion and politics. And it's called even Christian nationalism. And that's such an insult to Christ. But of course, there are periods in history when Christianity went very dark and over the edge. And this is one of those times, potentially, at least, finding allies and thinking critically, and then organizing and making this part of the discourse. And I'm glad you have the media here that you're talking about this on air. So it's part of educating and getting into the media, including mainstream media, that this is going on and religion itself is being abused and spirituality is being trampled on, conscience is being trampled on, and democracy.

I talk about the three dark nights that we're living in, dark night of the soul, dark night of democracy, and dark night of Mother Earth. Those three dark nights of the soul, I think, are signs of our times. And we should realize they demand something of us. They take us to a deep level of anger, moral outrage, and grief, but how to deal effectively with this outrage. And of course, that's what Gandhi and King and others have done. They've lassoed the moral outrage and used it for something positive to get something done and not just to vent all over the walls. And that's where organization and thinking and planning is as part of the struggle.

Gil Duran: I do think there's some reframing that needs to happen. For instance, I've come up with a new word, antichristos. Antichristos are people who seek to weaponize the Antichrist idea in politics for the purposes of greed and political wins. At the same time, I think we should not call it Christian nationalism. I think we could call it anti-Christian nationalism. I don't know why people decide to give up the name of Christ to people who are not actually expressing the principles of Christ. So often we do that and then it sounds like you're against Christians when you're against Christian nationalism. So it's this sort of satanic inversion, this framing that deceives you into seeming to oppose Christ when you are actually trying to articulate support of the ideas for which Christ stands. So I think that's a very interesting game they play with words, accusing others of being the Antichrist actually resemble the tactics of the Antichrist.

Dr. Matthew Fox: Very well said. And I love how you're dealing with language there and creating new language, antichristos and anti-Christ nationalism. Language is at the bottom of this entire movement that's underway. So go for it. I like that.

Gil Duran: Dr. Fox, thank you for joining us today and we'll talk again sometime.

Dr. Matthew Fox: Thank you and carry on the fight.

Announcer Voice: The Nerd Reich Podcast is produced and edited by R.R. Robbins. That's me. It's written and hosted by Gil Duran. We're going to be doing a mailbag episode soon, so go to http://www.thenerdreich.com and send questions for Gil to answer. Also, sign up for the newsletter if you haven't already.

Today's final words from Voltaire. On his deathbed, a priest asked him to renounce Satan. Voltaire said, "Now now, my good man, this is no time to be making enemies." See you next time.