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Peter Thiel, Billionaire
& Silicon Valley Preacher of the Anti-Christ By Matthew Fox 10/14/2025 |
Last week I was part of a two-part “CounterPoint” to entrepreneur Peter Thiel, creator of PayPal, Palantir, and other successful Silicon Valley start-ups. |
Recently, Thiel has been publicly ruminating on the Antichrist in talks at Harvard, Oxford, to clergy in Innsbruck, and most recently in a four-part series in San Francisco. I have studied the transcript of those talks. |
Matthew Fox offers a much-needed counterpoint to Peter Thiel’s political theology and apocalyptic imagination. Click HERE or on the image for access; the Enroll link enables immediate purchase. |
We share some positions in common. He is critical of the Enlightenment, and so am I. He is critical of contemporary academia, and so am I—in fact, that is why I designed my own pedagogy over 45 years to teach spirituality. I felt the current educational models in the West make it impossible to teach values
because they ignore what Einstein calls “the intuitive brain” as distinct from the “rational brain.” And humanity today requires wisdom and not mere knowledge to survive. Thiel cites many Catholic philosophers and theologians whom I also admire. People like Cardinal Newman (now a saint and soon to be doctor of the Church),
Jacques Maritain, Henri de Lubac (whom I studied with in Paris), Thomas Aquinas, and others. I agree wholeheartedly that “Christianity is not one of the great features of history, history is one of the great features of Christianity.” My mentor, Père Chenu, a renowned historical scholar and theologian, held that position as
well: Christianity is all about history because the divinity joining history was its core message. |
Dr. Jane Goodall: “It’s been an amazing journey, this life of mine.” Video meditation based on the beloved primatologist’s reflections on her life. Jane Goodall Institute of Canada | And
both Judaism and Christianity were keen on seeing history not just in a cyclical way as prevails in the East, but in somewhat of a spiral way. History has a meaning and a direction that we can influence by our decisions—a direction, hopefully, of an increase in justice, compassion, and love. |
Sadly, I did not see that spelled out in Thiel’s talks, however. Nor did I see much evidence of gratitude for being alive or for the 13.8 billion years that rendered our Earth possible: gratitude that Thomas Aquinas says is the very essence of religion—“Religion is supreme thanks or gratitude,” Aquinas writes.* Thiel’s message seems to be the polar opposite of what Jean Goodall, whom we honored in yesterday’s DM, stood for—“amor mundi” (love of the world). Today, as I write this, is Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Potawatomi botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer writes: Gratitude is most
powerful as a response to the Earth because it provides an opening to reciprocity, to the act of giving back….[to] liv[ing] in a way that the Earth will be grateful for us.** |
Peter Thiel, like so many in MAGA, seems utterly stuck in the species narcissism and anthropocentrism of the Enlightenment, despite his desire to move beyond it. Thiel was one of the first big shots in Silicon Valley to back Donald Trump beginning in 2015, and it has paid off bigly for him. He
lifted |
“Peter Thiel Freezes When Asked if He’s Antichrist.” Host Krystal Ball and political journalist Glenn Greenwald discuss the doublespeak of Peter Thiel’s antichrist theories. Breaking Points |
J.D. Vance from obscurity to senator with a campaign check of $13 million, and convinced Trump to name Vance his vice president (even though Vance had previously called Trump an “American Hitler”). At first, Thiel was shunned in Silicon Valley, but now a parade of Silicon
Valley billionaires (Zuckerman and Musk, for example) have followed him into the MAGA camp. His Palantir company specializes in gathering people’s private data and has been rewarded with billions of dollars in contracts from the defense department and from ICE itself. |
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| Near the end
of his last talk, he said he is practically unique in talking about the antichrist and the apocalypse today. This is not so: for example, theologian Elizabeth Fiorenza has written a very solid book on Revelation: Vision of a Just World that essentially |
understands it as a diatribe against the Roman empire in the first century. And I treat it in my recent book, Trump & The MAGA Movement as Antichrist. Thiel says he’s open to dialoguing on the topic, and if he is sincere about that, I am open to discussing it publicly or privately with
him. Thiel complains loudly about having to pay taxes and rules being placed around AI, proposing that such demands may be a mark of the antichrist. He and many of his fellow billionaires seek to rid themselves of all such inconveniences, not taking into account what happens to the rest of society, who are left to pick up
the bills. (After all, billionaires profit from roads, military, schools, infrastructure, etc. that taxes pay for.) He seems quite oblivious to “loving one’s neighbor” or the rest of society and creation. A strange new religion indeed is arising from powerful places in America. To be continued. |
*Matthew Fox, The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times, pp. 41-44.
** Robin Wall Kimmerer, “Returning the Gift,” Center for Humans and Nature.
Banner Image: Protestors outside the Commonwealth Club, San Francisco, during Peter Thiel’s lecture. Photo by Lynn Friedman on Flickr. |
Queries for Contemplation Do you agree with Kimmerer that gratitude is a way of giving back to Mother Earth, who will one
day be grateful to us? How do we show our gratitude to Mother Earth? And how can we invite people like Peter Thiel to join us? |
Responses are welcomed. To add your comment, or read other comments and enter into dialogue, please click HERE to go to our website and scroll down to the Comments field. |
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