You may or may not recognize the name Peter Thiel. His short bio is Stanford law, founder of PayPal, first investor in Facebook, founder of Palantir, destroyer of Gawker, high contrarian, disciple of Girard, heterodox Christian and homosexual dabbler in rightwing politics. I don’t know if he’d accept the term, but I’d call Mr. Thiel “the philosopher of the age (1 Corinthians 1:20).” That’s leaning on Paul’s contrast between the wisdom of the world and cross, but it is also leaning on an older definition of a Philosopher. When we think of that term, we jump to academics and eggheads. Socrates would aghast at that. Philosophy used to be a way of life. Socrates did not flee Athens when condemned to death. That is what those in control of Athens wished he would do. For Socrates, his philosophy of the City, the Polis, required that he stay and accept its judgement, as terrible as it might be. Call it Socrates the Christ figure who prefigured Jesus crucified under Pontius Pilate and judged by his own people. Peter Thiel is the Philosopher of the Age in that he has very specific ideas and he lives by them. He always has skin in the game.
Now, Philosopher Peter Thiel has latched onto a very Christian term which Paul discusses in our Epistle lesson today (2 Thessalonians 2:1-17) – the antichrist. He’s got a very specific definition. Per Paul in his first letter to the Thessalonians the watchwords at the end of all things will be “peace and security (1 Thessalonians 5:3).” Peter Thiel is an investor is technology. In his original book Zero to One, one of the concepts he discusses is the dichotomy of technology and globalization. Globalization takes already existing technology and as the name implies spreads it across the globe. The ultimate purpose of globalization is to make all things equal. Now that might be an equality of a miserable fight of all against all, but it is an equality. Contrary to globalization, technology makes something new, it goes from zero to one. And everybody gets richer going from zero to one. We’d all like the one of a cure for cancer. But the person or group that makes the one gets outsized gains. Hence why Peter Thiel is a Billionaire. His story of the antichrist is the story of a one world government that kills all new technology – all zero to one – in the name of peace and security. Because technology is disruptive. Of course Philosopher Peter Theil could also just be talking his balance sheet. He has billions riding on technology, not globalization, especially not a global government.
Now Peter Thiel’s concern is not without some very old biblical passages and interpreters. Daniel 7:8 talks about a “little horn” that arises and rules all the others. And Origen and other church fathers would all conclude that the little horn, the final tyrant, was The Antichrist. But Mr. Thiel’s concern also departs from how John would talk of the Antichrist. From 1 John 3:18, “Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is come, so now many antichrists have come.” Far from a single embodied one world ruler, in John the antichrist is everyone who “denies that Jesus is the Christ, who denies the Father and the Son (1 John 3:22).” Paul in our lesson talks about the antichrist as “the man of lawlessness…the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of god, proclaiming himself to be god (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4).” And it is here where Mr. Thiel’s conception runs into trouble. Because it is often those who march under the banner of technology – “move fast and break things” – that would most resemble lawlessness. It is the technologists – from Bacon onward – that often claimed the power of god and the worship of god with signs and wonders. And in Paul’s writing there is something right now that restrains the lawless one so that he might be revealed in his time (2 Thessalonians 2:6). And most interpreters have said that restrainer was the Ur One World Government – the Roman Empire and any of its descendants.
So you have both technologists pointing the finger at globalists, and you could have globalists pointing the finger at technologists as the Antichrist. But neither John’s nor Paul’s point of bringing up the Antichrist is to frighten the Christian or spur them to some heroic stand. In fact something of the opposite. These things have to happen. You are not going to stop them. And if it were possible, they might even lead astray the elect (Matthew 24:24). But it is not possible. Because you are Christ’s. You have been baptized into his name. You have taken his body and his blood. “To this he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Thessalonians 2:14).” So stand firm. You know God – Father and Son. You know the temple of God – your heart where the Holy Spirit dwells. “Stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught.” Technologists and Globalists will both rage. Antichrists have gone out into all the world. But your life is with Christ.