Inside Peter Thiel’s Nashville Antichrist Lectures
we are in an apocalyptic era; peter thiel wants you to study the bible, think harder about the antichrist, and (literally) save the world.
The Christianity of these lectures is central; they are necessarily Christian and rely heavily on Biblical descriptions of the end of history and the signs that herald its coming. Thiel says that he modeled them after John Henry Newman’s four-part 1835 lecture series, “The Patristical Idea of Antichrist.”
In one of the Q&A sessions with Peter Robinson, Thiel — affectionately referred to throughout as the “young” Peter, relative to the boomer-generation Peter Robinson — described himself as a “small-o orthodox Christian.” When asked if he believes that Scripture is “inspired,” he responds, “yes, it should be taken seriously, though sometimes not completely literally.” Thiel emphasized that we should study and reason about the Bible, rather than follow it blindly, and notes that one will find it to have a surprising resonance with our times. In a related discussion, he emphasized that the so-called “Great Books” are much lesser than the Bible and should not be worshipped. Instead, these books should be treated as tools to understand their times and must themselves be considered through the lens of the Bible. This approach sets up the ethos for much of the following lecture series.
The Christian eschatology that Thiel draws upon tells of an apocalyptic age dominated by a deceptive ruler referred to as the Antichrist — the portrait of this ruler is one constructed through an amalgamation of biblical sources and whose shape is up to some level of ecumenical interpretation.
Revelation tells of a beast from the sea, often interpreted as the Antichrist and his associated apparatus of power, and a beast from the land, who rises from the earth to persuade humanity to worship the beast from the sea and enforces this worship under threat of death. This latter figure is viewed as a kind of ideological or religious ally to the Antichrist, a false prophet.
Satan empowers the beast from the sea to exercise authority over all peoples, languages, and nations. It wages war against the saints, and all earthly kings surrender their power to it. From this, and other earlier biblical mentions, the image of the Antichrist as a one-world totalitarian dictator emerges. If the Bible is true, or at least “inspired,” how do we end up in such a dire situation, and what can be done to delay or prevent it, if anything?
The reign of these beasts precedes a final conflict in which Christ returns victorious; the Antichrist and false prophet are cast into a lake of fire. Christ then reigns for a thousand years, during which time Satan is bound. Satan is released after this epoch, briefly rebels, and is eternally defeated. God then passes final judgment on the dead, death and hell are cast into the lake of fire, and a new heaven and earth replace the old.
