Peter Thiel, the gay technology baron and ally of Donald Trump and JD Vance, says fear of tech advances will hasten the coming of the Antichrist.

In the Christian Bible, for those who take it literally, the Antichrist represents all that is evil and is “the personal opponent of God,” notes The Wall Street Journal, reporting on an ongoing lecture series on the topic by Thiel. The Antichrist will deceive everyone as to his or her true purposes and will rule the world for a time, thanks to charisma and promises of peace and prosperity, but will eventually be defeated by Jesus Christ in a battle known as Armageddon, bringing on the end of the world.

Thiel, founder or cofounder of tech companies including PayPal and Palantir, claims to be a devout Christian. He has been giving lectures and interviews on the Antichrist and Armageddon for the past year and is now holding a four-part lecture series in San Francisco. The second lecture took place Monday.

Attendees are ordered not to disclose anything about the talks, but some have spoken to the media, and one posted notes on his personal website, which he linked on X, and then got barred from further installments.

In Monday’s lecture, “he encouraged an audience to continue working toward scientific progress, whether in artificial intelligence or other forms of technology,” the Journal reports. “Fearing or regulating it, or opposing technological progress, would hasten the coming of the Antichrist, Thiel said, according to people who attended.”

Related: How Elon Musk & Peter Thiel-aligned inexperienced tech bros took over the federal government

“Thiel draws on a theory that the Antichrist could be an individual or entity that is incredibly charismatic but talks repeatedly about the end of the world, thereby convincing society to give it the power needed to regulate the existential risks from science and technology,” the news outlet explains.

Previously, in an interview with Peter Robinson of Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, Thiel said, “The Antichrist probably presents as a great humanitarian, it’s redistributive, it’s an extremely great philanthropist as an effective altruist. And these things are not simply anti-Christian, but it is always when they get overly combined with state power that something is very wrong.” Thiel also told Robinson it’s possible to take the Bible’s text “seriously without taking it completely literally.”

“Thiel has previously suggested (seriously) that Greta Thunberg could be the Antichrist, but attendees last week didn’t recall her name coming up,” The San Francisco Standard reports.

That suggestion about the prominent environmental activist came in Thiel’s interview with conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat in June. “The thing that has political resonance is: We need to stop science, we need to just say ‘stop’ to this,” Thiel told Douthat. “And this is where, in the 17th century, I can imagine a Dr. Strangelove, Edward Teller-type person taking over the world. In our world, it’s far more likely to be Greta Thunberg.”

Related: Rachel Maddow says JD Vance’s rise is thanks to gay billionaire’s influence, not skill or merit

Some other tech titans, including Elon Musk, have recently extolled Christianity, at least their version of it. But Pope Leo XIV, arguably the world’s top Christian leader, has questioned the value of artificial intelligence, telling the Catholic News Agency it will be “very difficult to discover the presence of God” in AI.

“Extremely wealthy” people who have invested in AI are “totally ignoring the value of human beings and humanity,” he said, adding, “The danger is that the digital world will follow its own path, and we will become pawns or be brushed aside.”

ACTS 17 — ACTS stands for Acknowledging Christ in Technology and Society — is hosting Thiel’s talks. A cofounder, tech executive Michelle Stephens, responded to criticism that the group is focusing on the rich instead of aiding the poor. “Christians actually don’t do a very good job of ministering to the wealthy, who can think that they’re basically gods themselves, which can be very dangerous,” she told the Journal.

Some other religious figures have questioned Thiel’s concentration on the Antichrist and Armageddon. “My best understanding is that the New Testament writers focus very little, if at all, on pointing followers of Jesus towards spending their energy on accurately identifying the Antichrist,” Jay Kim, lead pastor of WestGate Church in Silicon Valley, told the paper. “To give all your energy into thinking about all that, to me, feels like a pretty futile endeavor.”

Ryan Walters has resigned as Oklahoma state superintendent of public instruction to take a position with a group that fights teachers’ unions. He leaves an almost unprecedented record of anti-LGBTQ+ and especially anti-transgender statements in just two years in office.

Here are some of the worst.

'27 genders'

“You’re not going to come in here and teach that there’s 27 genders,” he said in July while announcing a test to be given to teachers who come to Oklahoma from liberal states to make sure they’re not “woke.” Most likely, no one believes there are 27 genders — or teaches that.

Using bullied trans student Nex Benedict's death to attack 'the woke mob'

“They wanted to use the death of a child to support a political agenda, and I think it’s absolutely disgusting, and you are going to hear these groups, this woke mob, continue to push an agenda and lie to further the most radical agenda this country has ever seen.” This was Walters’s statement in March 2024 on the death of bullied trans student Nex Benedict the previous month. He did not mention Benedict’s name.

Using Benedict's death to attack the margnalized

“There’s not multiple genders. There’s two. That’s how God created us,” Walters told The New York Times in his first interview about Benedict’s death, denying that nonbinary, intersex, or transgender people exist.

Banning LGBTQ-inclusive books

“We’ve found awful books and textbooks in our schools that [have] pornographic material, push transgenderism. We’ve gotten those books out,” Walters said in a February 2024 interview with Crisis in the Classroom, a right-wing group. This is an accusation often made — falsely — to justify bans on LGBTQ-inclusive books.

Forcing the resignation of a gay principal who did drag

“I insisted on the removal of this person from Oklahoma schools from the beginning,” Walters told The Washington Post in February 2024 about forcing the resignation of a gay principal who performed in drag outside of school. “I will not allow the radical left to use our schools to indoctrinate our kids and promote the most extreme forms of sexual deviancy in the classroom and beyond.” The school received bomb threats after the principal’s drag work was publicized. Walters also said he would push for a regulation that would let school staffers be fired for “acts that excessively promote sexuality” outside of work “in the presence of a minor or in a manner available to a minor online.”

Pushing his anti-trans agenda under the guise of protecting women's rights

In a November 2023 memo to textbook publishers after Gov. Kevin Stitt issued the so-called Women’s Bill of Rights, which does not promote women’s rights but denies the existence of trans, nonbinary, and intersex people, Walters wrote, “Radical gender ideology has no place in our classrooms, and that includes all teaching materials. The radical left’s attempt to diminish women will not work in Oklahoma. If textbooks contain any language that runs contrary to the Women’s Bill of Rights, they must be revised before being submitted for consideration in our state.”

Litter boxes!

While running for superintendent of public instruction in 2022, he repeated the debunked idea that schools are letting students identify as cats and use litter boxes — something right-wing extremists posit as the next step after accommodating trans people, just as they said marriage equality would lead to legalization of incest and polygamy. “Have you heard about the litter boxes stuff?” he asked attendees at an event in Stillwater, then shared what he claimed to have heard from a former colleague: “This was a legitimate faculty meeting where the counselors and administrators were talking to the staff ― are you ready? ― about whether they should allow litter boxes in the bathrooms for kids that identify as cats.”

When people in power suddenly resign, it’s rarely as clean as the press releases I used to write about make it seem. I’ve been around long enough, both in politics and public relations, to know that “new opportunities” can sometimes be code for “get out while you still can.”

Now, I’m going to couch that with not always, but in instances where the person in question harbors intentions of moving up the ladder, a quick exit usually leaves people scratching their heads, and wondering “Why so fast?”

I’ve helped manage executives out the door after #MeToo scandals, financial impropriety, and even an affair with a subordinate. In each case, they didn’t step down into plum roles that matched their ambition. Instead, they usually disappeared or took smaller, less visible jobs, a soft landing to avoid the boiling pot of controversy.

That’s why I’m scratching my head at the sudden but maybe not surprising resignation of the horrific education leader in Oklahoma, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters. Not so much about his resignation, because he was a disaster, but where he’s going.

Related: Far-right Oklahoma schools head Ryan Walters had nude women on TV during meeting: report

Walters resigned to lead a tiny nonprofit, Teacher Freedom Alliance. I’ve never heard of it, and I think most who follow the news can say the same thing. So to me, this isn’t the normal trajectory for a politician who’s spent years posturing for higher office.

Or someone who can’t make ends meet on a government salary and opts for bigger paychecks in the private sector.

Politicians who get fed up with the job or lose elections typically use their time in office as a springboard to lucrative corporate roles or lobbying gigs. For example, President Obama’s campaign manager David Plouffe, for instance, went from politics to a high-powered executive role at Uber.

And many of my friends who worked on Capitol Hill went on to make real money in public affairs. That’s how it usually goes.

But Walters? Instead of climbing up, he’s sinking down or at least going sideways. For a man who made no secret about his aspirations to be governor, this move hints of retreat, not ambition.

Now, having said all that, maybe retreat was the only thing left for him, because Walters wasn’t just a bad superintendent. He was dangerous. In fact, he was so bad that even fellow GOPers in the state legislature were considering impeaching him, not once but twice.

Under his leadership, Oklahoma schools slid to dead last in the nation, at this writing they are ranked 50th. That alone should have been enough to show him the proverbial classroom door. But what defined Walters wasn’t just incompetence. It was maliciousness.

He was obsessed with culture war crusades,all at the expense of children’s safety and education, teachers’ dignity and curricula, families’ freedom, and dare I say, sanity.

Walters did so much damage, like trying to force Bibles into classrooms. And if that wasn’t bad enough, he wanted those Bibles to be Trump-branded Bibles. Blasphemy of the highest order.

That wasn’t all. He demanded that schools push Trumpist doctrine. He promoted Turning Point USA in high schools. He harassed educators who supported the freedom to read, appeared arm-in-arm with the national book-banning group Moms for Liberty, and billed Oklahoma taxpayers for the trip.

Related: Ryan Walters wants Turning Point chapters in Oklahoma high schools — or will he resign before it happens?

He appointed a social media troll with no ties to Oklahoma, no background in literacy or education, and a history of spreading lies about LGBTQ+ people to a state library panel tasked with recommending materials for children.

But Walters’s attacks on the LGBTQ+ community and on vulnerable children in particular are what will mark his tenure as truly disgraceful,and disgusting.

He spread disinformation about transgender youth, producing and promoting videos that wrongly accused them of being threats in schools. The reality? Thirty-five percent of transgender students report being assaulted in bathrooms that don’t align with their gender identity. Walters knew this, or should have, but he chose to fuel hysteria instead of protecting kids.

He denied the existence and history of Two-Spirit and gender-expansive people, including within Indigenous cultures in his own state. This came after the bullying, beating, and death of Nex Benedict, a Two-Spirit transgender gender-nonconforming teenager of Choctaw heritage.

I spoke with the mothers of Matthew Shepard and Tyler Clementi about Benedict’s death, Walters's words, and how it not only brought back immense pain but also showed that the fight for queer youth's rights and dignity needs to continue.

Related: Outrage after Oklahoma education superintendent reframes Nex Benedict’s death without naming the teen

Walters pushed book bans to strip classrooms and libraries of inclusive stories that let LGBTQ+ students see themselves. He spread disinformation about history, going so far as to deny that the Tulsa Massacre was a racist attack. Unbelievably racist.

His warped thought process was that if history or literature didn't fit his narrow, extremist worldview, it didn’t belong in Oklahoma schools.

And while Walters played his dangerous games, hate crimes in schools climbed. Oklahoma has become a case study in how restrictive laws against LGBTQ+ students directly correlate to increased violence.

Teachers saw it. Students felt it. Parents feared it. Walters ignored it, or worse, exploited it. And that, in and of itself, should be grounds for impeachment.

So forgive me if I don’t buy the official story of his resignation. Not for a second. It’s too abrupt, too strange, too off-brand for a man who always saw himself as destined for more and the arbiter of what should go on in classrooms.

He loved the limelight, and I’m sure he’s going to miss his hell-bent appearances on Newsmax.

If history and my experience are any guide, we may learn later what really pushed this narcissist zealot out. Maybe there’s a scandal we don’t yet know about. Maybe even his allies had grown tired of the chaos. Either way, Walters didn’t leave because he wanted to; I believe he left because he had to.

Regardless, Walters deserves exactly what he’s getting, and I hope that includes obscurity, irrelevance, and a long, silent fade into nothingness.

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