My friend Daniel Razzo sent me a couple of articles yesterday and suggested I should read them. I did read the articles and immediately felt prompted to somehow respond. See, in the last decades, the original scathing critiques of the Christian faith by the new atheism may have lost some of their strength.[1] Perhaps, however, as a reaction to what appears to be a renewed interest in Christianity from unexpected quarters, more developed versions of mainstream critiques of Christianity multiplied with a renewed sharpness, particularly in elite media and academic circles.[2]

Articles such as “The Rise of End Times Fascism” by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor (The Guardian, April 13, 2025 - link) portray Christian eschatology as a political threat and an enabler of authoritarianism. In “Christianity Was ‘Borderline Illegal’ in Silicon Valley. Now It’s the New Religion” by Zoe Bernard (Vanity Fair, April 2025 - link), the resurgence of Christian faith is framed as both culturally suspect and potentially subversive. Even in more ostensibly neutral platforms like Wired, one finds pieces such as the podcast episode “Unpacking 'Good Quests,' Christianity, and Caviar Bumps” (March 27, 2025 - link), which explores the intersection of faith and technology, highlighting suspiciously the growing openness to discussing religion within Silicon Valley's entrepreneurial circles.

The idea of a renewed interest in Christianity has itself been questioned. For example, Abigail Frymann Rouch, in her article “Revival – really? Are we moving beyond the secular scepticism of religion?” (Seen&Unseen, June 24, 2024 – link) questions the narrative of a widespread Christian revival and highlights concerns regarding the engagement of the populist right with Christianity. Even internally, some Christians are framing a supposed revival of interest in Christianity primarily in terms of political and ideological landscape.[3]

This is true in the United States, but also in many other countries.[4] Though I want to sidestep a discussion about Christian nationalism at this time, I cannot avoid stating the obvious. Any argument that a renewed interest in the Christian faith is simply a symptom of conservatives  weaponizing Christianity for political ends, could suffer the same scrutiny as being itself a weaponizing of religious discussion for the purpose of a progressive political agenda. It cuts both ways, as ad hominem arguments tend to do.

Skepticism toward Christianity is nothing new; it has deep historical roots. In ancient times, thinkers like Celsus (2nd century AD) criticized Christianity as irrational and disruptive to social order. During the Renaissance, Niccolò Machiavelli subtly challenged Christian virtues, suggesting they promoted weakness over civic strength. In the modern era, Friedrich Nietzsche's The Antichrist (1895) vehemently denounced Christianity as a "slave morality" that hindered human potential. These critiques, spanning centuries, often stem from a fundamental opposition to Christianity's challenge to prevailing cultural and philosophical norms.

So, if scathing, politically or socially nuanced critiques of the Christian faith are not new, and if the Faith has survived all such attacks unscathed, why engage them here? Why this conversation matters? I have two main motivations for doing so: The first is a growing sense that the tone of much of the current assaults represent a sharpening cultural posture that merits serious engagement for this generation of Christians, especially those committed to the Reformed perspective. More immediate, however, is my second motive: I believe it is crucial for Christians to be currently engaged in defending their freedom to maintain and promote Christian belief not to seek or maintain cultural power, but to bear witness to truth – It is actually less about winning the culture wars and more about maintaining a faithful witness! A Christian witness that does not allow itself to be relegated to the realm of private religion, but that makes claims that belong in the public arena and are relevant to the shaping of human society.

So, in this initial foray, I want to specifically engage the two very recent articles I mentioned in the beginning: the article by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor (The Guardian, April 13, 2025 - link), and the article by Zoe Bernard (Vanity Fair, April 2025 - link). My hope is that by examining their claims and tracing some of their assumptions, I might illustrate a Christian response rooted not in political trendiness, but in enduring truth.

 

Understanding the Critics: Klein, Taylor, and Bernard

Since I have decided to focus on two recent articles, it might be good to start by briefly identifying the authors.

Naomi Klein[5] and Astra Taylor[6] are prominent voices in progressive activism, each critically examining the intersections of capitalism, democracy, and environmental justice. Klein's This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate (2014) argues that the climate crisis is fundamentally tied to neoliberal capitalism, advocating for systemic transformation over market-based solutions. Taylor's Democracy May Not Exist, But We'll Miss It When It's Gone (2019) explores the complexities and contradictions of democratic systems, expressing skepticism toward liberal democracy and openness to radical alternatives. Both authors exhibit a pattern of selective critique, often expressing skepticism toward organized religion, particularly Christianity, while romanticizing indigenous and pagan worldviews. Their philosophical commitments to anti-capitalism and radical democracy predispose them to distrust confessional forms of Christianity, viewing them as aligned with oppressive structures.​

Zoe Bernard[7] is a Los Angeles–based freelance journalist and contributing editor at Vanity Fair, recognized for her reporting on the intersection of technology, culture, and society, particularly within the context of Silicon Valley. With prior experience at Business Insider and The Information, she has become a notable voice analyzing how technological and cultural shifts shape contemporary values. Her articles, such as “Inside California’s Freedom-Loving, Bible-Thumping Hub of Hard Tech” (Vanity Fair, July 2024) and “The Perfect Escape from Our Online World” (Vox, September 2024), explore themes ranging from the fusion of conservatism and innovation to the analog backlash against digital saturation. However, her portrayal of Christianity—framing it as a trendy resurgence or elite social phenomenon—often reflects a caricatured understanding of the Christian faith, emphasizing political utility or cultural rebellion rather than Christianity’s historic identity as a call to spiritual and moral transformation and humble submission to God.

 

A Short Point-by-Point Critique of the Articles

Klein and Taylor’s “The Rise of End Times Fascism” (The Guardian):

The authors argue that Christianity, especially of the sort that contains apocalyptic or “end times” thinking, is linked to authoritarianism, ecological nihilism, and political extremism. They refer to figures as diverse as venture capitalists and entrepreneurs (Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, Trey Goff, Balaji Srinivasan and Elon Musk), members of the current United States administration (Musk gain, Donald Trump, JD Vance, Mike Huckabee, Kristi Noem, Pete Hegseth), all the way to Curtis Yarvin, Nayib Bukele and Steve Bannon.  

All these names are connected as a group that is said to weaponize theology to build power, a group that greets “signs of apocalypse with gleeful excitement about the long-awaited Rapture.” They embrace something dangerous: an “End times fascism is a darkly festive fatalism – a final refuge for those who find it easier to celebrate destruction than imagine living without supremacy.”

For the authors, “the forces we are up against have made peace with mass death. They are treasonous to this world and its human and non-human inhabitants.” The conclusion seems obvious:

To have a hope of combating the end times fascists, with their ever-constricting and asphyxiating concentric circles of “ordered love”, we will need to build an unruly open-hearted movement of the Earth-loving faithful: faithful to this planet, its people, its creatures and to the possibility of a livable future for us all. Faithful to here. Or, to quote Anohni again, this time referring to the goddess in which she now places her faith: “Have you stopped to consider that this might have been her best idea?”

The answer: dismantle Christian narratives and recover “indigenous,” nature-based cosmologies.

Yet, here are some quick notes that should help expose the argument for what it is – Religious bigotry:

• There is a basic fallacy of guilt by association. A critique of bad actors using Christian language is valid—but it does not invalidate the faith itself. This leads even to associating their list of actors and their perceived Christian ideological threats to things that are their opposites, such as eugenics and a death cult.
• There is also a gross Reductionism. The authors collapse all of Christian eschatology into political extremism, showing a complete lack of theological nuance. Christian eschatology is multifaceted and has to do with “end times,” rather than “end games.” It is not about humanly swaying the destiny of mankind, rather it is about trusting that there is a positive future for mankind and seeking to be aligned with this vision. The authors are also eschatologically motivated. They have their own vision for the future, and they know it: “We have reached a choice point, not about whether we are facing apocalypse but what form it will take… In this moment, when end times fascism is waging war on every front, new alliances are essential. But instead of asking: “Do we all share the same worldview?” Adrienne urges us to ask: “Is your heart beating and do you plan to live? Then come this way and we will figure out the rest on the other side.”
• Not surprisingly, the alternative offered is incoherent. Replacing Christian worldview with a vague animistic spirituality lacks epistemological grounding. The only thing that could hold together in the same basket the disparate worldviews of “indigenous,” nature-based pagan cosmologies is exactly the fact that they are completely plural, incoherent and contradictory.
• What about the article’s anti-Christian presupposition? The article assumes Christianity’s truth claims are false or dangerous from the outset. If you start with the assumption that the actual claims of Christianity could never be true, you will, of course, move to prove that they are not true. As Michael Polanyi reminds us, we are committed to our conclusions from the start. That is true for the Christian just as much as for the anti-Christian.
• This leads to what I consider the final irony: In condemning religious dogma, the authors elevate their own vision (radical eco-spirituality) to a kind of moral absolutism, ergo, a religious dogma of their own.

Zoe Bernard – “Christianity… in Silicon Valley” (Vanity Fair):

Zoe begins by describing how Christianity was a small underground movement in Silicon Valey, once “borderline illegal” in elite tech spaces. Now, especially among ambitious men who seek meaning and structure, it is trending. She connects several aspects of expression of this renewed interest in the Christian faith with economic motives and expresses her concern for the political implications. Maybe I should let her state her own conclusions about what she finds disagreeable:

Implicit in Silicon Valley’s religious fervor are its recent investments in serious people with serious visions, which accounts for the billions lately plowed into defense tech and artificial intelligence. Such fields raise big, nagging questions about not only morality but the nature of the human condition: Why is the Western view superior? Is it ethical to assert military dominance over other nations? If machines replicate human intelligence, and by extension, consciousness, what will account for our species’ exceptionalism? These are catechisms you can easily complete with a Protestant perspective: The United States is superior because it is a nation founded on the Bible (despite what the Constitution may assert about the separation of church and state); our country has a moral obligation to assert global dominance in order to spread biblical values around the world; and humans are special because we are the pinnacle of God’s creation.

Though Zoe Bernard’s critique is less scathing, nevertheless, it also presents some critical difficulties:

• The analysis she delineates is “surface-level.” By equating popularity with economic or political ambition, she fails to take seriously deeper personal and cultural longings, such as desire for truth, hunger for meaning, longing for redemption and hunger for righteousness. The article seems to fail in seriously recognizing these deeper legitimate motives in regards to those who have sought to push for this Christian awakening, but especially as it relates to those who have been moved by the trend.
• There appears to be an underlying fear of meaning. The unease with Christianity’s return suggests fear of objective morality and accountability, if not at a personal level, at least as a positive cultural development.
• Christian motives seem to be misread. Real Christian conversion is not about utility but about surrender. Yet, for Bernard, it is not simply a question of light suspicion about the religious claims of one individual or one cultural trend. It seems to be a deep Hermeneutics of Suspicion, which colors the whole field of religious experience, individually and collectively. The problem is that, again, the suspicion cuts both ways: if religious motives cannot be trusted, are anti-religious motives above suspicion?
• Finally, there is an inevitable disregard for history. Christianity in the West is not new—it built much of the moral architecture Silicon Valley takes for granted.

 

Briefly Tracing the Presuppositions

I would be dishonest if I did not acknowledge that the points of my critique are not only influenced, but actually colored by my own Christian presuppositions. Equally, I cannot disavow Klein’s, Taylor’s, Bernard’s, or any other author’s reliance on their presuppositions. We all start from the universe we indwell, starting with our own bodies and our own commitments.  So, it is not about having presuppositions, but about the kind of universe these presuppositions support. That is because ultimately we are moved by faith-commitments.

So with the clear caveat of my own explicit Christian faith-commitment and my Reformed perspective, I think it is fair to briefly describe what I think are some problematic assumptions about the nature of truth, of reality and of moral and ethics.

The first thing that should be clear is that both articles assume that truth is socially constructed, that power dynamics are the key to understand religion and all social and cultural phenomena within Western culture and that human fulfillment and flourishing lies in autonomy and alignment with nature, not submission to transcendent truth.

For example, in both articles, the authors do not address the actual point of whether any of the claims of Christianity, even the kind of slanted Christianity they describe, are actually true. The falsehood of such belief, be it the eschatology, be it Christian anthropology or the Christian view of stewardship and dominion over nature, is simply presumed. All of that Christian stuff is nothing but crafted narratives to justify the domination of others. It follows, therefore, if all of this is true, that rejection of any authority greater than nature itself is the only legitimate course of action. But instead of simply “nature in tooth and nail,” now it must be nature and the goddess to be served and worshiped—This would be a good moment to re-read Romans 1, verses 16 to 28!

A second interesting point, however, is how closely these assumptions mirror old heresies: Gnosticism, from the first to the third centuries, was a sort of spiritual elitism that cast suspicion over the motives of all those who claimed to believe in a plain and available revelation. Pelagianism, from the fourth and fifth centuries, assumed man as self-savior. Modern-day paganism is not so different from ancient and tribal paganism with creation worship over Creator worship.

How different are the assumptions from the Christian alternative! For Christianity, humans are not gods-in-waiting, but created beings, fallen into sin and in need of grace and redemption. For Christianity human power-struggles are not at the center of human existence and life in society, it is the cross of Jesus, where God has granted His grace and reconnected sinner to Him. Finally, the Christian eschathon offers not escapism, but true cosmic renewal and justice!

 

What If It’s True?

Twenty years ago, Nicole Nordeman recorded a song called “What If?” (You can watch the video here) The song is beautiful and worth listening, but let me give you the lyrics:

 

[Verse 1]
What if you're right?
And he was just another nice guy
What if you're right?
What if it's true?
They say the cross will only make a fool of you
And what if it's true?
What if He takes His place in history
With all the prophets and the kings
Who taught us love, then came in peace
But then the story ends
What then?

 [Chorus]
But what if you're wrong?
What if there's more?
What if there's hope you never dreamed of hoping for?
What if you jump and just close your eyes?
What if the arms that catch you, catch you by surprise?
What if He's more than enough?
What if it's love?

 [Verse 2]
And what if you dig (What if you dig?)
Way down deeper than your simple-minded friends
What if you dig?
But what if you find (What if you find?)
A thousand more unanswered questions down inside? (What if you find?)
That's all you find
What if you pick apart the logic and begin to poke the holes
What if the crown of thorns is no more than folklore
That must be told and retold

 [Chorus]
But what if you're wrong?
What if there's more?
What if there's hope you never dreamed of hoping for? (Dreamed of hoping for)
What if you jump and just close your eyes?
What if the arms that catch you, catch you by surprise?
What if He's more than enough?
What if it's love?

 [Bridge]
'Cause you've been running, as fast as you can
And you've been looking for a place you can land
For so long

 [Chorus]
But what if you're wrong?
And what if you jump and just close your eyes?
What if the arms that catch you, catch you by surprise?
What if He's more than enough?
What if it's love?
What if it's love?

 

What if the real question to ask is exactly this: “What if you’re wrong, What if there is hope you never dreamed of hoping for?” Do you not find disturbing that so much of the attack on the Christian faith, the vitriol over how Christians seek to interact with this aching world looks like smoke-screens to avoid asking the what if question and acknowledging what we all are ultimately longing for? I confess that after writing this article, I am left with the longing that I could, perhaps, have a sit down with Naomi, Astra or Zoe and just talk over coffee about that question: “what if? What if there is hope you never dreamed of hoping for?” Maybe they would not be willing; maybe they are already too committed to a vision that has no real hope for now or the future except conflict and paganism.  Or maybe not…

 What would I say? I would invite them to consider the actual claims of Christianity not as a threat, but as the only true source of freedom, justice, and hope. Perhaps try to show that it is not about power imposed through a narrative, or about self-affirmation, but about opening the heart to see that the deepest and truest desires of humanity and of each person are not about asserting oneself (power-struggles), but loosing oneself in a loving and personal truth encounter, an encounter with He who is Truth itself! My faith, our faith, does not endure because it is convenient, but because it is true, it is real!

The God who made the world and who made each of us in His image has not abandoned the world. No, not even when we chose to believe we could be god-like on our own. Christ was His answer and He reigns, not as a “fascist,” but as the crucified and risen King.   

 

 

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NOTES: 

[1] For an excellent introduction to the New Atheism and its influence in the first decade of this century, I recommend reading R. Albert Mohler Jr. Atheism Remix: A Christian Confronts the New Atheists. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2008.

[2] See Bijan Omrani, In defense of cutural Christianity, The Spectator (April 20, 2025), link here (April 22, 2025).

[3] Other examples: Alex O’Connor, The trouble with political Christianity Those celebrating faith's revival should be cautious (UnHerd, June 19, 2024 – link); Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons and Magie Siddiqi, Christian Nationalism Is ‘Single Biggest Threat’ to America’s Religious Freedom: An Interview With Amanda Tyler of the Baptist Joint Committee (Center for American Progress, April 13, 2022 – link); and Cheyenne Rosenberger, The danger of Christian nationalism and conservatism (The Vermont Cynic, March 28, 2025 – link).

[4] Critiques of Christianity’s association with nationalism and political agendas extend well beyond Western contexts or the present, reflecting a global concern over the fusion of religious identity and state power. In Eastern Europe, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s advocacy for “illiberal Christian democracy” has intertwined Christian symbolism with nationalist policies, prompting criticism over restrictions on immigration and civil liberties. In Asia, China’s 1920s Anti-Christian Movement framed Christianity as an extension of Western imperialism, spurring widespread societal resistance. In Latin America, the growing political influence of evangelical groups—often aligned with conservative platforms—has raised alarms over potential theocratic encroachment on secular governance. In Africa, the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda notoriously invoked Christian rhetoric in pursuit of a theocratic regime, while Zambia’s 1991 declaration as a “Christian nation” under President Frederick Chiluba stirred debates over religious freedom and the marginalization of non-Christian citizens. Together, these cases underscore how the perceived entanglement of Christianity with national identity remains a contentious issue across diverse sociopolitical landscapes.

[5] Naomi Klein is a Guardian US columnist and contributing writer. She is the professor of climate justice and co-director of the Centre for Climate Justice at the University of British Columbia. Her latest book is Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World.

[6] Astra Taylor is a writer, organizer, and documentarian. Her books include the American Book Award winner The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age and Democracy May Not Exist, but We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone. Her most recent film is What Is Democracy?

[7] A Freelance Writer, Bernard is a feature writer based in Los Angeles. She writes about technology, crime, and culture. Formerly, she covered technology for The Information and Business Insider. For more information on Zoë Bernard and her work, you can visit her personal website at zoe-bernard.com.

 

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Dr. Davi Charles Gomes is the International Director of the World Reformed Fellowship, a graduate of Westminster Theological Seminary; he is a minister of the Presbyterian Church of Brazil and the former Chancellor of Mackenzie Presbyterian University, in São Paulo, Brazil. Click here for a brief bio.