The Return of the Antichrist

I attended two of Peter Thiel’s lectures on the Antichrist in Nashville recently, and I have been marinating ever since on eschatology and apocalypse, and on the Antichrist in particular. To many Americans this whole conversation will seem odd, even downright incomprehensible. If you haven’t spent years immersed in the Bible and American evangelical culture, it will sound as if Christians are speaking a foreign language. As I sat in the audience listening to Thiel work through his analysis (an impressive display of intellectual gymnastics, vaulting from René Girard to Leo Strauss to Pope Benedict and referencing the Bible and medieval works of art all the while), I had the sense that not everyone could follow his train of thought, especially the average person who hasn’t been steeped in theology, philosophy, and history the way Thiel has.