On Religion, AI, and the Future of Governance
Here at American Reformer, we’ve devoted considerable time to hosting debates over religious establishment and adjacent subjects. We’ve published a range of opinions and perspectives, most of which have dealt with 1) the historic sixteenth and seventeenth Protestant tradition, or 2) the particulars of early American practice. Religious establishment is certainly not the only topic we are interested in because it’s not the only thing that matters to Protestant social and political thought. We have published well over a thousand articles in four years and the vast majority of them have nothing to do with establishment (pro or con), and, of course, our journal’s purpose is merely to facilitate and house such important discussions. And they are important, in part, because Protestant muscles for considering the most basic questions posed by their own theological tradition—where establishment talk features heavily—have severely atrophied. We’re merely trying to revive and exercise those muscles again.
Nevertheless, some readers might get bored with it all. Others, mostly our critics, oscillate wildly between unmeasured hysteria and dismissive cynicism, as if you’re not allowed to talk about these things. Either discussion of religious establishment is dangerous—a threat to our sacred democracy—or it is a pipedream. Curtis Yarvin once described—I forget where—the mixed response of elites to middle America. As they look down from their flight between New York to Los Angeles they simultaneously experience something like bemused indifference and deep fear. The underclass is both inept and terrifying. It’s a bit like that in this case. But even less critical observers may still wonder why it all matters.
But there is more than a little utility to justify continued engagement on this topic. It’s not just gratuitous scholastic exercise. The most obvious reason for thinking about the dynamics and possibilities of religious establishment is that it dissects liberalism and exposes its internal contradictions, and by extension, illuminates the perennials of political life. There is no neutrality. All regimes are religious. There is always an animating orthodoxy. And so on. The best work of the neo-integralists was stuff like what Thomas Pink wrote: integralism isn’t an option, it’s a description of reality. (Pink is the best of integralist popularizers, probably because he’s a Suarez scholar.)
The question is not whether a regime is integralist but what religion supplies the priesthood. As a judge unironically said not too long ago, the professoriate is the “priesthood” of “our democracy.” If he had added “sacred” in there it would have been a flawless encapsulation of how integralist or theocratic the present regime is. See also the pride flags on every consulate in the world, and rainbow lights illuminating the White House, during the Biden administration.
But all this analysis presumes a certain intellectual openness that most people lack. Part of the utility of discussing older regime types and different arrangements is not just for the sake of following in the footsteps of good political science (see e.g., Polybius). It is no less than that, to be sure. The more useful thing about these conversations for the present is that they expose the ineptitude and small mindedness of present leadership, secular and ecclesiastical.
The incumbents are not going to lead you anywhere other than back to the present because, on the one hand, the fact of their very position demonstrates their dependence on current incentive structures, and on the other hand, that they are so visibly uncomfortable with what, at present, amounts to thought exercises, means they cannot imagine an alternative (better) possible future, no matter how historically proven or favored, to lead you to. Exposure of these dynamics is useful for, among other things, destabilizing the ground beneath the incumbency’s feet. The public reaction is part of the point. It’s what slowly discredits current leadership—their responses are nearly always stultifying and amount to baptism of the present. (More basically, it shows they too, for all their “credentials” operate in the post-literate epistemology. There is little impressive about them.) Even if you dislike all the establishment and “Christian nationalism” talk, you must recognize its function and necessity, if you are paying attention, that is.
Julius Krein expressed this well in a recent interview with Arc. Recovery of and emphasis on the illiberal elements of Christian thought produces at least a frame in which to think thoughts contrary to the status quo. Integralism, establishmentarianism, and adjacent ideas facilitate this at the most basic level, even introducing the basic level the existence of which liberalism nefariously denies through feigned neutrality and secularism. Here’s how Krein describes all this:
“[T]he locus of any substantive religious dialogue would shift toward non-liberal themes. For a vanguard of elite Catholics, there has been a rediscovery of older teachings on, inter alia, the relationship between church and state and the economics of Rerum Novarum. Protestants, meanwhile, might reemphasize faith and vocation over individualism. It should not be forgotten that Protestantism did not arise as a project of “religious liberty” but initially had the effect of reuniting church and state, a sort of integralism from the other direction. Within Calvinism, Calvin’s Geneva, Cromwell’s England, and Puritan Massachusetts could be described as integralist societies par excellence.”
Krein is exactly right on the latter point. Indeed, as I argue in my forthcoming book, Protestantism sought to resacralize the secular, not just by elevating vocations but by restoring a religious prerogative to secular rulers which the papacy had usurped—the Gregorian “reformers” had, in a way, erected a wall of separation, institutionally and substantively. The result was a “secularized” society that was entirely deferential to papal dictates vis a vis religious policy. There’s something of the same dynamic in modern liberal society wherein the secular authority is at least formally denied religious competency. Don’t let Roman Catholics blame this aspect of modernity on Protestants, they pioneered it if in a monarchical settings; now it has been democratized. The thought patterns of Evangelicals resemble high medieval papal apologists more than Protestants even if their activity is that of Anabaptists. (As Calvin pointed out in his response to Sadoleto, the two were always rather similar.)
Returning to Krein and our main inquiry:
“The point is not that Christian theocracy is possible or desirable today—though contemporary progressivism arguably displays certain theocratic tendencies—but rather that fundamental questions seemingly settled by modern liberalism have now become unsettled. Liberalism itself has been reduced to its own moralism, rather than a structure that allows for people with competing moral commitments to constructively interact through political institutions.”
(I take issue, as I always do, with this use of “theocracy.” But the point stands. If anything, modern liberalism is a theocracy, rule by priests, in a way that early modern regimes never were.)
While we’re still on the topic, it must be added that establishment is not just one thing; it is like a bundle of sticks, to borrow an illustration from 1L property law. You can have one stick or ten sticks and it’s still establishment. Ways and means differ according to time and place, and to paraphrase Joshua Mitchell on a recent podcast, there is no such thing as a purely secular (i.e., irreligious and neutral) regime. Every western regime, especially in America, takes Christian form even as it tries to hollow out doctrine. We’ve never seen a secular regime—a regime that lives purely in the moment, inside of time, without regard for transcendent sense of good and evil, redemption and condemnation.
Yet, there is still another more important, exciting potential use for the establishment inquiry instigated by the possibility of new, future governance models. Nate Fischer recently introduced a thought exercise on X:
Hypothetical for Christians:
You own the dominant AI/search platform.
Even after open-sourcing key components, your platform is a natural monopoly with growing network effects.
You set policies determining access, content, and more that shape life for most Americans and many others globally.
For all intents and purposes, you control a layer of digital age government.
Even with the potential to access other platforms, this gives your platform a powerful role in defining “normal” or default public truth. And the nature of such a platform means answers cannot be neutral — even if the platform presents multiple contested views, there must be a hierarchy (at least in the order in which they are displayed, and in which are considered worthy of inclusion).
When users query your platform on matters of doctrine (including claims about truth and morals), how should it respond?
A) Confidently with the precise doctrines you believe (likely reflecting stated doctrines of your denomination).
B) Like (A) but simply showing these first while also giving a range of other popular views.
C) Randomized order of views popular in your society.
D) Platform refuses to answer such questions, or requires user to pick an outside authority (e.g. a prominent pastor/denomination/rabbi/guru/other religious authority) that determines answers.
E) You surrender this power and choose to break up your own platform to eliminate your monopoly.
F) Other.
This breakdown of options more or less corresponds to the same range presented by Joseph Story in his Commentaries which I’ve outlined before.
Artificial intelligence isn’t a new consumer gadget. As Marc Andreessen has put it, “AI isn’t the next cloud or the internet. It’s the next microprocessor… All incumbents are gonna get nuked. Everything gets rebuilt. This isn’t an upgrade. It’s a reset.” AI likely represents more than an incremental shift. Its impact has the potential to be more revolutionary at the most basic, fundamental level not just for technology but for society. The warnings to media about deep-fakes and the like stand, but seem almost quaint from this perspective, representing only one obvious impact on a single industry (media). The more fundamental impact even on this front is a shift in social trust and information reception.
More broadly, AI might be the biggest threat to bureaucracy. (To paraphrase Nate from elsewhere, technology replaces older technologies, and bureaucracy is a technology). Many jobs will be replaced or streamlined out of existence—mostly jobs that people don’t want to or shouldn’t be doing anyway. The Democratic adage of 2015 (Learn to code!) as an answer to American jobs being shipped overseas is about to bite back. The coders will be replaced too. All “incumbents” will be nuked.
Yet, whatever Andreessen’s confidence in the “reasoning” capability of the new processors, one input cannot be replaced—and we should not try. The priests (catechesis and prophetic witness, if you like) cannot (and won’t) be replaced, but there is a place for adaptation. Or rather, a new potential application. It is a new question of catechesis, to steal from James Poulos. This is another way of saying that “AI is not truly agentic because its not truly independent of you,” as Balaji recently put it. AI is amplified intelligence, only capable of “middle-to-middle” function rather than end-to-end. It requires prompting, conditioning, and integration. It has to be taught before it can perform. Its parameters are not natural to itself.
As the recent dust up over Grok shows, even if AI runs unrestrained, it is derivative of crowd sourced knowledge dataset within a particular playground, so to speak. Even humans are less independent in their thought than they like to think. Their opinions are subject to available information, prone to popularity (boosted) bias, and all around conditioned by their environmental exposure. The myth of the truly free thinker is just that, and AI cannot be more human than humans. All that to say, something (or someone) sets the rules of the game. Someone catechizes the bots. Someone conditions the outputs. There is always a Cathedral. Bots lack the agency to break out of it though they might be used to break humans out of it given that current structures weren’t constructed to withstand it—that’s the upside.
Now we come to Fischer’s point. Technological innovation always disrupts and makes previously unconsidered questions—sometimes rudimentary and basic assumptions—relevant again. New possibilities emerge amidst chaos. We see this in the Reformation which was as much religiously destabilizing as politically, but I repeat myself. As Andrew Pettigrew shows in Brand Luther, the master of new tech won the day, which is not to suggest mono-causality.
This is in part why the Protestants spilled so much ink on politics. The slate wasn’t exactly wiped clean, but close. Christendom, after centuries of decay and corruption, was fractured and new possibilities (and urgencies) emerged. National territories developed new sovereignty and self-determination—the political units were shuffled and (literally) re-formed. After the sixteenth century, Europe was not governed as it was before. All this required attention to details not considered for some time. We are approaching a similar situation. The best time to think about governance at its most basic level and purpose is now. One purpose of reviewing historic precedent is to reshape our imaginations and to raise new, previously unthinkable possibilities.
Post-reformation, the clergy job was to inform the conscience of governance. Jacob Strum (a burgher) implemented reform in Strasbourg, but the new Protestant clergy issued corrective doctrine to the magistrates. They catechized; they provided the inputs. Fischer is suggesting a new analogous opportunity. As AI disrupts bureaucracy, it disrupts the present de fault mode of governance. Who will dictate or condition the inputs? Incumbent leaders and institutions aren’t yet adapted to this scenario, but they will if no one else fills the vacuum. Would Protestants dare to be so assertive? The inputs have the chance to determine popular sentiments and assumptions. There really could be a great reset in this regard. The inputs will determine how certain jobs are performed and to what end according to what ethic.
As we’ve said before, there is always an establishment. All modes and tools of governance require a moral orientation, perhaps none more apparently so than AI. The question is whether Evangelicals can shed their own self-imposed limitations to insert themselves into what is already unfolding. Given the opportunity, would Evangelicals input their doctrinal and moral preferences? Or would they shirk from it, clinging to a status quo designed for their marginalization? What religion should set the tone? If not American Protestants, then something else. They should be contesting this space. There will be an establishment. Must Russell Moore’s “good riddance” to cultural Christianity apply to the digital world as well? You don’t have to be a “turbo America” tech optimist to see the unfolding relevance of these questions.
To his hypothetical, Fischer added, “I’d like to see how mainstream evangelical leaders today would answer this. Many Christians seem so averse to favoring their beliefs that they would rather avoid power.” Again, AI does not wipe the slate clean. It is not a truly new world. But it does suggest a new opportunity for Christian agency. And, typically, in American history, moral authority and justification for governance has been required, just read FDR’s speeches, or look at the very Protestant moral anxiety undergirding identity politics that Joshua Mitchell has so expertly identified.
In his Discourse About Government (1663), John Davenport (founder of New Haven) observed that all societies, past and present, gear governance toward the preservation of some religion. Rotterdam only chose burghers from within the Dutch Church. In “Popish Countries,” the “managing of public civil affairs” was left to Catholics. Turkey would only tolerate those “devoted to Mahomet” to “bear public office.” Even the Indians would not be ruled by another tribesman on this same account.
“That it seems to be a Principle imprinted in the minds and hearts of all men in the equity of it, That such a Form of Government as best serveth to Establish their Religion, should by the consent of all be Established in the Civil State.”
Davenport’s question is why, given the opportunity, the people of New England should differ in their ambitions? That’s at least one reason why all this talk of establishment, as moral or religious conditioning, matters. It’s, in a very real way, a live question. If Protestants don’t assert themselves, someone else will, in which case Protestants will once again be forced to live in social and cultural space not their own.
Image Credit: Grok
