SECULARIZING DEMONS: FUNDAMENTALIST NAVIGATIONS IN RELIGION AND SECULARITY

• Published in: Zygon Vol. 51; no. 3; pp. 640 - 660
• Main Author: O'Donnell, S. Jonathon
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01-09-2016
• Subjects: eschatology; evolution; Genealogy; immanence; original sin; Religion; science; Secularism; teleology; Thomas Horn; time; transhumanism
• ISSN: 0591-2385; 1467-9744
• DOI: 10.1111/zygo.12275

Since the turn of the millennium, theologians and secular scholars of religion have increasingly begun exploring the relationship between transhumanism and religion. However, analyses of anti‐transhumanist apocalypticisms are still rare, and those that exist are situated mainly among broader explorations of religious and secular bioconservatism. This article addresses this lack of specificity by drawing analyses of transhumanism and religion into dialogue with explorations of contemporary demonology through a close study of the beliefs of the evangelical conspiracist Thomas Horn and the anti‐transhumanist milieu around him. Exploring the milieu's multifaceted demonology of the secular world in light of genealogies of religion and secularity, the article situates Horn's demonology as one attempt to negotiate these genealogies, using what Sean McCloud terms a “‘supernatural’ hermeneutics of suspicion” that sees spiritual forces as the structural base of reality. It argues that, while fringe, milieus like Horn's illuminate broader cultural tensions and genealogical relations surrounding the place of religion in a secular(izing) world.