We were supposed to do this one last week, but things happened and the Antichrist got bumped a week. Worth the wait. Bo spent the extra time going back to the Eerdmans Bible Dictionary he bought in 1992 when he enrolled at Canadian Bible College in Regina, Saskatchewan, because we live in a moment so unmoored from basic coherence that you have to return to first principles just to get oriented. The result was one of the better explainers we’ve ever done on this show. Bo walked us through the four stages of Antichrist theology: stage one, the generic concept in John’s letters — an amorphous spirit of the age. Stage two, you give it the definite article and a face. Stage three, you smash every bad guy in the entire Bible together like Play-Doh remnants — Daniel’s beasts, the man of lawlessness in Thessalonians, the beast from the sea in Revelation, Gog and Magog — into one Voltron-level super-villain. And stage four, which is where Peter Thiel lives, and which we are saving for next week because it requires its own episode: you take everything in stage three and invert it. The Roman Empire becomes good. Greta Thunberg becomes suspect. The Pope becomes suspect. The resistance to technological progress is the Antichrist. We covered Jack Van Impe’s greatest hits — UFOs as demons, black holes as hell, the Mayan calendar, five missed dates — and John Hagee’s gay Jewish Illuminati financier sermon that reads like medieval blood libel and somehow didn’t end his career. We talked about how Bo went from a wall chart of the end times to a PhD at Claremont, what Y2K, 9/11, and Left Behind together did to his evangelical certainty, and how an iPod loaded with Rob Bell and Leonard Sweet became an off-ramp. We planned a camp beer. We discussed kettlebells at length. Netanyahu is Wormtongue. Trump is Denethor eating cherry tomatoes while the battle rages. Stage four next week.

Theology Beer Camp 2026 — The God-Podcalypse — hits Kansas City October 8–10, exactly one month before the election. Thirty scholars (Ilia Delio, Cornel West, Diana Butler Bass, Gary Dorrien, and a stack more), thirty God-pods, four post-apocalyptic stages, and the community everyone keeps telling us is the real reason they come back. Come find your people at Theology Beer Camp

Join our upcoming online class – THE FUTURE OF RELIGION

Tripp and Ilia Delio are teaming up for a brand-new four-week online class, The Future of Religion — for everyone who’s read the books, asked the questions, and realized the faith they inherited doesn’t quite fit anymore. Together they’ll trace religion’s evolutionary arc and map what’s emerging on the other side. Includes 4 video lectures, 4 live Q&As (replays available), and a community of fellow travelers. Donation-based, pay what you’re able (including $0). Live sessions start this month — register at ? www.thefutureofreligion.com

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