Donald Trump and the God Warriors

Robert Misik in conversation with Linda Kreuzer and Wolfgang Palaver

Donald Trump and the God Warriors
Political theology 2.0

„Trump's God warriors“ was the headline in Der Spiegel a few weeks ago. In fact, a strange new alliance of high-tech and a new Christian fundamentalism is forming in the USA, which includes not only the usual evangelical milieus, but also the neo-Catholic and Vice President J. D. Vance. The tech billionaire Peter Thiel, in turn, is increasingly concerned with apocalypticism in the wake of Carl Schmitt's „political theology“ and other sources and speaks of the „Katechon“ that is holding back the „Antichrist“.

Wolfgang Palaver, a theologian from Innsbruck, is known as both a critical and intensive dialogue partner of Thiel - and a good expert on the new „thinking of Silicon Valley“.

Linda Kreuzer, on the other hand, deals with the aestheticisation of the ideological, in particular using the example of the „US-American Catholic Trad-Wives“, women who propagate a traditional, pious lifestyle in a modern way.

Does all this go beyond the usual „religiousisation“ of US politics? What significance do authoritarian ideologies have, what weight do their theological foundations carry? What is Christian fundamentalism all about? And how does the Valley think?

Linda Kreuzer, University assistant at the Faculty of Catholic Theology at the University of Vienna, Department of Social Ethics

Wolfgang Palaver, Professor emeritus of Christian Social Teaching at the University of Innsbruck and President of Pax Christi Austria; lecturer at the PTH Brixen in theological and religious education courses and in the USG Applied Ethics; Special Representative against Racism, Xenophobia and Discrimination of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) since April 2025.

Moderation
Robert Misik, Author and journalist