Silicon Valley's New Gospel: Where Capitalism Meets the Cross
Silicon Valley’s elite are blending faith, venture capital, and defense tech to redefine the future—one “good quest” at a time.
For years, Silicon Valley has worshiped at the altar of innovation, with a holy trinity of disruptiveness, scalability, and, of course, astronomical valuations.
But now, a new sect is emerging in the temple of tech, and it's preaching something unexpected: Christian values as the guiding principle for entrepreneurship.
Enter ACTS 17 Collective, the brainchild of Michelle Stephens, wife of Trae Stephens—the cofounder of Anduril, a defense contractor, and a partner at Thiel’s Founders Fund. Their mission? To bring faith into tech and redefine success as loving God, oneself, and others.
The Gospel According to Thiel and Co.
This movement, though new in branding, isn’t exactly a surprise.
Silicon Valley has always been obsessed with creating a utopia—first with code, then with Christ. Peter Thiel, the libertarian venture capitalist who backs this latest initiative, has long been pushing strange theological futurism in which technology is the hand of God and startups are His modern-day apostles.
Thiel once wrote that “science and technology are natural allies of Judeo-Western optimism”—which, roughly translated, means: "Let’s build AI, biohacking, and maybe some defense tech for the Lord."
At an ACTS 17 event last week, Trae Stephens echoed this sentiment, saying that jobs outside the church are also sacred, citing Martin Luther’s Protestant Reformation as a model.
For these folks, building AI-driven surveillance tools or hypersonic weapons isn't just business—it’s divine intervention. And what better way to bring God's kingdom to Earth than through military tech, data-mining software, and venture capital?
“Good Quests” vs. Bad Quests (Or, How to Justify Being an Arms Dealer)
ACTS 17 events promote the idea of “good quests,” a concept first laid out in a 2022 essay by Trae Stephens and entrepreneur Markie Wagner. According to them, Silicon Valley is stuck in a “crisis of nonsense,” where people waste their time on things like Twitter discourse, NFTs, and yacht parties instead of working on “hard” problems—like AI, defense, and extending human lifespans.
Trae, who famously ran Trump’s defense transition team, believes that a “good quest” advances civilization meaningfully. Conveniently, his business—selling military tech—falls squarely into that category.
In contrast, a “bad quest” is something like, say, building an NFT marketplace. Trae recounted at the event after publishing his essay that an eager entrepreneur told him he was on a mission to “solve an important problem” by launching an NFT platform. Trae’s response? That’s not a real quest, bro.
But selling advanced defense tech to governments? Now that’s holy work.
A Faith-Driven Pivot from Psychedelics to Psalms?
Silicon Valley has always had its own kind of spiritualism.
Many tech elites have long sought meaning beyond the balance sheet, from biohacking to ayahuasca retreats. But ACTS 17 represents something different—a shift away from the Burning Man aesthetic and toward a more Western traditionalist framework, complete with a startup-friendly version of Christianity.
There’s even a social component: ACTS 17 events are part church, part networking mixer, with bartenders serving drinks and DJs spinning “light worship beats” (yes, that’s a thing). It's where you can discuss divine providence over a craft IPA while a Palantir executive muses about the “moral crisis in tech.”
Even churches are getting a Silicon Valley rebrand. Epic Church, a nondenominational Christian congregation, has seen rising attendance, and its dinner series is literally named “Alpha.” Because, of course, it is.
What’s the Endgame?
This whole movement raises an uncomfortable question: Is this about faith, or is it about power? Because when billionaires and defense contractors start talking about building God’s kingdom on Earth, history suggests that what follows is rarely utopian.
This isn’t just about spirituality but a cultural shift within Silicon Valley’s ruling class. For decades, tech was seen as a secular force, even a libertarian one, where wealth and power were pursued with little concern for tradition. Now, some of its most influential figures are using faith as a new ideological framework that conveniently aligns with their existing interests in AI, military tech, and political influence.
And the message is clear: The future doesn’t belong to crypto bros or acid-tripping futurists anymore. It belongs to Christian techno-capitalists, who believe the path to salvation runs through venture capital, machine learning, and probably some government contracts.
Heaven on Earth? It's more like a theocratic, militarized Silicon Valley.
That’s the point.