The Digital Tower of Babel: Christian Nationalism in the Age of AI & Emerging Technologies from the Perspective of Thomas Merton

Using the See-Judge-Act method

The Deutsche Christen and the Volksempfänger (1933–45)

This period in history, between 1933 and 1945, is probably the closest real-world precedent to what my blog post today describes, and it’s rarely invoked in AI-ethics writing. The “German Christians” movement fused nationalist identity with church structure, and Goebbels’ propaganda ministry subsidized a cheap mass radio — the Volksempfänger, literally “people’s receiver” — precisely so a single voice could reach every household. It’s the “common tongue” of Babel made into hardware. The Confessing Church’s response, the 1934 Barmen Declaration, rejected not doctrine but the fusion itself— the claim that national identity and revelation were the same voice. That’s structurally identical to what Merton (and this essay) mean by refusing the “mask of nationalism.”

See: The Monk in the Machine Age

Thomas Merton, the Cistercian monk who bridged contemplative spirituality with prophetic social criticism, would have recognized something hauntingly familiar in our current technological moment. Writing from his hermitage at Gethsemani in the 1960s, Merton warned against what he called “the collective illusion” — the tendency of societies to construct massive edifices of self-justification that obscure rather than reveal truth. Today, the fusion of Christian nationalism with artificial intelligence and emerging technologies represents that same illusion in digital form: a Tower of Babel where religious identity is weaponized through algorithmic power.

Merton’s critique would cut through superficial debates about AI ethics to expose the deeper spiritual crisis: the idolatrous conflation of technological mastery with divine mandate, wrapped in the language of Christian restoration.

The New Babel: Technological Utopianism as False Transcendence

The original Tower of Babel story (Genesis 11:1-9) warns against humanity’s attempt to “make a name for ourselves” through technological achievement that reaches the heavens. Merton understood technology not as inherently evil, but as dangerously susceptible to what he called “the religion of power” — the belief that human will, properly organized and equipped, can construct paradise on earth. That warning helps frame the new Babel posed by Christian nationalism’s embrace of AI and emerging technologies.

Christian nationalism’s embrace of AI and emerging technologies creates a paradoxical new Babel, where technological ambition serves spiritual illusion rather than genuine faith.

The Algorithmic Chosen People: Just as the Babel builders sought unity through a single language and monolithic project, Christian nationalist movements increasingly deploy AI-powered tools to create echo chambers that reinforce tribal identity. Social media algorithms become the new “common tongue” — not facilitating genuine communication but manufacturing consensus through filter bubbles and engagement optimization. Merton would see this as the “mass mind” he warned against: individuals surrendering contemplative discernment for the comfort of the crowd.

Surveillance as Providence: When Christian nationalist rhetoric frames AI surveillance technologies as tools for protecting “Christian civilization” or maintaining moral order, it performs a theological sleight of hand Merton would immediately recognize. It turns God’s omniscience into a technological project controlled by human actors. This is the ultimate expression of what Merton called “the world of inert objects” — treating both technology and human beings as instruments rather than mysteries.

Data-Driven Dominionism: Seven Mountains Dominionism and similar Christian nationalist theologies teach that Christians must “take dominion” over cultural institutions. AI offers an intoxicating promise: the ability to model, predict, and shape human behavior at scale. Merton would recognize this as Promethean overreach disguised as divine commission — the attempt to force the Kingdom of God through technical mastery rather than kenotic love.

Discern: The False Self in the Age of Digital Identity

Central to Merton’s spirituality is the distinction between the “true self” (our identity grounded in God’s love) and the “false self” (the constructed identity we create through achievement, status, and social performance). AI and social media intensify the false self.

Christian nationalist movements online often exhibit what Merton called “the mask of nationalism” — a collective false self that mistakes cultural power for spiritual authenticity. This appears in several ways:

• Performative Piety: Social media’s attention economy rewards the most extreme expressions of religious-political identity. AI recommendation algorithms amplify outrage and tribal signaling, creating what Merton would call a “festival of violence” — not physical violence necessarily, but violence against truth, nuance, and the patient work of genuine spiritual formation.

• The Quantified Soul: When Christian nationalism embraces metrics-driven approaches to faith (attendance numbers, political victories, cultural influence scores), it reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of what Merton called “the hidden wholeness.” You cannot algorithm your way to the Kingdom of God. The attempt to do so creates what Merton described as “the spiritual man turned inside out” — all external performance, no interior life.

• Identity as Brand: AI tools allow for sophisticated micro-targeting and identity curation. Christian nationalist messaging can be tailored to different audiences with unprecedented precision. But this creates what Merton would recognize as the ultimate spiritual danger: believing your carefully constructed public persona is your actual identity. The contemplative knows the self is discovered in silence, not manufactured in the marketplace.

The Illusion of Control: AI and the Temptation of Omnipotence

Merton consistently warned against what he called “the illusion of power” — the belief that controlling outcomes is humanity’s highest calling. AI represents perhaps the most seductive version of this illusion yet created.

Predictive Analytics as False Prophecy: When Christian nationalist organizations use AI to model election outcomes, identify persuadable voters, or predict cultural trends, they engage in a form of technological divination. Merton would ask: What happens to faith when we believe we can calculate the future? What happens to providence when we think we can engineer it?

Automation of Discernment: AI systems promise to help identify “threats” to Christian civilization — flagging content, people, or ideas deemed dangerous. But Merton knew that genuine discernment requires what he called “the poverty of spirit” — the willingness to be wrong, to be surprised, to encounter the other without preset categories. Algorithmic sorting is the opposite of this poverty; it’s the rich self, drowning in its own certainty.

The Gnostic Temptation: There’s something deeply gnostic about the belief that reality can be mastered through the right technical knowledge. Christian nationalism’s embrace of AI often carries this gnostic flavor: we possess the hidden wisdom (the right data models, the correct algorithms) that will allow us to transcend the messiness of incarnate, embodied existence. Merton, steeped in the sacramental tradition, would see this as a profound betrayal of the Incarnation itself.

The Violence of Efficiency: When Systems Replace Persons

One of Merton’s most powerful insights was that modern technological society tends toward what he called “the collectivization of violence” — not necessarily through physical force, but through systems that treat persons as objects to be managed, optimized, or eliminated from the equation.

AI amplifies this tendency dramatically:

Dehumanization at Scale: When Christian nationalist rhetoric identifies enemies (immigrants, religious minorities, political opponents) and AI systems are deployed to track, categorize, or restrict these groups, we witness what Merton called “the Unspeakable” — evil so systematized it becomes banal. The monk who protested the Vietnam War would certainly protest the fusion of religious tribalism with AI-powered discrimination.

The Tyranny of Optimization: AI systems optimize for specified goals with remorseless efficiency. But human flourishing cannot be optimized. Love cannot be optimized. Mercy cannot be optimized. When Christian nationalism uncritically embraces AI, it risks what Merton warned against: mistaking efficiency for goodness, order for justice, and control for peace.

Automated Propaganda: AI-generated content, deepfakes, and bot armies allow for unprecedented manipulation of public discourse. Christian nationalist movements that deploy these tools — even “for good” — participate in what Merton called “the big lie.” They corrupt language itself, making genuine communication impossible.

Action: Contemplation as Resistance: Merton’s Alternative Vision

So what would Merton propose as an alternative? Not a reactionary rejection of technology, but a form of contemplative resistance that keeps the person primary and communion possible.

The Recovery of Silence: In an age of algorithmic noise, Merton would advocate for deliberate disconnection as a spiritual practice. Not permanent withdrawal, but rhythms of silence that let the true self emerge from beneath the digital static. Christian nationalism’s constant agitation-and-outrage cycle depends on our perpetual connectivity; contemplation breaks this cycle.

The Primacy of the Local and Embodied: Merton would counsel a return to the particular, the local, the embodied — all the things AI abstracts away. Christian nationalism operates through digital networks and grand narratives; authentic faith is lived in specific communities with specific neighbors. You cannot love an algorithm or be loved by one.

Seeing Through the Illusion: Merton’s concept of “the awakened life” meant seeing through collective delusions to reality itself. In our context, this means developing what we might call “algorithmic literacy” — understanding how systems shape perception without being captured by them. It means asking: What is this technology making easier? What is making it harder? Who benefits? Who is erased? These questions prepare the way for the wisdom of uncertainty that follows.

The Wisdom of Uncertainty: Against AI’s promise of prediction and control, Merton would advocate for what he called “the wisdom of the desert” — the recognition that uncertainty, unknowing, and vulnerability are not problems to be solved but the ground of authentic faith. Christian nationalism’s alliance with technological certainty is, in this sense, a profound failure of faith.

Nonviolent Resistance: Merton was deeply influenced by Gandhi’s satyagraha — truth-force as an alternative to coercive power. In the digital age, this might mean refusing to participate in algorithmic amplification of division, choosing truth-telling over tribal loyalty, and building technologies that serve genuine human connection rather than manipulation and control.

The Cross vs. The Algorithm: Theological Stakes

Ultimately, Merton would frame the issue theologically: Christian nationalism’s embrace of AI represents a crisis of Christology. It replaces the way of the Cross — self-emptying, suffering love, vulnerable presence — with the way of the algorithm: optimization, prediction, control.

The Cross is foolishness to those who seek power (1 Corinthians 1:23). It cannot be modeled, optimized, or efficiently administered. Christ’s weakness confounds the strong; his poverty shames the rich; his silence indicts our noise. AI, for all its capabilities, cannot comprehend this scandal.

Christian nationalism, by contrast, seeks a Christianity of power — what Merton would call “Constantinian Christianity,” the ancient heresy of confusing the Gospel with empire. AI has become the newest tool in the empire’s arsenal, now wrapped in the language of cultural renewal and religious restoration.

But Merton knew: genuine Christianity is always marginal, always prophetic, always in tension with systems of power. The monk in the hermitage, not the algorithm in the data center, shows us the way.

Conclusion: Scattering the Builders

God scattered the builders of Babel not as punishment but as mercy — preventing them from completing a project that would have sealed their alienation from both the divine and each other. The confusion of languages was not a curse but an invitation to the more difficult, more beautiful work of genuine communication across difference.

In our digital age, Thomas Merton would counsel a similar hope: that the very incoherence and overreach of Christian nationalism’s technological ambitions might wake us from the collective dream. That the algorithmic Tower of Babel, in its excess and obvious idolatry, might finally reveal what Merton spent his life trying to show us:

That authentic Christianity cannot be programmed.
That the Kingdom of God cannot be engineered.
That love is not data.
That mercy is not efficient.
That the truth will not trend.

The contemplative path Merton illuminated offers not an escape from technology but a way through it — a way of being fully present in the digital age without being captured by its illusions. It requires the hardest work of all: descending from the towers we’ve built, abandoning our projects of self-justification, and meeting each other — and God — in the vulnerable, unoptimized space of genuine encounter.

In that space, the algorithm’s noise fades. The false self dissolves. And we discover what Merton always knew: that we are already, always, incomprehensibly loved — not for what we achieve or control or build, but simply because we are.

The digital Tower of Babel will fall, as all such towers do. The question Merton would ask us is: Will we be humble enough to let it fall? Or will we, like the original builders, scatter only when we must — driven apart by the collapse of our own certainties?

Choose the scattering, Merton would say. Choose the wilderness over the city, the hermitage over the empire, the silence over the algorithm’s endless chatter. There, in the poverty and foolishness the world despises, you might finally hear the still, small voice that no machine can simulate and no system can contain.

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“We are living through the greatest crisis in the history of humans, and this crisis is centered precisely in the country that has made a fetish out of action and has lost (or perhaps never had) the sense of contemplation.” — Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander.