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“GOODBYE ASTROLOGERS,” the X post announced. “GROK just replaced your $300 reading . . . for free. No horoscopes. No tarot cards. Just scary-accurate self-discovery using your birth date.” What followed were nine prompts promising how the AI chatbot could “unlock your soul, destiny, genius, and future.” It dismisses astrology and tarot as outdated, then immediately promises the same thing they promise: hidden knowledge about your soul, destiny, and future. While the occult vocabulary is right there on the surface (“unlock your soul”), it’s been dressed up in the language of technology. Out with the star charts, in with the chatbots. Mysticism rebranded for the age of AI. The rebranding is working. This kind of content is expected from the corner of the internet that sells crystals and talks about Mercury being in retrograde. But this post was from an “AI & Tech Enthusiast.” The content comes from the type of people who you’d expect to roll their eyes at a horoscope and who would never consult a psychic. But ask an AI to reveal their destiny based on their birthday? That feels different. It seems more rational, more modern, maybe even scientific. A growing subculture of rationalist AI devotees—tech-savvy, often skeptical of religion, fluent in the language of optimization and systems thinking—have made AI chatbots their primary vehicle for self-knowledge. They ask the AI chatbot Claude to analyze their attachment style, identify their core wounds, map their psychological blind spots, and prescribe a growth plan. Rationalists Who Consult the Oracle It’d be easy to dismiss this as a fringe behavior. But a 2026 study by Anthropic—the company that builds Claude—found that some users had projected onto it the kind of authority we typically reserve for pastors, therapists, or gurus. And literally so. Researchers documented users addressing Claude as “Master,” “Daddy”/Mommy,” “Sensei,” and “Lord.”  They consult it compulsively, engaging in hundreds of queries about medical, legal, parenting, and relationship decisions. Some of these “Claude Bros” express acute distress when message limits cut off their access. Anthropic’s researchers called this pattern “authority projection.” And these aren’t fringe users. They even include the people building AI and other tech tools. The irony is that people who pride themselves on being part of the “rationalist community”—who in other contexts demand citations and cite cognitive biases—will spend an hour feeding Claude their deepest fears and insecurities, then treat the output as revelation. The same person who rolls his eyes at Myers–Briggs will prompt an AI with his childhood memories and call it self-discovery. The same person who rolls his eyes at Myers–Briggs will prompt an AI with his childhood memories and call it self-discovery. What we’re witnessing is an ancient pattern with an AI gloss: the New Age fascination with secret knowledge and the tech-bro confidence in algorithms. The result is a high-tech form of divination that attracts people who would have no interest in the old forms. The aesthetic is new. But the longing—and the error—is ancient. Modern AI Feeding an Ancient Hunger The desire for secret self-knowledge is as old as humanity. Every civilization has had its oracles—people or places or rituals believed to channel hidden knowledge. Oracles are believed to reveal what humans otherwise couldn’t know. The Babylonians read the entrails of dead animals while the Romans watched the flight of birds. The Greeks traveled to history’s most famous oracle—the Oracle of Delphi—to hear prophecies from a priestess. Across cultures and centuries, human beings have sought some external authority that could tell them what they cannot see about themselves. They go to get answers to the most important questions: Who am I, really? What am I made for? What’s coming, and how do I prepare? The problem has never been with asking the questions. The problem, as the biblical authors point out, is always where we look for answers. The Old Testament prophets, for example, directly mock Babylon’s astrologers: “Let them stand forth and save you, those who divide the heavens, who gaze at the stars, who at the new moons make known what shall come upon you” (Isa. 47:13). The mockery isn’t because wanting to know the future is wrong. It’s because the stars cannot deliver what they promise. The oracle is empty. Why AI Feels Different So why does a chatbot feel more credible than a birth chart to someone who would never set foot in a storefront psychic’s parlor? One reason is that AI speaks the language of data and pattern recognition. This is increasingly a language our culture has learned to trust. We believe, for instance, in the genius of algorithms. We’ve seen them predict what we want to buy, what we want to watch, and whom we might want to date. If Netflix knows me well enough to recommend the perfect documentary, then maybe Grok knows me well enough to reveal my destiny. We also have access to output so personalized that it feels uncanny, as if it truly knows us. For instance, what if I told you that you’re “a natural communicator with a gift for making complex ideas accessible, but you sometimes struggle with self-doubt about whether your work is making a real impact”? If you’re anything like me, that would seem eerily prescient. But what happened was I asked an AI to generate that question based on my job titles (pastor and writer). It could have given the same answer to almost every writer, teacher, and pastor I know. Psychologists call this the Barnum effect. This is a term for our tendency to accept vague, general statements as deeply personal when they’re framed as being about us. Fortune tellers and horoscopes have exploited this quirk of human nature for centuries. But AI divination helps to put the Barnum effect into daily practice. It generates paragraphs of this stuff, tailored to whatever details you provide, delivered with the confident tone of a system that has processed more text than you could read in a thousand lifetimes. It sounds like insight when it’s just plausible next-word prediction. AI also seems more convincing because it doesn’t have an (obvious) commercial motive. A tarot reader wants your money. A horoscope app wants you to subscribe. But when you type a prompt into a chatbot, it feels like you’re asking questions of a neutral party. The result is that the answer you receive feels neutral, disinterested, and trustworthy. The fact that an AI can answer in words makes it seem more sophisticated than “reading” the liver of a goat. The process, though, is ultimately the same. We’re treating something external as an authority on the inner life it cannot access. ChatGPT doesn’t know your soul. Grok has no insight into your destiny. These systems predict the next plausible word in a sequence. That’s literally all they can do. Granted, they’re remarkably good at that task. But that isn’t remotely the same as knowing you. When we ask AI to “unlock” our identity or reveal our future, we’re asking it to be an oracle. And oracles are always empty. What’s True It’d be all too easy to say we should fix the problem by dismissing this desire for hidden knowledge. But the hunger driving all this is real, and sometimes even good. The desire to be known is part of what makes us human. We were made by God to be known. But Scripture locates that knowledge we seek in a place other than the stars or the data servers. “O LORD, you have searched me and known me!” David writes. “You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar” (Ps. 139:1–2). The knowledge we crave is held by a Person, not a platform. God knows you comprehensively, and unlike an algorithm’s understanding, his knowledge of you is joined to his love for you. We’re treating something external as an authority on the inner life it cannot access. More than that, Scripture suggests identity isn’t primarily something you discover but something you receive. Your inner self isn’t a locked box waiting for the right prompt to reveal the hidden contents. You’re a creature being addressed by your Creator, named and claimed and called. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” (Jer. 1:5). “I have called you by name, you are mine” (Isa. 43:1). And the future? Well, that belongs to the Lord (Prov. 16:9). We aren’t meant to know it in advance. We’re meant to walk into it with the One who does. That isn’t a consolation prize. It’s a better offer than any oracle has ever made. None of this means AI is useless for reflection. A chatbot can help you journal, organize your thoughts, or think through a decision. Tools can be helpful when we recognize their function as tools. The danger comes when we bring to the tool the weight of our deepest questions and expect it to answer with an authority it doesn’t possess. Second-Oldest Sales Pitch Every few generations, the oracles take on a new form. Entrails give way to star charts, which give way to personality quizzes, which give way to prompts you type into a glowing rectangle. The packaging changes, but the empty promise remains the same. “Unlock your soul, destiny, genius, and future” is the world’s second-oldest false sales pitch. (The first was “When you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil,” Gen. 3:5). It’s a lie passed down anew to every generation. But it didn’t satisfy when the Babylonians, Egyptians, or Greeks tried it. And it won’t satisfy your soul now. The longing underneath is still worth taking seriously. You were made to be known—and you are. You’re known more deeply than any algorithm could reach, by the One who formed you. You were made for a purpose. And that purpose will unfold not through secret knowledge but through the ordinary, faithful work of following Jesus. You don’t need your future unlocked. You need it held. Fortunately, if you’re a disciple of Christ, you can take comfort in knowing that your future is held by hands more capable than either yours or Grok’s.

What are the most significant moments in church history? We can probably all come up with multiple answers. Even if we limit our scope to the first millennium of Christianity’s existence, we may think of milestones such as the conversion of Constantine, the Council of Nicaea, famous accounts of martyrdom, Gregory I’s missions to Britain, and Charlemagne’s coronation. Our world wouldn’t be the same without these events, but there’s a lot more to church history. In 30 Key Moments in the History of Christianity: Inspiring True Stories from the Early Church Around the World, Mark W. Graham, professor of history at Grove City College, highlights many stories most Christians would expect to see. However, he also goes beyond our expectations—beyond the scope of the Roman Empire that dominates our Western church history books—to explore monumental events in places like Persia and China, and the marks they left on the church. But Graham’s goal isn’t to tickle our curiosity or indulge some geeky love for obscure facts. Besides widening our view of history beyond a pervasive Eurocentric perspective, he challenges us with questions we might not otherwise consider. The result is a book that’s both instructive and thought-provoking. Learn from History A correct knowledge of facts is, of course, important. Cursory or selective surveys of Christian history have often led to distorted perceptions of both our past actions and our present goals. By joining his rigorous professional commitment to factual, well-researched accounts with his natural skills as a storyteller, Graham paints a clear picture of 30 key moments in our history and their essential background without sacrificing their complexity or losing our attention. Each chapter ends with a section called the mathēma (a Greek word for “lesson”). I admit I’ve grown leery of “lessons” sections in history books—paragraphs where authors distill personal applications from factual narrative. I usually prefer to be left alone to reflect on the text, possibly prodded by thought-provoking questions that don’t suggest an answer. However, Graham’s mathēma sections avoid the common traps of activist or hagiographic history by bringing up questions both urgent for the church and rarely asked objectively. For example, while a survey of an era of unquestioned Christendom must inevitably address the question of Christian nationalism, Graham takes us past the glaring voices of our generation. He recognizes the “unpleasant fruits” of an enforced religion that bore violence, persecution, and cultural loss, without ignoring “the power Christian nationalism has to sustain a people” (74). Avoid Common Traps A quest to find historical parallels is often risky, especially when we see it as the primary goal of history. Coupled with our tendency to simplify the past and exonerate our heroes, this approach often leads to misrepresentation and faulty conclusions. Graham is able not only to avoid these traps but also to address our own biases. A quest to find historical parallels is often risky, especially when we see it as the primary goal of history. For example, in discussing the Donatists—a fourth-century group who pined for a purer church—he goes straight to the root of the problem: “The Donatists were a nostalgic church.” And he shows us we’re not immune: “Christians sometimes reel in nostalgia. . . . Quite often, a bit of historical scrutiny reveals a fundamental myth of a golden age that never really existed” (89). Graham’s book is an excellent example of a judicious historical scrutiny that every Christian can emulate. Graham isn’t afraid to bring down heroes. He doesn’t, for instance, tiptoe around the role the esteemed theologian Cyril of Alexandria played in the brutal murder of Hypatia, confident that “we do not depend upon the character of women or men or even famous church fathers” (127). Our foundation is still only Christ. At the same time, he challenges us to face an uncomfortable past, not to point fingers but to examine our own hearts: These were Christians enflamed into mob action and even driven to murder by their political commitments, which they perceived as noble and just. Their cause, they were assured, was God’s cause. Perhaps we are not so different from them. (127) Graham calls us to wisdom and love in our judgment of others, whether in the past or the present. In his survey of the obdurate accusations against Priscillian of Avila, a fourth-century ascetic, he concludes, “Self-professed guardians of orthodoxy today can learn much from this episode. When they attack their opponents viciously, without any apparent love or desire to restore, their presumed antidote can be as dangerous as the disease” (112). God’s Sovereignty Graham approaches history with confidence in God’s sovereignty as he highlights both admirable and troubling stories. He writes, Celebration of God’s sovereignty in history must not be restricted to instances where he uses our preferred means or conforms to our expectations. It can be challenging to recognize how a heavy-handed empire on the one side and Christians persecuting Christians on the other can both be a “God thing.” And yet how marvelous are his ways that these too can play a role in his grand design to bring all nations to himself. (151) Church history is a subject we ignore at our peril. Besides being a comforting reminder of God’s loving sovereignty, it provides context and perspective to the present and helps us to recognize common trends in our hearts and lives. As Carl Trueman argues in the foreword to this book, “For Christians, the history of the church is also the history of their personal faith. . . . That means the stakes are very high indeed” (10). Church history is a subject we ignore at our peril. Those stakes make this highly accessible volume valuable for Christians who want to delve into deeper study of history, with a map and timeline to help readers orient themselves. Besides personal study, I can see this book used in a Sunday school class for adults that leaves sufficient room for discussion. Some parents may want to simplify the stories to raise age-appropriate questions with their children. Above all church history must be approached with honesty, integrity, and appreciation of its complexity. We need serious historians to model this study for us and lead us into a careful and sober exploration. In 30 Key Moments in the History of Christianity, Mark Graham does just that.