Fr. Stephen Freeman: Modernity Is a Protestant Heresy

Fr. Stephen Freeman. Photo: wadiocese.org

OCT. 1, 2025 — Fr. Stephen Freeman, a retired priest of the Orthodox Church in America, author of books and the popular blog Glory to God for All Things, was recently a guest on writer Paul Kingsnorth’s podcast Machine Sessions. In the conversation, he calls modernity a “heresy,” describes artificial intelligence as “Disneyland” and “hell,” and emphasizes that the only antidote is the ancient path of the Church—radical love, life within boundaries, and the acceptance of death as a gift from God.

“Modernity is a Protestant heresy,” says Fr. Stephen Freeman.

“Heresy is when we seek a new world in Christ (understood as a human project of ‘building’ the world in His name—ed.), but the Kingdom of God is a gift, which is Christ Himself. And in much of the Protestant world you will often hear a prayer that speaks of ‘building the Kingdom.’ But you cannot build the Kingdom. The Kingdom is a gift from God. You don’t have the bricks with which to build it—unless you secularize it…”

He explains that this is the root of modern utopias:

“One version of secularization is Marx… Modernity has various utopian visions, including the idea that human beings can be reworked, reinvented. To be human is a tradition. It is handed down. You learn it from other human beings. You cannot invent it yourself.”

According to Freeman, modernity rejects this natural path and replaces it with artificial projects. On artificial intelligence, Freeman is blunt:

“Artificial intelligence is entertainment. It is a pretense. It is Disneyland. It is: I can live forever… all that nonsense. But you will die.” He sees the technological promise of immortality as destructive: “If there were a way to upload the human mind… that would be hell.”

He stresses that AI is also doomed to material failure:

“Artificial intelligence is extremely expensive and wasteful… It will collapse.” The reason, he says, is simple: “The real machine of modernity is the ATM… the ontology of modernity is money.”

Against the illusion of control, Fr. Freeman sets the Christian perspective:

“We are not in charge. You cannot control the outcome of history. The outcome of history was revealed in the death and Resurrection of Christ.”

He calls the modern slogan “make the world a better place” a delusion:

“You will not make the world a better place. That is a modern lie.” Instead, he advises: “Do the next good thing… and let God do the accounting.”

The antidote is the ancient path of the Church:

“Radical love, which means laying down my life for my neighbor… accepting boundaries and making a home for those who have not been loved.” Ultimately, he says: “Do not be God. Be human. Christ reveals what it means to be truly human.”

Freeman also speaks about the spiritual meaning of death:

“Death is also a gift from God. It sets limits on evil. If you do not know that you will die, you will not know how to live.” His experience as a hospice chaplain convinced him: “My great goal is to die well. To die as a Christian.”

He recalls that the Church endures even in the darkest times:

“There were liturgies secretly served in the Gulag. There were liturgies in Auschwitz. That is what also brought about the fall of communism. When artificial intelligence disappears and collapses, we will serve a liturgy to mark the occasion.

“The Church is not a project to change the world, but the world is the place where man finds salvation in Christ.”

Previously, UOJ reported that Paul Kingsnorth, an English writer and convert to Orthodox Christianity, offered insight into the rise and fall of the New Atheist movement, arguing that the secular story underpinning modern Western society is unraveling — and being replaced by a renewed hunger for the sacred.

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