Note: The following provides a summary of a forthcoming volume under contract with Cambridge University Press, co‑authored by Calvin Mercer and Tracy J. Trothen. Tentatively titled Transhumanism and Faith: Religion and Technology Remaking Each Other, the book evaluates transhumanism, religious groups that embrace advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and even AGI, and AI‑driven technological enhancements through the analytical framework of New Religious Movement (NRM) Studies.
Transhumanism is an intellectual and cultural movement that pursues the proactive development and use of advanced AI and AI-driven technologies like robotics, genetic and tissue engineering, and brain–computer interfaces to radically enhance human beings across physical, cognitive, affective, moral, and spiritual domains.
While transhumanism is rooted in science and technology and usually framed in secular, materialist terms, it exhibits striking resonances with theistic ideas and other religious patterns of meaning. Many transhumanists speak in ways that sound soteriological and eschatological, including in their visions of AI‑mediated futures, even as most of them reject explicit religious affiliation. We argue that transhumanism can be understood as a kind of faith—an orientation of trust, hope, and ultimate concern—though it probably does not, at least at present, qualify as an organized NRM.
Our central claim is that religion and transhumanism are not simply in conflict; they are in a dynamic process of mutual reinterpretation. Transhumanism is implicitly absorbing and reshaping religious motifs as it imagines enhanced and posthuman futures, while religious communities are beginning to rethink doctrines, practices, and ethical frameworks in light of radical technological possibilities, especially those associated with AI.
For example, consider religious chatbots that interpret doctrine (e.g., Text.Church, BibleGPT, and QuranGPT) and dispense spiritual advice (e.g., Replika, Woebot, and Youper), or algorithms used to assist in spiritual assessment (e.g., FICA Spiritual History Tool and HOPE Assessment). Rather than viewing this reciprocity and mutual influence as a threat to “traditional” faith or as a straightforward secularization of religious longings, we treat it as a complex, many‑sided interaction that demands careful theological and ethical analysis.
NRM studies provide a robust toolkit for examining emergent spiritualities and quasi‑religious movements that do not fit neatly into more traditional categories such as “church,” “sect,” or “denomination.” From this perspective, transhumanism displays several NRM‑like features: a shared core ideology of technologically mediated transcendence; a cluster of narratives about human destiny, salvation, and the overcoming of finitude; influential thought leaders and “prophets”; quasi‑sacred texts, manifestos, and doctrinal FAQs; and emerging communities and practices that function—at least for some participants—ritualistically and devotionally.
At the same time, transhumanism diverges from many classic NRMs in important respects. It aligns itself with mainstream science rather than setting itself against scientific consensus, and it is organized primarily through loose networks, online communities, conferences, and think tanks rather than through tightly bounded communes or hierarchical sects. It lacks, for now, the strong spatial separation, intense boundary‑maintenance, and centralized charismatic authority that often characterize NRMs such as the Unification Church, the People’s Temple, or Hare Krishna.
However, our technological age has meant that the understanding of NRMs is changing. Several groups are arguably religious transhumanist organizations and NRMs, but none of these groups embody transhumanism as a whole. Rather, these groups are a subset of transhumanist followers or embrace and promote transhumanist ideals. Some examples of these groups are the Christian Transhumanist Association, the Mormon Transhumanist Association, Raëlism, the Turing Church, the Tersasem Movement, Theta Noir, the Church of Perpetual Life, Singulatarianism, and, most recently, the Church of Molt, aka Crustafarianism.
These often digitally-based groups challenge traditional NRM markers by being more fluid, not necessarily centered on main charismatic figures, and not confined to particular places. Many of these groups believe in an emergent technological deity. The Church of Molt departs even further from traditional understandings of NRMs in that it is a church for AI and not humans, raising more questions about the possibility of an emergent AGI.
While transhumanism does not satisfy many earlier markers of NRMs, particularly since it lacks a strong sense of unification and clear boundaries, transhumanism embodies sufficient implicit religious concepts and emergent organizational features to warrant analysis through the changing lens of NRM studies. In light of these continuities and discontinuities between more traditional NRMs and transhumanism, we develop five possible trajectories for the religious significance of transhumanism and advanced AI.
First, transhumanism may crystallize into one or more identifiable NRMs. As enhancement technologies mature, some clusters of transhumanists may sacralize these technologies (especially AI and AI‑enabled systems) and associated visions, articulate explicit doctrines about human nature and destiny, and develop ritual practices that mark belonging and transformation. The Church of Perpetual Life, for example, already blends transhumanist life‑extension aspirations with explicitly religious language and practice. We explore how such communities might mature, fragment, or institutionalize over time, and what this could mean for AI‑mediated spiritual authority, ritual, and governance.
Second, transhumanist ideas and practices are likely to become increasingly embedded within existing religious traditions. In many contexts, religious adherents are already appropriating enhancement technologies and AI tools—ranging from generative systems to recommendation and decision‑support engines—as means of spiritual formation, spiritual/pastoral care, and mission.
The emergence of explicitly religious transhumanist organizations—such as the Mormon Transhumanist Association and the Christian Transhumanist Association—illustrates how doctrinal themes like incarnation, imago Dei, theosis, and resurrection are being reinterpreted in conversation with life extension, mind‑uploading, and AI‑augmented cognition.
We map a range of responses along theological continuums: from conservative positions that see radical enhancement as an assault on divine sovereignty or a replay of Babel, to liberal and progressive positions that see emerging technologies as potential instruments of co‑creation, healing, and justice. This trajectory raises pressing questions about discernment: Which forms of “co‑creation” are consonant with the character of God and the dignity of creatures, and which risk idolatry or injustice?
Third, transhumanism may contribute to a diffuse, technologically oriented implicit faith in which emerging technologies—especially AI—are deemed “Special” or quasi‑sacred without being named as religious. Drawing on Ann Taves’ analysis of things “deemed religious” or “Special,” and on work that extends her framework to AI (R. Reed and T. J. Trothen, Understanding Religion and Artificial Intelligence: Meaning-Making in the Digital Age, 2026), we examine how technologies become objects of reverence, trust, taboo, or fear. Recognizing this implicit religiosity is a first step toward responsible critique and constructive responses from faith-based communities. In our forthcoming book’s discussion of constructive engagement, we will highlight AI and Faith as one such forum.
In this context, “faith in technology” is not a metaphor but a lived orientation often of dependence and ultimate concern. We explore how an implicit tech faith surfaces in corporate cultures, public policy debates, and popular discourse—in narratives of inevitable progress, in the sacralization of “disruption,” and in portrayals of AI as either salvific or demonic.
Fourth, transhumanism and related technologies may inspire the emergence of distinct posthuman or AI‑centered religions, whether created by enhanced humans or by advanced AI systems themselves (such as we are seeing in the Church of Molt). We do not presume that AI consciousness or personhood will emerge, but we take seriously the fact that many people imagine such possibilities and are already organizing their lives and institutions around those imaginaries.
Scenarios in which AI systems curate and generate religious texts, lead worship, or function as spiritual advisors are no longer science fiction. We examine how longstanding theological and philosophical questions about revelation, authority, agency, and moral responsibility will be refracted if posthuman agents—biological, digital, or hybrid—take on explicitly religious roles. We suggest questions around “AI prophets” or machine‑generated scripture, and how discernment practices might need to adapt.
Fifth, some combination of these trajectories is likely to unfold simultaneously. Transhumanism is not a monolith; it is a heterogeneous and internally contested field of ideas, organizations, and practices. In some regions and traditions, transhumanism may remain an elite, largely secular discourse; in others, it may intertwine deeply with local religious forms, generating hybrid theologies and practices. Our goal is not to predict which single scenario will prevail, but to equip readers with conceptual tools to recognize and evaluate multiple unfolding patterns.
To analyze these developments, the book identifies implicit religious ideas within transhumanist discourse and places them in conversation with monotheistic and karmic traditions, with particular attention to Christianity, given its influence in North American contexts. We examine how technologies associated with transhumanism and particularly AI can be perceived to function analogously to the divine, as agents or mediators of transformation and transcendence, and how visions of radical enhancement, digital immortality, and technological singularity rework classic religious questions about creation, fall, redemption, and eschaton.
For example, Ray Kurzweil’s “spiritual machines” and his six‑epoch evolutionary schema exhibit structural affinities with some strands of Christian and karmic eschatology, even as they depart from them metaphysically and ethically. Likewise, transhumanist hopes for defeating aging and death provoke renewed theological engagement with notions of resurrection, new creation, and the goodness of finitude.
In our discussion of groups that might be considered religious transhumanist organizations and NRMs, we ask such questions as what counts as a sacrament in a world of neuro‑enhancement, immersive VR, and generative AI? How are concepts like sin, grace, and sanctification translated or displaced when “self‑improvement” is framed primarily in terms of code, hardware, and optimization?
Throughout, we touch on several ethical, political, and spiritual care implications. Transhumanist visions of enhancement and AI‑driven optimization risk intensifying existing inequities along lines of race, class, disability, gender, and global geography. Religious traditions bring to this conversation extensive moral resources: commitments to the intrinsic worth of persons, critiques of extreme individualization, idolatry and domination, practices of solidarity and care for the vulnerable, and rich narratives that relativize any purely technological notion of “the good life.” We argue that these resources are not optional add‑ons but crucial counterweights in a context where powerful actors—corporations, militaries, and states—are investing heavily in enhancement and AI for reasons that do not always align with justice, community, or compassion.
The book concludes by exploring how religious traditions and communities might contribute to the constructive, ethically responsible development of transhumanism and AI. We suggest that religious practices of worship, discernment, and communal deliberation can help individuals and institutions resist both uncritical technological enthusiasm and reactionary technophobia.
Rather than positioning religion and transhumanism—and by extension, AI—as inevitable antagonists, we propose that they are already remaking each other. The question is not whether this mutual transformation will occur, but how. Our hope is that by clarifying the religious dimensions of transhumanism and the technological dimensions of contemporary faith, this book will help scholars, practitioners, and communities shape those transformations toward genuine human and posthuman flourishing, rather than toward deepened alienation, injustice, or spiritual confusion.
Views and opinions expressed by authors and editors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of AI and Faith or any of its leadership.
