Church leader says smartphones could usher in anti-Christ

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church says smartphones risk bringing humanity closer to the arrival of the anti-Christ.

Patriarch Kirill said the church does not oppose technological progress but is concerned that the data-gathering capacity of the devices shares too much information.

Kirill said such information could be used for centralized control of the world.

Along with smartphones gathering information from users, devices like implanted microchips in humans bring thoughts of convenience and concern.

Getting people to adopt an implanted microchip has been a hard sell. Many Christians reject the implants because of the concern they could be a prelude to “the mark of the Beast,” which Revelation chapter 13 in the Bible’s New Testament says will be “a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads.”

Even though the microchips have not proved popular in the US, thousands of people in Germany and Sweden have already been chipped to make financial transactions easier.

Sven Becker, head of “I am Robot,” tells Euronews that 2,000 to 3,500 people in Germany have implanted a microchip under their skin “as a substitute for key cards to the gym, office, and house.”

In Sweden, a pioneer in what’s known as “biohacking (adding cybernetic devices to living things),” as many as 4,000 people have implanted microchips, usually for convenience features, essentially turning their hands into contact-less credit cards, key cards and even railcards. The microchips are injected into the back of the hand between the thumb and index finger.

But more people than just Christians oppose the biohacking trend. The website Futurism calls it a “digital security nightmare.”

Besides being vulnerable to hackers, a chip implanted in your body means, “They could track where you are, how long you take for lunch every day, or how many times you went to the bathroom if the chip were scanned by a reader,”  Futurism writes. “And opting out of this kind of data collection is a lot more convoluted when you’ve got a chip implanted in your bodily tissues. If you want to go off the grid in even the smallest way, you can leave your wallet at home, but removing a microchip requires a bit more, uh, effort.”

Back in 2017, Pastor Dave Doyle from Hope Christian Fellowship Church in Iowa said the microchips make him think about the “mark of the Beast” from Revelation 13:16, according to KCRG in Cedar Rapids.

“I take microchipping as a form of the mark. There’s many pieces of the mark, and then again, all these pieces of the mark is designed to control,” he said.

Doyle thinks this type of technology could eventually be used by governments to abuse people’s rights. He believes the chips are something that will one day be forced on people.

“It will eventually become something that’s mandatory, and for those who refuse it, you will have to deal with the authorities who don’t appreciate your opinions,” he said.