This ReligionLink guide offers background, relevant newswriting, expert sources and related content for you to explore the varieties of religious futurism.

Matthew Stanley is an astronomer and a professor of the history and philosophy of science at New York University. In 2016, he gave a talk at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society on the question of whether we are alone in the universe, and if we are not, what would that mean to our […]

Benjamin Blech is a rabbi and a professor of Talmud at Yeshiva University in New York City. He has written about what the discovery of intelligent alien life would mean to Judaism.

Asim Islam is a research fellow in science and religion at Cambridge Muslim College, a part of Cambridge University in Cambridge, England. He studies human consciousness and helped organize a conference on religion, science and consciousness at Cambridge Muslim College.

Nigel Crook is the head of the department of technology, design and environment at Oxford Brookes University in Oxford, England. He is an expert on artificial intelligence and is interested in the ethical implications of its use. In November 2016, he gave a lecture on AI to BMS World Mission, a Christian organization, in which […]

Kevin Kelly is the founding executive editor of Wired magazine and the author of multiple books on science, technology and the future. In a Feb. 3, 2017, story in The Atlantic about AI and Christianity, Kelly said, “If you create other things that think for themselves, a serious theological disruption will occur.” Kelly has written […]

Michael Burdett is a research fellow in religion, science and technology at Wycliffe Hall, a Christian college, at the University of Oxford in Oxford, England. He has a background in aerospace technology and robotics and now studies technology, transhumanism and religion. He was recently awarded a grant by the John Templeton Foundation.

James Thrall is an associate professor of religion and culture at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill. He teaches a course on science fiction and religion, which includes popular culture, film and literature. He can speak about the novel and the television adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle as well as the works […]

Lorenzo DiTomasso is a professor of religion and culture at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He is an expert on apocalypticism, from the ancient to the contemporary, and also studies religion and science fiction.