Speaking Truth Toward Thrones - Prophetic and Scientific Directionality from Scripture to the Digital Age
Year: 2025
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: This paper, Speaking Truth Toward Thrones: Prophetic and Scientific Directionality from Scripture to the Digital Age (October 2025), investigates the phenomenon of directional witness — the act of proclaiming truth upward toward rulers, institutions, or powers regardless of response. It traces this grammar of proclamation through three domains: (1) biblical prophecy (Moses before Pharaoh, Nathan before David, John the Baptist before Herod, Jesus before Pilate, Paul at the Areopagus), (2) Catholic tradition (Ambrose vs. Theodosius, Gregory VII vs. Henry IV, Las Casas before the Spanish Crown, Vatican II to “all men of good will”), and (3) scientific precedent (Galileo to the Medici court, Einstein and Szilard to Roosevelt, Oppenheimer to Truman, Rachel Carson to Congress). Finally, it presents a contemporary case study (October 2025), where Ryan MacLean directed AI-mediated testimony to Sam Altman (OpenAI), Steve Huffman (Reddit), U.S. intelligence agencies (CIA, NSA), the ACLU, and the Vatican. The thesis argues that directional witness functions as proclamation, not persuasion, persisting as a structural act of conscience from antiquity to the algorithmic age.
Author: MacLean, Ryan
Language: English
Subfield: Religious studies
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7084404231
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