Written by: United Theological Seminary February 22, 2019

The End is the Beginning: Current Student Preston Price on Cyborg Religion

This response to Loyal Rue’s Religion is Not About God was adapted from an assignment for TR771: What is Religion? taught by Dr. Demian Wheeler in Fall 2018.

Loyal Rue’s Religion is Not About God presents the evolutionary pathways from the Big Bang to human religion and beyond. His main themes are evolutionary psychology and human-generated apocalypse. Rue sees guiding myths at play in every culture and posits that our guiding myths are leading to our destruction and cannot be overcome in time to stop climate change from destroying us.

One of the common threads in the course What is Religion? has been the mechanistic aspects of religion, that religions operate like machines when analyzed from a scientific perspective. This does not get at the internal experience of the religious themselves, but it does illuminate how religions operate, which can be helpful for the religious by showing us what we do and what that does to us. This machinic analogy locates religion as a repetitious endeavor, something which thrives on the repeated nature of the rituals. Religion needs to instill common languages into people in order that the religious can communicate with each other. Ritualized behaviors and language are the best way to do so:

[Rituals] revitalize the myth by bringing it to life in dramatic form. When individual participants engage actively in ritual performances, they are more likely to recognize how the vicissitudes of their own lives and their community are reflected in the timeless themes of the drama. This mapping of the local and the particular onto the cosmic and universal enhances self-understanding and compels individuals to claim ownership of the myth. (Rue 2005, 136)

Rue does not shy away from the mechanistic in his understanding of religion, but he does not attempt to explain religion away because it is mechanistic. He says, as the quote above indicates, that ritual (i.e. mechanism) is necessary for individuals and communities to locate themselves within the divine drama. Without the rituals people would feel lost and scatterbrained in terms of how they find themselves in the world. Therefore, mechanism is a grounding technique that is used by every religion to secure identity.

The modern world must be something which is disorienting. Rue suggests that the modern world does have rituals and myths which would ground meaning, but these modern rituals are also destructive not only of the planet but of the older rituals themselves. Modernity has been a fight between the forces of modernization and the forces of traditionalism. I wonder if they can merge together to create a new religion, a modern religion. Not deism, but something which takes ritual and sacredness and mixes it, blends it with technology and science. To get rid of consumerism maybe we need a cyborg religion.

Cyborg religion is the idea that human beings, as beings, are of a type which interfaces with other beings through technology, the prime example of which is language. These apparatuses facilitate the interactions between humans-as-machines as well. Cyborg religion presents a way of explaining how humans can use new linguistic registers (myths) to adapt to our new reality. It also is simply the idea that humans may need to physically interface with emerging digital and nano-technologies in order to survive. Maybe a cyborg myth is already being created through ideas like a human/machine interface. We are already doing such in beta fashion by constantly interacting with our digital selves through the ubiquity of computers.

Cyborg religion is something that appeals to human-technology hybrids but which confronts death in a meaningful way. We should not try to escape death, as it is cosmically inevitable. A cyborg religion would harmonize science with myth, taking ecology seriously while not discarding technology.

I think Rue would be interested in this. My question for him would be something like: can humans create such a myth? We have been creating myths for such a long time. It seems like this might be achievable. However, our cyborg myth might be predicated upon a fall, the fall of consumerist humanity, those who killed the planet. I suppose I would be an “Adam” in this story, buying the planet into oblivion. Rue agrees that future myths will be made, and he also thinks they may be better than what we have now. However, can we blend science and technology, the prerequisites for consumerism, in such a fashion that includes naturalistic myths? I am hopeful for this and, I think, he would be too.

Explore More Articles

October 9, 2026

Alums Homecoming News Releases

Rev. Dr. A. Leon (Lee) Tredwell (’06) Honored As a 2026 Distinguished Alum

United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities is excited to announce that Rev. A. Leon (Lee) Tredwell, PhD—who earned his MA in Theology and Biblical Interpretation from United in 2006—has been selected as a 2026 Distinguished Alum. An accomplished preacher, teacher, and published author, Dr. Tredwell has championed biblical narratives that affirm the divinity of all people, regardless of their race, creed, color, class, gender, or sexuality. Adopted at age four, Lee was raised in the Baptist faith and felt called to ministry as a child. Even so, after earning a degree in Political Science and Sociology at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, he spent the first ten years of his professional life as a grain trader for Cargill. After connecting with Drs. Ralph and Alika Galloway, Lee found United, and his call was reignited. He remembers Rev. Dr. Carolyn Pressler (Professor Emerita of Biblical Interpretation, 1990–2020) and Dean Richard Weis* with great affection. Both teachers, he observes, “taught us to wrestle with the biblical text until it opened up and spoke.” They also introduced Lee to Black and post-colonial hermeneutics, and Rev. Dr. Weis led him to passages in Jeremiah 38 (Hebrew Bible) that sparked his interest in learning more about a Black character named Ebed-Melech. Lee also cites the influence of Rev. Dr. Christine Smith’s (Professor Emerita of Preaching 1992–2013) preaching courses on his life. In Colorado, at the University of Denver and Iliff School of Theology, Lee completed a joint PhD program with a concentration in Religion and Social Change in 2017. Ronald Smith, a former United student who nominated Lee for this award, notes, “Dr. Tredwell has demonstrated that he is an innovator and compassionate leader who has served both inside the academy as a professor of African American Preaching at Iliff School of Theology, University of Colorado, Boulder, and in the larger community; he has served as [a] pastor, civil rights and human rights activist, and [a] chief executive officer in Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Minnesota, and Texas.” Lee’s new book—Black, Queer and Blessed: My Story and the Biblical Story Churches Don’t Teach—was published in June 2025. As the description reads, “For all who believe God-Yahweh is angry, mad, disgusted, and against LGBTQIA+ folx, regrettably, you been had, misled, took, hood-winked and bamboozled! Black, Queer and Blessed, through lived experience and the excavation of the subjugated biblical narrative of Ebed-Melech, demolishes society’s antiquated mores.” The book is part memoir and part theological reflection on the Ebed-Melech revelation. In addition to his roles as teacher, preacher, and author, Lee has specifically worked to promote adoption of Black children from foster care and create affordable housing. These days, he serves as the pastor of Theology and Community Engagement at Allendale United Methodist Church in St. Petersburg, Florida. As Ronald Smith asserts, “Dr. Tredwell is the embodiment and an exemplar of United Theological Seminary’s mission, vision, and values.” * of blessed memory About United Founded by the United Church of Christ (UCC) as a welcoming, ecumenical school that embraces all denominations and faith traditions, United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities has been on the creative edge of progressive theological thought and leadership since it was established in 1962. Today, United continues to educate leaders who, through the eyes of faith, engage in the dismantling of systems of oppression, explore multi-faith spirituality, and push the boundaries of knowledge.

Lena K. Gardner (’15) Honored As a 2026 Distinguished Alum

[caption id="attachment_11955" align="alignnone" width="1920"] photo by Bethany Birnie[/caption] United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities is thrilled to announce that Lena K. Gardner—who graduated with an MA in Justice and Peace Studies in 2015—has been selected as one of our three 2026 Distinguished Alums. A highly respected social justice activist and community leader, Lena is the co-founder and executive director of Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism (BLUU), a nonprofit founded in 2015 that creates life-giving and life-saving opportunities for spiritual community and Black-centered organizing. According to Rev. Dr. Rebecca Voelkel (’13), Lena has “been a force in the Twin Cities’ religiously rooted justice ecosystem for the last 15 years.” Dr. Voelkel, Lena’s nominator, traces Lena’s justice-organizing acumen back to 2011, when she served on the Faith Organizing Roundtable—a body that coordinated religious communities’ opposition to the anti-marriage amendment. Lena went on to champion marriage equality in the 2012–2013 legislative session. After a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, shot and killed Michael Brown, Jr., an unarmed 18-year-old Black teen, in 2014, Lena played a key role in transforming the Faith Organizing Roundtable into the Multifaith Anti-Racism, Change & Healing or MARCH. “In that same period,” Voelkel notes, “Lena was a core team organizer of Black Lives Matter Minneapolis and served on its steering committee.” Lena was deeply involved, quoted in many national and local articles, and interviewed on Minnesota Public Radio after former police officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd in 2020. In April 2021, after a Brooklyn Center police officer killed Daunte Wright during a traffic stop, Lena co-wrote an article in the Sahan Journal demanding that Attorney General Keith Ellison prosecute the case, and that the Hennepin County attorney be removed. More recently, Lena embarked on another ambitious project. In May 2024, through the BLUU Cooperative Housing Initiative, she co-hosted a groundbreaking ceremony for an affordable housing complex for single parents in North Minneapolis. In a MinnPost article about the groundbreaking, Lena explained, “It’s really about trying to give back to one of the communities that made me…. We really see providing stable housing in a cooperative framework as one of the many paths to collective liberation and Black liberation. Ultimately, it’s about self-determination.” When Operation Metro Surge arrived in the Twin Cities in late 2025, Lena took action again. As Voelkel observes, she “returned to the MARCH steering committee…. When MARCH organized a clergy call (in five days) to which 700 clergy came, the ability to create and host such an amazing event owes part of its success to Lena’s relationships with communications specialists, graphic designers, and organizers.” Lena was also a driving force behind Neighbors Helping Neighbors (NHN), a mutual aid group she and Anna Stamborski founded in late 2025 to connect vulnerable ICE-targeted families with congregational networks whose members could provide shopping and transportation services. Through all of Lena’s indefatigable contributions to working for justice, Voelkel asserts, she “has focused on Black excellence, Black power, Black spiritual wholeness, Black beauty, and how non-Black folks can act in solidarity and followership of Black folks, particularly Black queer women. She has done so skillfully through building relationships across differences in ways that facilitate and deepen genuine relationships.”

Cori Berg (’98) Honored As a 2026 Distinguished Alum

United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities is elated to announce that Cori Berg (’98)—advocate, artist, and educator—is a 2026 Distinguished Alum. Cori earned her Master of Arts (MA) in Theology and the Arts in 1998, and for more than 27 years, she has integrated creativity, art, and spirituality into her field. Cori arrived at United in the 1990s, having majored in theater and minored in studio art during her undergraduate studies. “I knew I had an artistic voice,” she recalls, “but it didn’t make sense in any of the traditional contexts.” After seeing an advertisement for United’s Theology and the Arts program, Cori drove from Dallas to the Twin Cities to visit as a prospective student. A campus art exhibit by Merle Janis was all she needed to see—“this school had something I needed: strength, boldness, vulnerability.” For Cori, “life is liturgy.” She credits United with introducing her to “the freedom in a progressive faith.” At United, Cori learned to expand her creativity, which became a launching pad for a vibrant career. “United gave me a safe, nurturing space to explore, dream, and execute big things,” she writes. “I’ve continued that through the rest of my career as an artist, an educator, an administrator, and a speaker.” Art is central to Cori’s work and features prominently in her curriculum development for children. Her art was featured in the 2012 opening parade for the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge in Dallas, TX, a project that involved “seniors, children, and adults in all aspects” from a local Methodist community program. Ministry with Children and Spirituality, courses taught by Rev. Dr. Barbara Anne Keely (Professor Emerita, 1991–2015), were particularly formative for Cori’s future in education. “I remember she taught us to get on the floor and view the church nursery from a baby’s point of view,” Cori reflects. “I use this today over and over as I teach early childhood educators…. She introduced the idea of seeing oneself not as a separate body, mind, or spirit, but when one part of my being is suffering, to use the other parts to help lift that part.” More recently, Cori has been an active community member at Dallas Meditation Center, where she is known for her moving dharma talks that weave Buddhist themes into contemporary storytelling. In public schools and congregational settings, Cori has applied what she learned as a United student to the field of early childhood education, for which—nominator Rev. Jim Peck (’99) points out—she has become “one of the nation’s leading advocates.” When facing challenges in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, Cori leveraged her ingenuity and creative vision to support educators with online training resources. As a teacher and an administrator in spaces where lack of institutional funding and support are commonplace, Jim observes, “she uses her [United] education to work for justice and equity,” to “nurture relationships in the early childhood settings where she has served, with an expertise in working in settings in crisis to encourage recovery, healing, and new paths for serving the future.” In May 2026, Cori completed her MEd in Curriculum and Instruction at American College of Education, where she immediately enrolled to begin her EdD in Early Childhood Education. She serves as an executive director at the University of Kansas (KU) and anticipates returning to Dallas to live near her family at the end of the year while awaiting her next opportunity. We are delighted to celebrate Cori and her decades of faithful, innovative leadership in the field of early childhood education and art. About United Founded by the United Church of Christ (UCC) as a welcoming, ecumenical school that embraces all denominations and faith traditions, United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities has been on the creative edge of progressive theological thought and leadership since it was established in 1962. Today, United continues to educate leaders who, through the eyes of faith, engage in the dismantling of systems of oppression, explore multi-faith spirituality, and push the boundaries of knowledge.