Subscribe to Christian Futurism
<100 subscribers
Share Dialog
You’re scrolling through tech news and a headline stops you cold: “Happy Gilmore Producer Acquires Pegasus Spyware Maker.”
Not a cybersecurity firm. Not a defense contractor. A Hollywood producer known for Adam Sandler comedies now controls NSO Group, the Israeli company behind Pegasus, the “zero-click” spyware that turns any smartphone into a complete surveillance device without the target knowing.[^1] The same technology used against journalists, dissidents, and political opponents in 45+ countries. The spyware so dangerous the U.S. government sanctioned NSO for enabling cyber attacks against American officials.[^2]
But here’s where it gets theologically disturbing: Robert Simonds didn’t just buy surveillance technology. He brought deep financial ties to Chinese Communist Party-overseen corporations through his entertainment company STX. Hony Capital (Beijing private equity). Tencent (CCP-influenced tech giant). Huayi Brothers (Chinese state media partner). Hundreds of millions in Chinese funding positioned STX as Hollywood’s bridge to Beijing, complete with content approval processes and regulatory compliance required by CCP governance.[^3]
Now that same Hollywood producer controls Pegasus. The surveillance tool accessing every text, email, photo, location, and conversation on your phone. Technology exported to authoritarian regimes. The spyware that 365 million persecuted Christians worldwide face as a tool of systematic oppression.[^4]
Welcome to surveillance capitalism’s final evolution: omnidirectional commodification where ideology matters less than profit, where “friend” and “enemy” dissolve into pure transaction, where a Hollywood producer’s Chinese business partners might gain indirect access to Israeli spyware targeting American phones.
If you’ve felt that growing unease about who actually controls the digital infrastructure monitoring your every communication, that instinct is biblical wisdom recognizing a Xerxes-level threat. Your discomfort isn’t paranoia. It’s discernment responding to a surveillance reality so totally corrupted that traditional categories of national security have become meaningless. When the producer of Bad Moms becomes the broker between Israeli military technology, Chinese Communist Party capital, and American surveillance targets, we’re not in normal geopolitical territory.
We’re in Esther’s Persia.
Christian Futurism offers Frameworks grounded in Biblical Scripture to address AI, Technology, and Digital Discipleship to build a Christian Future.Find me on Substack at: rockefellerkennedy.substack.
Esther lived in a surveillance state that makes Meta look amateur.
Persian King Xerxes I (biblical Ahasuerus) ruled an empire spanning three continents through systematic intelligence networks. The “king’s scribes” (Esther 3:12) weren’t just record-keepers; they were the administrative backbone of imperial surveillance. Provincial governors (aḥašdarpānîm, satraps with reporting authority) reported through standardized courier systems. The “eyes and ears of the king” weren’t metaphorical; they were professional intelligence operatives monitoring subject populations for signs of disloyalty.
Mordecai operated at “the king’s gate” (Esther 2:21), not as decoration but as part of this surveillance apparatus. The Hebrew phrase yaʿămōḏ bešaʿar hammelek (standing positioned at the administrative gate) indicates his strategic role. He intercepted assassination plots (Esther 2:21-23). He tracked Haman’s genocidal decree distribution through the courier network (Esther 3:13). He understood how imperial surveillance worked because he worked within it.
But Esther’s approach was fundamentally different from her cousin’s.
“Esther had not revealed her people or kindred, for Mordecai had commanded her not to reveal it.” (Esther 2:10)
Where Mordecai positioned himself strategically within the surveillance system, Esther operated through strategic concealment. This wasn’t deceptive duplicity; it was survival wisdom in a system so totally corrupted that transparency itself had become weaponized against vulnerable populations.
The Hebrew verb nāgaḏ (to reveal, declare, make known) appears repeatedly in Esther’s narrative, always in the negative. She did not reveal. She kept concealed. She maintained strategic ambiguity about her identity until the precise moment when revelation would protect rather than endanger her people.
This is the biblical model for operating within surveillance states where power structures have become so ideologically promiscuous, so thoroughly divorced from covenant justice, that transparency enables rather than prevents persecution. Esther’s concealment wasn’t cowardice. It was calculated resistance.
And it’s precisely what believers need to understand about the surveillance reality we now face, where a Hollywood producer with Chinese Communist Party financial ties controls Israeli military spyware that can target American Christians.
NSO Group’s Pegasus represents surveillance technology so sophisticated it makes Meta’s data harvesting look primitive. Zero-click infection: no link to click, no attachment to open, no user action required. Complete device access to messages, emails, photos, location data, microphone, camera, encrypted communications. Persistent surveillance with ongoing monitoring without detection. The kind of complete access authoritarian regimes dream about.
And now it’s controlled by a consortium led by Robert Simonds, whose business model demonstrated something theologically significant: the complete commodification of access across ideological boundaries.
Through STX Entertainment, Simonds didn’t just work with Chinese companies; he built his entire studio strategy around Chinese capital and market access. Hony Capital didn’t just invest; they provided access to Shanghai Media Group. Tencent didn’t just fund; they enabled distribution power. Huayi Brothers didn’t just partner; they controlled Chinese distribution rights for STX films, gaining shared global revenue.[^5]
This wasn’t normal international business. Chinese law, specifically the National Intelligence Law of 2017, requires all Chinese firms to “support, assist, and cooperate with state intelligence work.”[^6] The CCP’s “party-building” policies since 2015 mandate internal party committees in major Chinese corporations. Tencent, Hony Capital, Huayi Brothers all operate under legal obligations to comply with CCP intelligence directives when required.
This creates what I’m calling “The Surveillance Broker” villain archetype: entities that commodify surveillance capabilities across ideological boundaries for profit, creating omnidirectional threats where traditional national security categories dissolve into pure transaction.
The Surveillance Broker doesn’t care about ideology. They care about access, power, and profit. Simonds built his entertainment empire by giving Chinese state-affiliated entities influence over Hollywood content while accepting hundreds of millions in Chinese capital. Now he controls Israeli military spyware previously sanctioned by the U.S. government for enabling cyber attacks against American officials.
The U.S. government didn’t just tolerate this acquisition; reports indicate they facilitated Pegasus sales to Colombia, funding purchases with millions in cash ostensibly to combat drug cartels.[^7] But surveillance infrastructure never stays confined to its stated purpose. Colombia’s purchase raised immediate concerns about potential use against political opponents and activists. When the U.S. enables spyware proliferation while a Hollywood producer with CCP-tied Chinese partners controls the company, we’re witnessing surveillance capitalism’s final evolution into ideologically promiscuous commodification.
“For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.” (1 Timothy 6:10)
Esther faced a similar power structure. Xerxes wasn’t motivated by consistent governance principles; he was motivated by power consolidation and personal gratification. Haman manipulated this through ethnic scapegoating and financial incentives (offering 10,000 talents of silver for genocide funding, Esther 3:9). The Persian surveillance state wasn’t defending coherent national interests; it was enabling the consolidation of power by whoever could most effectively exploit the king’s vanity and the empire’s administrative machinery.
When power structures become this totally corrupted, when a surveillance state’s capabilities become commodities traded across ideological boundaries for profit rather than principle, transparency itself becomes a weapon against the vulnerable.
What OpenAI's Atlas and Microsoft's Copilot reveal about trading security for convenience
Most Christian teaching about Esther focuses on her courage in revealing her identity to save her people. “If I perish, I perish” (Esther 4:16) becomes the headline verse. But this misses the strategic sophistication of her actual approach.
Esther’s concealment wasn’t the problem she had to overcome. It was the tactical advantage she used to survive and ultimately defeat Haman’s genocidal plot.
The text shows three distinct phases of Esther’s strategic engagement with Xerxes’ surveillance state:
Esther maintained hidden identity despite multiple opportunities for disclosure (Esther 2:10, 2:20). This wasn’t passive hiding; it was active cultivation of strategic ambiguity that protected her from preemptive targeting before she had positional power to respond. The Hebrew construction emphasizes deliberate, sustained concealment across time, not momentary hesitation.
Esther used her concealed identity to gain unprecedented access to power structures (Esther 2:15-17, 5:1-8). The king’s favor (ḥēn, grace given to the undeserving) and her careful relationship cultivation created influence that transparent Jewish identity would have immediately compromised in a system where Haman controlled administrative apparatus.
Esther revealed her identity only after establishing: (1) personal relationship influence with Xerxes, (2) strategic positioning within palace dynamics, (3) context that made Haman’s genocide personally threatening to the king’s interests, (4) alternative legal framework for Jewish self-defense (Esther 7:3-6).
“For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14)
This is fundamentally different from Daniel’s approach in Babylon. Daniel practiced calculated transparency: openly maintaining Jewish identity and practices while strategically engaging Babylonian power structures (Daniel 1:8-16). Mordecai similarly maintained visible Jewish identity while working within Persian administration (Esther 3:4).
But Esther operated in a different threat environment. Daniel faced a foreign conqueror’s pride and religious absolutism; direct confrontation over worship could be engaged through principled witness. Mordecai faced ethnic discrimination within an administrative system where visible Jewish identity still allowed strategic positioning.
Esther faced genocidal persecution backed by complete surveillance infrastructure and financial incentives in a system where the very architects of genocide controlled the intelligence apparatus. Haman’s decree went out through “the king’s scribes” (Esther 3:12), the surveillance and communication network Haman himself commanded. Transparent Jewish identity in this system meant preemptive elimination before positional power could be developed for community defense.
The theological principle: When surveillance infrastructure becomes so completely controlled by those seeking persecution that transparency enables rather than prevents harm, strategic concealment becomes biblical wisdom rather than faithless hiding.
Esther’s approach provides a biblical framework for operating within surveillance states where ideological promiscuity and commercial commodification have made traditional security categories meaningless. Her strategy wasn’t intuitive, wasn’t obvious, and certainly wasn’t what most Christian teaching about transparency would recommend. But it worked because it matched biblical wisdom to actual threat environment rather than applying universal principles without discernment.
The first element of Esther’s framework involves assessing who actually controls surveillance infrastructure before assuming transparency serves kingdom purposes. Esther evaluated whether Persian surveillance apparatus served covenant justice or enabled persecution. She recognized that Haman controlled the king’s scribes, the courier networks, the administrative machinery that would distribute any decree. This wasn’t neutral infrastructure that could be used for good or ill; it was actively controlled by someone seeking Jewish genocide.
When NSO Group’s Pegasus operates under Simonds’ control, representing surveillance infrastructure where Israeli military technology meets Hollywood commercial interests funded by Chinese Communist Party-tied capital, and where U.S. government facilitation creates plausible deniability, the surveillance infrastructure is not serving covenant justice. It’s serving The Surveillance Broker’s business model. Technology already used against 365 million persecuted Christians globally has been further commodified.
“Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” (Matthew 10:16)
Discernment about infrastructure control precedes decisions about transparency. Scripture’s wisdom applies directly: serpent wisdom means understanding who controls the systems before exposing vulnerable communities to those systems.
Second, Esther cultivated strategic ambiguity about her identity rather than either broadcasting or falsely denying it. She didn’t announce her Jewish ethnicity, but she also didn’t claim Persian heritage. This strategic ambiguity, neither confirming nor denying until revelation served community protection, provides a model for contemporary digital identity management.
Every prayer group on Meta platforms, every Bible study invitation on surveillance-controlled systems, every church event shared through The Surveillance Broker’s infrastructure becomes training data for business models that commodify such information across ideological boundaries. The contemporary application involves minimizing digital footprints connecting Christian community participation to total tracking systems while using Signal, ProtonMail, and encrypted tools for spiritual communications.
Personal identity should be separated from surveillance platform participation. Multiple communication channels that don’t cross-reference create the strategic ambiguity Esther modeled. This isn’t deception; it’s šāmar (guarding, keeping watch), the Hebrew concept of protective stewardship over what’s sacred. When surveillance infrastructure is controlled by hostile actors, strategic ambiguity about vulnerable community associations becomes biblical stewardship rather than faithless hiding.
Third, Esther built relationship influence before revealing her identity. She didn’t immediately disclose her ethnicity upon entering Xerxes’ palace. Instead, she cultivated relationship capital that created influence making her eventual revelation strategically powerful rather than immediately disqualifying.
When believers must engage platforms or systems controlled by Surveillance Brokers, building influence through quality contribution before connecting to vulnerable communities creates protective capacity. Developing relational credibility before linking to persecution-vulnerable associations. Creating influence through demonstrated value before revealing associations that surveillance infrastructure might target. Using established platform authority to protect vulnerable communities rather than immediately exposing them.
Positional authority creates protective capacity. Strategic relationships should be built before revealing vulnerabilities. Scripture affirms this pattern consistently across multiple contexts.
Fourth, Esther timed her revelation for maximum community protection rather than personal authenticity. She revealed her identity only after cultivating sufficient relationship influence, only when revelation would expose threats rather than create them, only when alternative legal frameworks for protection existed, only when timing maximized strategic advantage.
The contemporary application challenges assumptions that immediate transparency about Christian community participation on surveillance platforms serves kingdom purposes. Vulnerable associations should be revealed only when such revelation protects rather than endangers. Alternative communication infrastructure needs to be built before transitioning vulnerable communities away from surveillance platforms. Platform departures should be timed strategically rather than reactively. Community migrations should be coordinated so individuals aren’t isolated and picked off systematically.
Revelation timing matters as much as revelation content. Premature exposure enables persecution; strategic timing enables protection.
Fifth, Esther maintained alternative communication networks that operated outside palace-controlled surveillance. She didn’t depend solely on official channels. Her messenger networks with Mordecai (Esther 4:4-17) enabled coordination that palace-only communications would have compromised.
Contemporary believers need encrypted communication channels outside Surveillance Broker control through tools like Signal and ProtonMail. Face-to-face community connections that don’t depend on digital platforms create resilience. Offline coordination mechanisms for vulnerable communities provide alternatives when primary systems become hostile. This infrastructure development should happen before surveillance platforms become overtly threatening, not reactively afterward.
“Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed.” (Proverbs 15:22)
Multiple channels create resilience that single-platform dependence cannot provide. The biblical principle remains constant across contexts: don’t depend solely on communication channels controlled by hostile powers.
How Mordecai's intelligence methodology reveals surveillance systems built for "legitimate purposes" inevitably weaponize against God's people.
The theological tension Esther addresses isn’t between truth and deception; it’s between transparency and strategic concealment when transparency enables persecution.
This is the critical distinction most Christian privacy teaching misses. We’re told to “be truthful” as if transparency is always the biblical default. But Esther’s narrative demonstrates that when surveillance infrastructure is completely controlled by those seeking to destroy covenant communities, transparency can become complicity in that destruction.
Consider what would have happened if Esther had immediately revealed her Jewish identity upon entering Xerxes’ palace:
Scenario One: Immediate Revelation
Esther declares Jewish identity → Haman identifies her as future threat before she gains influence → Preemptive marginalization or elimination → No positional power to intercede when genocide decree issues → Jewish community has no advocate with palace access → Mordecai’s intelligence about Haman’s plot has no strategic pathway to the king → Genocide proceeds without internal resistance.
Scenario Two: Strategic Concealment (Biblical Account)
Esther maintains strategic ambiguity → Gains unprecedented favor and influence → Builds relationship influence with Xerxes → Haman issues genocide decree unaware of Esther’s identity → Esther uses cultivated relationship capital to reveal plot → Timing enables both personal appeal and policy reversal → Alternative legal framework (Esther 8:11) allows Jewish self-defense → Community protection achieved through strategic concealment.
The Surveillance Broker creates a similar dynamic. When surveillance infrastructure is controlled by entities whose business model depends on commodifying access across ideological boundaries, where Israeli military spyware meets Hollywood commercial interests funded by Chinese Communist Party-overseen capital, transparent Christian community participation becomes exploitable intelligence.
Every prayer request on WhatsApp becomes Meta’s AI training data. Every Bible study invite on Facebook becomes shadow profile material. Every church event on surveillance platforms becomes behavioral prediction input.
And now that same surveillance ecosystem connects to Pegasus capabilities controlled by someone whose business partners included entities legally required to cooperate with CCP intelligence directives.
This isn’t paranoia. It’s pattern recognition. The U.S. government already facilitated Pegasus sales to Colombia ostensibly for drug cartel surveillance, technology immediately raising concerns about use against political opponents and activists. When ideology becomes transactional, when surveillance capabilities become commodified, when The Surveillance Broker’s business model depends on selling access across traditional adversary boundaries, 365 million persecuted Christians worldwide become potential surveillance targets for whoever pays the highest price.
Esther’s strategic concealment becomes not just permissible but necessary, not to hide the gospel but to protect vulnerable communities from preemptive persecution enabled by complete surveillance infrastructure.
We need to be honest about what Esther’s approach required.
Strategic concealment came with psychological burden. The text doesn’t elaborate, but maintaining hidden identity while watching Haman’s genocidal plot develop must have been spiritually agonizing. Knowing your people face extinction while you maintain strategic ambiguity for maximum protective influence: that’s the burden of resistance leadership in completely surveilled systems.
Esther’s “If I perish, I perish” (Esther 4:16) is famous, but her courage wasn’t primarily in that final revelation. Her courage was in the months or years of strategic concealment that preceded it: cultivating influence while watching threats develop, building influence while genocide plotted, maintaining discipline when every instinct screamed for immediate action.
Contemporary Christians facing The Surveillance Broker’s infrastructure face similar tensions. Strategic ambiguity about Christian community associations feels like compromise when our theology emphasizes transparency and witness. Building alternative encrypted communication networks feels like unnecessary paranoia when “we have nothing to hide.”
But Esther demonstrates that strategic concealment in totally corrupted surveillance states isn’t faithless hiding; it’s faithful stewardship of vulnerable communities’ safety.
“The prudent sees danger and hides himself, but the simple go on and suffer for it.” (Proverbs 22:3)
The question isn’t whether we’re ashamed of the gospel. The question is whether broadcasting our community associations on platforms controlled by Surveillance Brokers whose business model depends on commodifying that data across ideological boundaries serves kingdom purposes or enables future persecution.
If we assume transparency always serves kingdom purposes regardless of who controls surveillance infrastructure, we’ve failed to learn from Esther’s strategic wisdom.
The Simonds-NSO acquisition isn’t just a tech news story. It’s a theological wake-up call.
When Hollywood producers with Chinese Communist Party-tied financial relationships control Israeli military spyware previously sanctioned for enabling cyber attacks against American officials, and when the U.S. government facilitates rather than prevents such surveillance proliferation, we’re witnessing surveillance capitalism’s evolution into pure ideological promiscuity.
The Surveillance Broker doesn’t care about your nationality, your ideology, or your theology. They care about access, power, and profit. And in a global market where surveillance capabilities become commodified across traditional adversary boundaries, 365 million persecuted Christians worldwide represent both a surveillance dataset and a potential customer base for whoever pays highest.
Esther’s framework isn’t about hiding the gospel. It’s about protecting gospel communities from preemptive persecution enabled by complete surveillance infrastructure controlled by hostile actors.
The first step involves auditing your surveillance exposure by reviewing which platforms know about your Christian community associations. Cross-reference the WISE Framework to evaluate whether those platforms serve worship, reflect God’s image, enable genuine service, or point toward eternity. If they fail all four criteria, strategic disengagement isn’t paranoia: it’s discernment.
Building alternative communication infrastructure needs to happen now, not after surveillance infrastructure becomes overtly hostile. Implementing Signal, ProtonMail, and encrypted tools for spiritual communications creates resilience before crisis hits. The REFUGE Framework provides complete migration guidance for this transition. Waiting until persecution becomes overt leaves communities vulnerable during the critical window when protection matters most.
Strategic ambiguity about vulnerable associations means separating personal digital identity from persecution-vulnerable community participation. Using different platforms for different purposes, avoiding cross-referencing everything across surveillance systems: this creates the protective ambiguity Esther modeled. It’s not about deception but about refusing to make surveillance easier than it needs to be.
Community coordination matters more than individual action. Individual departures from surveillance platforms create isolation that makes people vulnerable. Coordinated migrations create resilient alternative networks that maintain community strength while improving security. Working with church leadership to build encrypted communication channels for the whole community follows Esther’s model of protecting the vulnerable through collective rather than individualistic responses.
Finally, if you must maintain presence on surveillance platforms for legitimate ministry purposes, time your revelations strategically. Build relationship influence before revealing vulnerable associations. Use positional influence to protect rather than immediately expose. This follows Esther’s pattern of cultivating authority before revelation, maximizing protective capacity rather than risking premature exposure.
This isn’t about perfection. It’s about stewardship.
Esther didn’t perfectly operate within Persian surveillance; she strategically operated within system constraints to maximize community protection. She maintained hidden identity not because she was ashamed but because preemptive transparency would have enabled rather than prevented persecution.
Contemporary Christians face similar choices. The Surveillance Broker’s omnidirectional commodification of surveillance capabilities across ideological boundaries creates threat environments where traditional security categories become meaningless.
When transparency itself becomes weaponized, strategic concealment becomes biblical wisdom.
When does strategic concealment cross from biblical wisdom into faithless hiding? Esther maintained hidden identity for community protection, but Daniel maintained visible Jewish practice despite persecution. The difference wasn’t courage: it was threat assessment. When does your church’s digital presence strategy reflect Esther’s wisdom versus Daniel’s witness? What surveillance infrastructure realities determine which approach serves kingdom purposes in your context?
How should The Surveillance Broker’s ideological promiscuity change our approach to “trusted” platforms? Most privacy conversations assume clear adversaries, but when Hollywood producers with CCP-tied funding control Israeli military spyware while the U.S. government facilitates sales, traditional security categories dissolve. What does covenant community protection look like when surveillance capabilities become commodified across all ideological boundaries? How do you build alternative infrastructure when you can’t trust traditional allies?
What does coordinated church migration from surveillance platforms actually require in practice? Individual digital privacy decisions create isolation; collective transitions create resilient networks. But church leadership often lacks technical understanding while tech-savvy members lack positional authority. How does your church build encrypted communication channels without creating barriers to genuine community? What would Esther-style “timed revelation” look like for coordinating this transition without leaving vulnerable members exposed during the migration process?
The Surveillance Broker isn’t going away. But Esther’s strategic concealment demonstrates that covenant communities can operate within totally corrupted surveillance states through biblical wisdom applied with tactical sophistication. For deeper engagement with related frameworks: Daniel’s Privacy Protocol provides calculated transparency methodology, Mordecai’s Intelligence Methodology explores strategic positioning within surveillance systems, the REFUGE Framework offers complete platform migration strategies, the WISE Framework helps evaluate surveillance platform relationships, and the Digital Dignity Framework establishes Imago Dei-based data protection theology.
“Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” (Matthew 10:16)
This was never about naive transparency in hostile systems. It was about strategic intelligence applied with covenant faithfulness: exactly what Esther modeled in Xerxes’ surveillance state.
When Hollywood controls spyware and ideology becomes transaction, we need Esther’s wisdom more than ever.
Like what you’re reading? Subscribe to stay updated on how biblical wisdom exposes surveillance capitalism’s evolution into ideologically promiscuous commodification. And if Esther’s strategic concealment framework resonated with you, share it with church leaders who need to understand when transparency becomes weaponized against vulnerable communities.
Find Christian Futurism here: Substack, Medium, Paragraph
Buy the books on Amazon: Rockefeller Kennedy on Amazon
Available also as a Podcast: on Spotify, as well as PocketCasts!
Support this research and receive priority access to digital discipleship insights through BuyMeACoffee or Ko-fi. Your partnership funds continued investigation into biblical frameworks that multiply both kingdom impact and digital freedom for the global church.
[^1]: TechCrunch, “Spyware maker NSO Group confirms acquisition by US investors” (October 10, 2025).
[^2]: U.S. Department of Commerce, “Commerce Adds NSO Group and Other Foreign Companies to Entity List” (November 3, 2021).
[^3]: Deadline, “Huayi Brothers CEO On STX Entertainment’s Chinese Ties & Deals” (March 26, 2017); The Hollywood Reporter, “STX Entertainment Gets New Financing From China’s Huayi Brothers, PCCW” (August 8, 2016).
[^4]: Open Doors USA, 2025 World Watch List (2025).
[^5]: Variety, “China’s Huayi Brothers to Partner With STX Entertainment on 18-Film Deal” (March 17, 2015).
[^6]: Stanford University Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, “CCP Influence Over China’s Corporate Governance” (2019).
[^7]: Drop Site News, “How the US Facilitated the Sale and Usage of Pegasus Spyware in Colombia” (October 27, 2025).
Rockefeller Kennedy
No comments yet