Cash for Christians - Avoiding the 'Mark of the Beast'

"Is there a number or a mark planned for the hand or forehead in a new cashless society? Yes, and I have seen the machines that are now ready to put it into operation." - Ralph Nader

Hidden deep within the murky sea of purchasing and identification technologies lies a government issued number. Whether that number is a social security number or some other identifier, it is there. Those who shop at Amazon's retail stores and Whole Foods or eat at Panera Bread will soon be able to pay by scanning their palm. Palm scanners are also making their appearance at sports stadiums and other entertainment venues. Amazon One is partnering with the major credit card companies to implement its cashless--indeed cardless--system. In addition to scanning a person's palm, airlines are working with TSA to speed travelers through security at airports through facial recognition technology. A company in Wisconsin made news when it offered to implant a chip between the thumb and forefinger of employees, enabling the worker to do things such as unlock doors, log onto computers, use copy machines, and purchase snacks with a scan of the hand. Many embrace the convenience that this new age of technology provides. Others are alarmed.

Among those who have a high level of discomfort with purchasing and identification technologies sits a segment of the Christian population. They view these technologies as a foreshadowing of the Mark of the Beast--if not the Mark itself. Christians holding these views maintain a gnawing feeling that this rapid technological advance in commercial or government transactions reveals a march towards the apocalypse ending in a dystopian trip to Hell.

A survey of caselaw reveals that the Mark of the Beast arises as a material fact in well over 150 published cases. Based on a review of court opinions and federal and state statutes, this article will briefly attempt to answer these questions: Are the litigants extreme outliers of the Christian faith? What is the source of this belief? In what legal context does this belief arise? Finally, just as collaboration with the Mark of the Beast poses spiritual damnation, will compulsive use of identification and purchasing technologies result in irredeemable perdition to core constitutional liberties?

As to the initial question, one stands in danger of painting Christians with broad strokes and thus perceiving them as a homogenous group. Recognizing that hazard, one can nonetheless identify common central beliefs. The vast majority of Christians--including Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and most Protestants--agree on certain core tenets memorialized in the Apostles' Creed.[1] Beyond that, Christians range from those with a very simple faith to the theologically sophisticated. Though not universal, it is not uncommon to find Christians who view historical and current events--including compulsory identification numbers and purchasing technologies--as prognosticated in the Bible. (For those unfamiliar with the Apostles' Creed, the earliest known version of it reads, "I believe in God the Father almighty; and in Christ Jesus His only Son, our Lord, Who was born from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, Who under Pontius Pilate was crucified and buried, on the third day rose again from the dead, ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father, whence he will come to judge the living and the dead; and in the Holy Spirit, the holy Church, the remission of sins, the resurrection of the flesh, and life everlasting.")

Turning to the source of the Mark of the Beast, the New Testament book of Revelation (or The Apocalypse) ominously describes a beast wielding enormous global powers who deceives the people of the earth, "caus[ing] all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666." Rev. 13:16-18. To many, this text appears to describe a cashless economy or, in a broader sense, a worldwide regulatory system requiring compliance in order to participate in any meaningful sense in society.

Interwoven with the unnerving prospect of a cashless society arises the appearance of numeric identifiers and scanning technologies. When these evolve from a mode of convenience and cross the line into compulsion, some Christians resist. The sum of the matter is that they refuse to participate in something that may imperil their souls. Though the greater society ridicules them for losing their heads, few can doubt the sincerity of a conviction when the price tag includes loss of a job, denial of public benefits, or ineligibility for various types of licenses. Those refusing to use a numeric identifier or scanning technology because they deem it the Mark of the Beast or its forerunner may end up in court. A sampling of the scores of reported cases gives some helpful color to more clearly see the contour of these beliefs.

A company operating a coal mine required miners to use a biometric hand scanner to check in and out of shifts. The shape of the right hand was linked to the worker's unique personnel number. A veteran miner of thirty-seven years who identified as an Evangelical Christian would not use the hand scanning system. He was fired. In a suit for wrongful termination, the miner testified of his fear that use of the hand-scanning system would result in being "marked"--even without any physical or visible sign--and could lead to his "identification with the Antichrist." EEOC v. Consol Energy, Inc., 860 F.3d 131 (4th Cir. 2017).

Parents in New York brought a legal challenge to finger imaging which the State required as a precondition for receiving benefits under Aid to Families with Dependent Children. The mother, a Pentecostal, testified that "if I were to take the mark of the beast, which is what I believe finger imaging may be, it would be damnation to my eternal soul. I would be damned." Buchanan v. Wing, 245 A.D.2d 634 (App. Div. 3rd Dept. 1997).

A fifteen-year-old sophomore student in Texas was accepted into a magnet school program. The public school district required students to carry on campus a "Smart ID Card." The parent of the student protested, telling school officials that the chip in the badge was the Mark of the Beast and that he had a religious objection to the school tracking his daughter. A.H. v. Northside Indep. Sch. Dist., 916 F. Supp. 2d 757 (W.D. Tex. 2013).

For similar reasons, some Christian employees have refused vaccination against COVID-19 because they associate it with the Mark of the Beast. Like the Evangelical coal miner, this belief has led to their termination. There have been twenty cases of this kind reported since 2021. See, for example, Quinn v. Legacy Health, No. 3:23-cv-00331-JR (D. Or. Feb. 13, 2024); Wright v. Honeywell Int'l Inc., No. 22-00928-BAJ-SDJ (M.D. La. June 12, 2024); Andazola v. Permanente, No. CV 23-10904-GW-BFMx (C.D. Cal. July 26, 2024). Prior to the recent spike in vaccination cases, scores of decisions involving social security numbers have been decided. Scanning a few of them will suffice.

A Kentucky man who practices something akin to Messianic Judaism in a small family church did not have a social security number because his parents never secured one for him. He would not apply for one himself as an adult because the number "causes him to be besmeared with the Mark of the Beast." Though he had volunteered with the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture (USDA) and eventually earned a certificate to work as a "wildland firefighter," the USDA denied him federal employment. He was informed that the agency's payroll system was linked to a social security number, and thus they could not pay him his salary without that number. Truskey v. Vilsack, No. 21-5821, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 23220 (6th Cir. Aug. 19, 2022).

In New York, parents seeking welfare benefits for their children refused to obtain a social security number for them. The court found that they "truly held that obtaining social security numbers would have seriously jeopardized the children's spiritual well-being and chance to enter Heaven." Stevens v. Berger, 428 F. Supp. 896, 902 (E.D.N.Y. 1977). The trial testimony is revealing:

Q. What is it about the social security number that makes it unique according to your belief ...?

A. The fact that, unlike other numbers, you must use it to work, you must have it to cash checks which would then lead to buying things--bank accounts. It is used for identification and without it you would have a pretty hard time functioning in society. ... I think that is a pretty good description of the numbers the Antichrist will use.

Q. Because of the power behind it, are you saying?

A. Yes, the power behind it; the power it holds over you ... to control human life.

The scores of cases involving individuals connecting the social security number to the Mark of the Beast are variations on the same theme. On one hand, the citizen believes that taking the Mark of the Beast will result in eternal damnation. The source of this is again found in the book of Revelation. "If anyone worships the beast . . . and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand ... he will be tormented with fire and sulfur ... and the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever." Rev. 14:9-11. On the other hand, the person who fails to obtain or otherwise use a social security number will not be issued a driver's license, receive a state pension, or be eligible for a professional license. They cannot register their car, hold a hunting license, or even marry. Why is that? And how does it work?

To obtain federal funding, states must opt into a federal system related to child and spousal support which mandates the use of social security numbers as a prerequisite for applications for a "professional license, driver's license, occupational license, recreational license, or marriage license." Want to go fishing in Alabama, work as a plumber in Texas, or get married in Michigan? If so, a federal statute and a corresponding state law mandates entering a social security number on the respective applications. In reality, this system acts as an invasive danger equal to or greater than government or private corporations using biometric technologies to track people and purchases.

Whether an omen, cosmic coincidence, or divine comedy, the federal statute that requires the social security number on these applications happens to be numbered 42 U.S.C. 666. Consider the holding in an opinion involving a construction worker from Idaho who simply wanted to apply for a contractor's license. He couldn't completely fill out the application due to the requirement of entering a social security number, viewing the number as "a form of the mark . . . of the 2-horned beast written of in the Holy Bible." Because he believes it morally wrong to participate in a governmental, universal identification system, especially to buy or sell goods and services, the contractor asked for an exemption. In language that would raise eyebrows in many Sunday school classes, the Court wrote that there are no exemptions allowed because Section "666 . . . requires uniform compliance." Ricks v. State Contractors Bd., 164 Idaho 689 (Ct. App. 2018). To no one's surprise, the numbering of this statute fails to assuage the fears of the faithful.

Though not explicitly claiming a fear for their own souls, lawmakers are also anxious. More than a dozen states have passed laws to curb and even prohibit some of the types of coercive measures described here. For example, in California, requiring, coercing, or compelling an individual "to undergo the subcutaneous implanting" of an identification device comes with a $10,000 penalty. Cal. Civ. Code § 52.7. Illinois created a private cause of action for the unlawful collection of biometric data. 740 Ill. Comp. Stat. Ann. 14/20. Though the protections that California, Illinois, and the eleven other states that have passed similar laws move this matter towards the right trajectory, they have narrowed the reach to only private actors.

If redemption requires recognition of sin, confession, and repentance, state legislatures--and indeed Congress--must not exempt themselves. State and federal actors should be named first on the list of entities prohibited from invasive conduct; this includes mandated identification numbers--like Section 666--and compelled issuance of biometric technologies.

Those who voted to ratify the Bill of Rights were adamant about the necessity of securing people in their persons, houses, papers, and effects. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that Fourth Amendment security includes digital information on a cell phone. Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373 (2014). Of course, since the high court's decision, the storage of biometric data on cell phones is commonplace. There is no principled reason why warrantless collection of data should not be off limits, whether stored on cell phones or the physical body--say the hand and forehead.

In connection with this, the government's use of private corporations as a proxy to access personal information by flipping collected data to itself breaches the wall separating the citizen from the State erected by the Founding Generation. Whether private data is purchased for thirty pieces of silver, or whatever the going rate, it is the price of betrayal of the citizens by their government. 

As the offspring of the Age of Reason, attorneys should find the unholy alliance between state--or corporate--data collection as a passthrough to the federal government as unenlightened. Likewise, whether persons of faith or atheists, the legal community should be agnostic on the proposition that a cashless society can remain a free society. It is a foolhardy thing to sacrifice the Constitution--or one's soul--on the altar of convenience. Because of this, don't be surprised if Christians prefer cash.

Further Reading:

Browning, John. June 21, 2022. "Is The Devil in The Details? Religious Objections to Biometric Technology in The Workplace" 99 U. Det. Mercy L. Rev. 299.

Chang, R. March 8, 2024. "TSA Facial Recognition is Being Rolled Out at More US Airports." Condé Nast Traveler.

Lin-Fisher, Betty. Sept. 4, 2024. "Are we moving toward a cashless, checkless society?" USA TODAY.

Zhanna L. Malekos Smith. July 9, 2024. "The rise of preemptive bans on human microchip implants" U.S. Global Engagement Initiative.

Perez, S. July 20, 2023. "Amazon's palm-scanning payment technology is coming to all 500+ Whole Foods," TechCrunch.