# The Role of Christ in Transhumanism

Christ as savior, exemplar, and collaborator: participatory atonement, grace and works together, and the Body of Christ as the shape of a communal superhuman future.

Christ washing the disciples' feet
I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
A person filled with the love of God is not content with blessing their family alone, but ranges through the whole world, anxious to bless the whole human race.
The Title ‘Christ’ and His Invitation“Christ” is an honorific title, not a surname. It means the anointed—someone set apart for a special purpose. We use it because we recognize Jesus as someone set apart with a special purpose: to overcome all obstacles that stand between humanity and God. Mormon ritual also includes an anointing, a process whereby faithful participants are explicitly reminded of their potential to progressively become like God.
That is what He did during His mortal life; it is what He would be doing if He were living among us today; and it is what we should be doing as His disciples and members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As we emulate His perfect example, our hands can become His hands; our eyes, His eyes; our heart, His heart.
Jesus invited his followers to take on the name Christ—his title and his role. Christian disciples set themselves apart for the purpose of participating in Christ’s work and mission. We do this as we work together to overcome obstacles that stand between humanity and God. This may be as simple as befriending a neighbor, learning CPR, or saying “I’m sorry.” It may also include improving treatments for diseases, expanding our moral vision, or ethically extending technological or biological abilities to alleviate suffering, increase sustainability, and extend life. These are all central aims of transhumanism.Participatory Atonement
Laborers in the vineyard
Mormon theology does not treat the atonement as a transaction that Christ performs on us while we watch. It treats the atonement as a work that Christ invites us into. Joseph Smith taught that the Saints are to become “saviors on Mount Zion” (Obadiah 1:21; D&C 103:9–10)—that the work of redemption extends through us to our ancestors and our descendants. Christ’s atonement is the archetype for our own participation, not a substitute for it. Mormon scripture is unusually direct about where this participation leads: Doctrine and Covenants 76 describes the exalted as those who “are gods, even the sons of God.”Why read the atonement this way, rather than as a finished transaction? The reasons run deep in both the word and the doctrine. The English word atonement was coined by William Tyndale to signify the process of bringing humanity back into a state of oneness—at-one-ment—with God. Oneness is a relationship, and a relationship cannot be completed unilaterally; it requires the willing participation of everyone reconciled. Christian theologians have proposed many accounts of how Christ’s sacrifice saves—ransom paid to liberate captive humani