The quirky eschatologist that you’re looking for is René Girard, who he personally met at some point. For more details, check out the Behind the Bastards on him.
Thanks for the references. The quirky theology was so outside the range of even the weirder Fundamentalist Christian stuff I didn't recognize it as such. (And didn't trust the EA summary because they try so hard to charitably make sense of Thiel).
In this context, Thiel fears the spectre of AGI because it can’t be influenced by his normal approach to power, which is to hide anything that can be hidden and outspend everybody else talking in the open.
Except the EAs are, on net, opposed to the creation of AGI (albeit they are ineffectual in their opposition). So going after the EAs doesn't make sense if Thiel is genuinely opposed to inventing AGI faster. So I still think Thiel is just going after the EA's because he's libertarian and EA has shifted in the direction of trying to get more government regulation. (As opposed to a coherent theological goal beyond libertarianism). I'll check out the BtB podcast and see if it changes my mind as to his exact flavor of insanity.