What do you think? Is this whole QAnon conspiracy thing important or not? And should mainstream evangelical leaders be concerned?
That was the messy topic that “Crossroads” host Todd Wilken and I discussed in this week’s podcast (click here to tune that in). Looming in the background were some Twitter debates in which several people criticized my recent GetReligion post that ran with this headline: “The Atlantic probes QAnon sect and finds (#shocking) another evangelical-ish conspiracy.”
Let’s review a few things that I said in that earlier post. For starters, I do plead guilty to saying that some folks on the cultural left are a bit too fond of conspiracy theories involving scary evangelicals. Here’s how I stated that, while taking a shot at fringe folks on the right, as well:
It’s almost as if evangelicals are playing, for some strategic minds on the left, the same sick, oversized role in American life that some evangelicals assign to Hillary Clinton, George Soros, Bill Gates and all those liberal Southern Baptist intellectuals who love Johnny Cash and Jane Austen.
I was reacting to that recent “The Prophecies of Q” at The Atlantic, part of a larger “Shadowland” package about the growing importance of conspiracy theories in American politics.
Now, I think this Atlantic material is must reading, in part because the QAnon phenomenon isn’t well known in the evangelical mainstream. There are run-of-the-mill evangelical leaders who need to know more about this dark-web stuff, just as they needed to know about the twisted religious elements in the larger alt-right. When it comes to technology and politics, this “Shadowlands” package breaks new ground.
Did I attack The Atlantic — a publication frequently praised at GetReligion — and tell people to ignore this topic? Did I say QAnon has nothing to do with the big, complex world of evangelicalism? Let’s see. Here is the end of my earlier piece.
There is something new happening in dark corners of the World Wide Web and, yes, this includes some conservative Christians (and lots of people who say they are Christians). This Atlantic piece is important reading, because this is a serious magazine that speaks for and to serious people.
But where, in all of this, are the voices of traditional Christians — including mainstream evangelicals — who think all of this QAnon stuff is postmodern heresy on digital steroids?
I fear that some readers will dismiss this discussion as mere ravings by the Principalities and Powers of the Acela Zone. There is a real story here. But there needs to be more to it than scribes at The Atlantic getting to draw an oh-so-familiar red line between what they consider Enlightened religion and all of that bad, dangerous evangelical faith lurking out in the heartland.
You see, I was trying to make a journalism point. The problem wasn’t that this Atlantic piece had too much in it about evangelicalism. The problem what that it didn’t have enough.
This piece contained key quotes from grassroots evangelical folks who clearly are deep into Q stuff. What it didn’t contain were quotes from evangelical leaders — evangelicalism has always been a movement defined by its leaders — who have to some degree endorsed Q doctrines. Also, the article didn’t quote mainstream evangelical leaders (think denominational leaders, seminary professors, authors, etc.) who keep attacking conspiracy theories.
Thus, when it comes time to learn about QAnon’s clout in contemporary evangelicalism, readers get passages such as this one:
Arthur Jones, the director of the documentary film Feels Good Man … told me that QAnon reminds him of his childhood growing up in an evangelical-Christian family in the Ozarks. He said that many people he knew then, and many people he meets now in the most devout parts of the country, are deeply interested in the Book of Revelation, and in trying to unpack “all of its pretty-hard-to-decipher prophecies.” Jones went on: “I think the same kind of person would all of a sudden start pulling at the threads of Q and start feeling like everything is starting to fall into place and make sense. If you are an evangelical and you look at Donald Trump on face value, he lies, he steals, he cheats, he’s been married multiple times, he’s clearly a sinner. But you are trying to find a way that he is somehow part of God’s plan.”
That’s valid, I guess. But what is new about evangelicals dipping deep into a century’s worth of Premillennial dispensationalism and then stirring it into their political views? It’s important that some fringe folks are mixing evangelical talk into their QAnon politics, but this is — sadly — just the latest chapter in a long story about one niche inside evangelicalism. You see, lots of secular right-wingers love to yank the chains of scared evangelicals.
So what did the QAnon prophecies essay need? It needed material drawn from major evangelical leaders who are concerned about QAnon and who can critique this trend, drawing on deep wells of evangelical history and doctrine. Baylor University historian Thomas Kidd leaps to mind, author of the recent book “Who Is an Evangelical? A History of a Movement in Crisis.” Or how about former GetReligionista Joe Carter of The Gospel Coalition? Karen Swallow Prior, now of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, is a well-known voice online.
Then again, Ed Stetzer — leader of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College — has been writing about conspiracy thinking for several years now. Here is a chunk of a new piece, written with colleague Andrew MacDonald, at The Dallas Morning News. The headline: “Too many evangelical Christians fall for conspiracy theories online, and gullibility is not a virtue.”
Here is a crucial passage, noting the role that technology — empowering advocacy media on left and right — is playing in the rise of this new heresy.
With so many platforms in a culture that is so politicized, it’s often hard to know where to go for national news. What channel we turn on often reveals more about our politics than ever before. Within this climate, conspiracy theories thrive by feeding on our uncertainty and playing to our biases. …
While conspiracy theories are not confined to a specific segment of the population, we are mostly concerned with evangelical Christians sharing conspiracy theories. Too often our evangelical commuity has been too easily fooled, and too much is inappropriately shared. …
As evangelicals ourselves, we think it is time that the church recognizes the growing foothold conspiracy theories are gaining in our midst and what this means for our credibility and witness. These theories are gaining power in the church, and during this crisis when many are at home and online more than ever, the theories are a headache we can no longer ignore.
Amen. It would be good for journalists to interview evangelicals who know the fault lines inside their own movement. QAnon is out there on the dark edges, where wolves are chasing sheep once again, pushing a new heresy with old roots.
Enjoy the podcast and, please, pass it on to others.