Crosswalk: What Is QAnon?
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I have been
quietly keeping an eye on QAnon for a while, including reading with great
interest the recent in-depth article in The Atlantic on its dynamics. But it wasn’t
until Katelyn Beaty’s reporting on its spread among Christians that I knew it
was time to speak out. The title of her article was telling: “The alternative
religion that’s coming to your church.”
So what is QAnon?
See if any of
this sounds familiar: 5G radio waves are used for mind control; George Floyd’s
murder is a hoax; Bill Gates is related to the devil; face masks can kill you;
the germ theory isn’t real; there is a ring of pedophiles made up of deep state
leaders.
This from Beaty’s reporting:
Conspiracy
theories – grand narratives that seek to prove that powerful actors are
secretly controlling events and institutions for evil purposes – are nothing new
in the U.S. But since 2017, a sort of ur-conspiracy theory, QAnon, has
coalesced in online forums and created millions of believers. “To look at QAnon
is to see not just a conspiracy theory but the birth of a new religion,” wrote
Adrienne LaFrance in The Atlantic in June.
Named after “Q,”
who posts anonymously on the online bulletin board 4chan, QAnon alleges that
President Donald Trump and military officials are working to expose a “deep
state” pedophile ring with links to Hollywood, the media and the Democratic
Party. Since its first mention some three years ago, the theory has drawn
adherents looking for a clear way to explain recent disorienting global events.
Once the
fascination of far-right commentators and their followers, QAnon is no longer fringe…
it has gained credibility both on the web and in the offline world: In Georgia,
a candidate for Congress has praised Q as “a mythical hero,” and at
least five other congressional hopefuls from Illinois to Oregon have
voiced support.
One
scholar found a 71% increase in QAnon content on Twitter and a 651%
increase on Facebook since March.
Please hear me.
This is not about politics. It is not about whether you plan to vote for Trump
or Biden. It is about the way a set of ideas and sentiments are infiltrating
the minds of those who claim to follow Christ, even when those ideas do not
reflect the mind of Christ.
Again, from Beaty’s article:
Jon Thorngate is
the pastor at LifeBridge, a nondenominational church of about 300 in a
Milwaukee suburb. In recent months, he said, his members have shared
“Plandemic,” a half-hour film that presents COVID-19 as a moneymaking scheme by
government officials and others, on Facebook. Members have also passed
around a now-banned Breitbart video that promotes hydroxychloroquine as a cure
for the virus.
Thorngate, one of
the few pastors who would go on the record among those who called QAnon a real
problem in their churches, said that only five to 10 members are actually
posting the videos online. But in conversations with other members, he’s
realized many more are open to conspiracy theories than those who post.
Thorngate
attributes the phenomenon in part to the “death of expertise”—a distrust of
authority figures that leads some Americans to undervalue long-established
measures of competency and wisdom. Among some church members, he said, the
attitude is, “I’m going to use church for the things I like, ignore it for the
things I don’t and find my own truth.
“That part for us
is concerning, that nothing feels authoritative right now.”
So why would Christians,
of all people, fall prey to subjective truth in place of authoritative truth?
Particularly when the Christian faith is
rooted in the belief in authoritative truth and the wholesale rejection of subjective
truth? Beaty observes that “suspicion of big government, questioning of
scientific consensus (on evolution, for example) and a rejection of the morals
of Hollywood and liberal elites took hold among millennial Christians, many of
whom feel politically alienated and beat up by mainstream media. They
are natural targets for QAnon.”
Ed Stetzer,
executive director of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College, has noted
that distrust of mainstream news sources “can feed a penchant for conspiracy
theories.” The distrust of mainstream news, and the rejection of science, has
become so acute among some Christians that it has led to a plea from prominent Christian thinkers titled “A
Christian Statement on Science for Pandemic Times.”
Of even deeper concern is how this is harming the witness
of the church. Again, from Beaty:
Jared Stacy said the spread of conspiracy theories in his
church is particularly affecting young members. The college and young adult
pastor of Spotswood Baptist Church in Fredericksburg, Virginia, Stacy said some
older members are sharing Facebook content that links the coronavirus to
Jeffrey Epstein and secret pedophile rings.
He says his and
other pastors’ job is to teach that conspiracy theories are not where
Christians should find a basis for reality.
“My fear… is that
Jesus would not be co-opted by conspiracy theories in a way that leads the next
generation to throw Jesus out with the bathwater,” Stacy said, “that we’re not
able to separate the narrative of taking back our country from Jesus’ kingdom
narrative.”
Others are
concerned the theories will become grounds for more mistrust. “Young people are
exiting the church because they see their parents and mentors and pastors and
Sunday school teachers spreading things that even at a young age they can see
through,” said Jeb Barr, the senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Elm Mott
outside Waco, Texas. He said conspiracy theories are “extremely widespread and
getting worse” among his online church networks.
“Why would we
listen to my friend Joe… who’s telling me about Jesus who also thinks that
Communists are taking over America and operating a pedophile ring out of a
pizza restaurant? … Why would we be believed?”
We all know that nobody shares a conspiracy
theory. They only share what they believe to be the “truth.” Even further, when
confronted, the “media cover-up” is used to dismiss anything that would
discount the real “truth.”
But confront this
we must. As Beaty rightly notes:
QAnon is more
than a political ideology. It’s a spiritual worldview that co-opts many
Christian-sounding ideas to promote verifiably false claims…
QAnon has
features akin to syncretism—the practice of blending traditional Christian
beliefs with other spiritual systems (Underling mine. EBB4)…. Q explicitly
uses Bible verses to urge
adherents to stand firm against evil elites. One charismatic church based in
Indiana hosts two-hour Sunday services showing how Bible prophecies
confirm Q’s messages. Its leaders tell the congregation to stop watching
mainstream media (even conservative media) in favor of QAnon YouTube channels
and the Qmap website.
And it’s having
life-and-death effects: It’s hampering the work of anti-sex
trafficking organizations. The FBI has linked it to violence and
threats of violence. And its adherents are downplaying the threat of
COVID and thus putting others’ lives at risk….
At a time when
church leaders are having to host digital church and try to meet members’ needs
virtually, the idea of adding “fight heresy” to their to-do list might sound
exhausting. But a core calling of church leaders is to speak the truth in love.
It’s not loving to allow impressionable people to be taken in by falsehood. Nor
is it loving to allow them to spread falsehood and slander to others.
“Conspiracy
theories thrive on a sort of cynicism that says, ‘We see a different reality
that no one else sees,’” said Stacy. “Paul says to take every thought
captive—addressing conspiracy theories is part of that work.”
Yes.
Sources
Katelyn Beaty, “QAnon: The Alternative Religion That’s
Coming to Your Church,” Religion News Service, August 17, 2020, read online.
Terry Mattingly, “Evangelicals Split on the Notion of
‘Fake News’ and QAnon,” Knox News, June 4, 2020, read online.
Ari Shapiro, “How QAnon Conspiracy Is Spreading in
Christian Communities Across The U.S.,” NPR, August 21, 2020, read online.
Adrienne LaFrance, “The Prophecies of Q,” The Atlantic,
June 2020 Issue, read online.
“A Christian Statement On Science for Pandemic Times,”
BioLogos, view the statement.
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For more detailed info go to wikipedia
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