Why Are Christians So Easily Fooled by Conspiracy Theories?

Especially adults who claim to be followers of Jesus and people of “The Truth.”

During Barack Obama’s presidency, it was Christians claiming online (and sometimes from the pulpit) that Obama was a secret

Muslim and the country was headed for mandatory Sharia Law (despite the fact that less than 1% of the U.S. population identifies as Muslim).

After the Sandy Hook school shooting that killed 26 people (most of them children), I was shocked at the number of Christians who posted

videos claiming the attack was a staged “false flag” operation led by the liberal government.

During the 2016 Presidential Election, Christians were asking to look into Hillary Clinton’s supposed ties to a pedophile sex ring run out of a Washington D.C. pizzeria.

And after DNC staffer Seth Rich was murdered, it was Christians sharing links to conspiracy theories – even after Fox News retracted their original story.

And, with COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 Presidential campaign in full swing, the amount of Christians posting and sharing conspiracy theory videos has attained critical mass.

For many of us, it can be demoralizing to watch as these people fall deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole of convoluted government plots and paranoid speculation.

However, rather than attempt to debunk the plethora of conspiracy theories at play (a nigh-impossible task), it’d probably be more helpful to understand why ‘Christians’ are so enamored with them in the first place.

Our government does shady things and gets caught. Pharmaceutical companies price gouge medications. Powerful people silence victims of sexual assault and abuse. Sex trafficking and the sexual exploitation of minors really happens.

Foreign governments are attempting to sow discord in the U.S. through social media. Systemic injustices and cultural prejudices hamper some people’s ability to succeed in our society.

These are not the “conspiracy theories” I’m talking about.

I’m also not talking about partisan differences of opinion. Left-leaning people will always watch and read left-leaning news, and right-leaning people will always watch and read right-leaning news. And that’s okay.

Our republic is built upon the salient fact that people will (and should) disagree.

And, while most conspiracy theories are driven by partisan agendas, they’re not one and the same. You can have a right- or left-leaning perspective on current events and not be guilty of

spreading unfounded conspiracy theories, this is an important distinction to make.

I’m talking about conspiracy theories related to false flag attacks, Deep State, Illuminati, Freemasons, QAnon, Flat Earth, shadow government, or any other belief system that hinges on the

assumption that much of our lives are controlled by plots hatched in secret places by a select few individuals.

Conspiracy theories appeal to a strong streak of narcissism: there are people who would choose to believe in complicated nonsense rather than accept that their own

circumstances are incomprehensible, the result of issues beyond their intellectual capacity to understand, or even their own fault.
It’s one of the reasons conspiracy theories are more likely to spread among people with lower levels of education.

Conspiracy theories will spread among people with radical political ideologies.

In other words, “The masses have been fooled by the media and/or government, but I’m special and different, and I know the truth!”

While narcissism isn’t a motivator for all conspiracy theorists,

it does explain why some people have such a hard time letting go of a conspiracy theory – even when confronted with incontrovertible proof their beliefs are wrong.

And, this is also why challenging someone’s belief in a conspiracy theory is often interpreted by that person

as a personal attack. No one wants to admit they’ve been fooled. And once you sacrificed your reputation and social capital for the sake of a conspiracy (like posting something on Twitter), it becomes harder for your ego to disengage from the illusion.

And, perhaps more damaging, conspiracy theories gradually become self-isolating echo chambers. If you ever argued with someone peddling a conspiracy theory, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

The Wall Street Journal‘s Blue Feed, Red Feed visual experiment brilliantly illustrates, many of us already inhabit ideological echo chambers on social media. And when the people we follow on Twitter and Facebook all begin peddling the same conspiracy theory, we’ll often adopt

the belief to not feel out of the loop – thus contributing to a feedback loop of misinformation and deception)

When people attach their belief in a conspiracy theory to their ego, it can be nearly impossible to convince them that they’re wrong. Every piece of contrary evidence you present becomes part of the conspiracy and expands the scope of the deception.

That’s what “They” want you to believe. If you just did some research, you’d find The Truth. All your sources are just part of the Cover-Up. You actually believe those “fact-checking” websites? I wish you’d open your eyes and not be such a sheep.

It’s an insidious bit of circular logic that not only creates a criticism-proof belief system, but it also makes a twisted sort of sense.

Conspiracy theories are self-perpetuating rationalization machines.

They eat facts, distort reality, and destroy relationships. And, by the time someone realizes they’re in too deep, it’s often too late to salvage a reality-based worldview (or the relationships of the people they isolated in the process).

Christians are repeatedly pandered to by far-right conspiracy theory websites

In response to the surge of COVID-19 conspiracy theories, Saddleback Church in California and The Humanitarian Disaster Institute had to band together to create a resource for pastors to quell the

spread of misinformation in their congregations.

And after renowned pastor Ed Stetzer wrote an article for Christianity Today calling for Christians to avoid posting conspiracy theories about COVID-19, the Christian publication had to amend the original article with a note

commenting on the flood of vitriol the article received.

No one is immune from conspiratorial thinking, but Christians have a bit more to lose from falling for conspiracy theories. And I think there a few additional reasons Christians may be

susceptible to unhealthy paranoid skepticism.

Maybe it’s because, from a young age, some Christians were taught the “scientific establishment” was out to destroy our belief in the Bible by disregarding Creationism and promoting the “theory” of evolution.

From adults they trusted, they were given an implausible conspiratorial mindset from childhood, and now they can’t shake it.

Or maybe they were convinced by the Left Behind books and a manufactured intepretation of Biblical prophecy that a satanic one-world government was on the horizon that they had the ability to “decode” clues in the current events that predict the apocalypse.

Or maybe because they’ve already been conditioned by a belief system that there exists a hidden spiritual reality that making the leap to a hidden “shadow government” isn’t all that big of a deal.

Of course, not all   Christians are conspiracy theorists. But there are enough Christian conspiracy theorists doing enough damage that other Christians shouldn’t feel afraid to call them out. Thet need to hold themselves and each other to a higher standard of objective truth.

And it’s important to note that a lot of Christians share conspiracy theories out of good faith. They believe they’re sharing the truth. But most conspiracy theories are rotten at the core. It’s obvious they’re rooted in fear, insecurity, and loneliness.

And they’re often designed to give us more reasons to loathe our ideological enemies.

Conspiracy theories play upon our fear by supplying a more powerful emotion: rage. Fear can so quickly morph into anger because it provides an object:

they are to blame, they caused this, they deserve retribution.

Conspiracy theories speak to a desire to be a part of a story bigger than ourselves. And what blows my mind is that Christians should already believe that to be true.

Christians shouldn’t need to buy into conspiracy theories to feel special, or to make sense of the world, or to make their lives feel more exciting

If there was ever a group of people that should care about the truth, it should be the people who believe ‘the truth sets you free’

Integrity should matter for Christians, but too often it does not…Proverbs 28:18 explains, ‘The one who lives with integrity will be helped, but one who distorts right and wrong will suddenly fall.

I’m not suggesting Christians should believe everything the government says.
Not by a long shot.

To the contrary, they need to learn to differentiate between government officials and public policy experts. They’re rarely one and the same. Elected officials will often act in

opposition to the advice of public policy experts if they believe it’ll hurt their chances of re-election.

I’m also not implying that Christians should believe everything the media says (though, it should be noted, that when people use the term “the media” in a derogatory

fashion what they’re really referring to is “media outlets that don’t share my partisan worldview”). This is not to say we shouldn’t be skeptical. By all means, we should ask questions. But we also need to be skeptical of whom we seek answers (and our own motives for seeking

alternative explanations). There’s a stark difference between “questioning the narrative” and peddling misleading theories as truth just because it’s different than what the “mainstream media” is reporting.

The spread of misinformation is an issue we all need to confront – no matter our political persuasion, religious affiliation, or age demographic. If the online sphere is our new battleground then truthful information should be our weapon of choice.

Because conspiracy theories aren’t harmless.

To this day, conspiracy theorists still harass the families of the first-grade children who died in the Sandy Hook school shooting. In December 2017, a man opened fire in a D.C. pizzeria with an assault rifle

because he was convinced it was filled with trafficked children as a result of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. In October 2018, a man mailed pipe bombs to people named in a prominent far-right conspiracy. And downplaying a virus by posting an easily debunked “Plandemic”

conspiracy video puts real people at risk. And you’re spitting in the faces of healthcare workers risking their lives and the lives of their families.

But, on a more mundane level, posting and endorsing conspiracy theories makes Christians look like idiots. And it reinforces the public perception that Christians will fall for anything while seriously putting the object of their faith into question by outsiders who want nothing

to do with our fear-and-hatred based worldview. In his first letter to the church in Thessalonica, the apostle Paul wrote, “Don’t be gullible. Check out everything, and keep only what’s good. Throw out anything tainted by evil”

If you don’t have the time nor patience to fact-check an article or video, you have no business sharing it. Because you’re bearing false witness. If you think you’re making a difference, you’re deceiving other people. You’re harming your witness and the witness of your community.

If you still insist on spreading such misinformation, would you please consider taking Christian off your bio so that other Christians don’t have to share in the embarrassment.