Christians, Conspiracy Theories, and COVID-19
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The Bilderburg Group, Bill Gates, the Clintons, and the Deep State are in cahoots. They orchestrated the coronavirus pandemic in order to cower the world population and coerce everyone into accepting a ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT!
I clutch my pearls. Breathlessly pound away at my keyboard and SHARE! SHARE! SHARE!
I’m a Christian and I’m consistently disconcerted by the number of conspiracy theories I see on a daily basis in my social media feeds. These articles, videos, and podcasts are shared by people who hold to theological convictions pretty closely aligned with my own. So I’m trying to take a step back and ask the question, as many Christians claim a worldview that attests to God’s sovereign control over history and world events, why the breathless sharing and existential dread right now?
I think for many of us who hold to Christian beliefs, it comes down to two issues: certainty and control. Often, our training in our churches and theological institutions is very black and white (and I would agree that there are some issues which are that simple) but this leaves us ill-prepared to address the nuances and complexities of everyday life and especially everyday life in a pandemic. Because we crave certainty, there’s a part of us the needs an answer for everything. COVID-19? That’s got to be a part of getting everyone to take the mark of the beast. Vaccines? Never getting one because the government is just training us to accept its coercive control. Every uncertainty HAS TO HAVE AN ANSWER and when that answer is not forthcoming or doesn’t fit into our predefined political and theological boxes, we sometimes gravitate toward conspiracy.
The second thing this gives us is an illusion of control. Because we have certainty that everyone is out to get us, we can now control our lives. I don’t have to wear a mask. I don’t have to get a vaccine. I don’t need to trust those COVID-19 death numbers. I have the REAL TRUTH! Because I have the real truth I can then be in control of my life and act accordingly. Everyone else? Y’all just lemmings. We crave certainty and control and sometimes our desire for those things leads us down a dangerous path of intertwining theology with conspiracy theory. The end result is falsehood driven by religious fervor.
