On February 22, Mike Hughes died in a home-made rocket in an attempt to prove the world was flat. He had spent almost $20,000 building a steam-powered missile in an attempt to get to an observation elevation of 5,000 feet off the ground, even though he could’ve spent $200 to get a view from 30,000 feet in a commercial jet. Hughes’s death answers the question, “What’s the harm in people believing conspiracy theories?”
In a YouGov survey, researchers found that 75% of flat earthers classified themselves as religious: very religious (52%) and somewhat religious (23%). If this surprises you, I’d invite you to take a stroll through my Facebook newsfeed since COVID-19 reared its ugly head. Church-going people have been posting “Makes you think!” and “Exactly what I thought!” above YouTube videos, links to fringe blogs, and articles from political propaganda sites. Thanks to all of these conspiracy theorists, I’ve collected almost all ten of the false narratives documented by the Cornell Alliance for Science.
Everyone seems to want a scapegoat. Randomness feels too unfair. An unpatched hole in control makes us feel unsafe. Instead of properly mourning our individual and communal losses by this pandemic, we as a culture have turned to rage. But anger is a secondary emotion. It comes to us by way of anxiety, sadness, rejection, frustration, embarrassment, etc. So, anger makes sense right now. Almost everything feels outside of our power to change. We’ve been confronted by our lack of autonomy and by a sense of helplessness. We’re chafing under the weight of charts and graphs and data point that make us feel insignificant and unimportant.
These losses are real and in some situations immense. This surreal destruction flies in the face of both the international prosperity gospel and the American gospel of independence. Parishioners and systems of the church in the U.S. have been confronted by how we’ve wrapped the Bible in the Stars and Stripes and the expectations of the American Dream. It makes sense that believers of a tainted gospel have grown disillusioned with God and suspect of his sovereignty. In a world that idolizes YouTube sensations, we can’t be surprised that insidious voices on YouTube are being shared rather than Scripture. When Christian speakers push a “Jesus wants you to follow your dreams” narrative instead of a “follow Jesus” one, why wouldn’t we expect dashed dreams to send the religious to false teachers?
The biggest problem with these conspiracy theory posts isn’t that they unveil our unbiblical xenophobia or embarrassing gullibility, it’s that this fear mongering tells observers that Jesus isn’t enough, that God isn’t who we’ve said he is, that he isn’t good. That’s dangerous. Oswald Chambers wrote, “The root of all sin is the suspicion that God is not good.”
Millennia of humankind have wrestled with the tension of God’s goodness and his sovereignty. Every honest person would tell you they’ve asked, “God, why did you let that happen?” or “If you’re all-powerful, why didn’t you do something?” Those are legitimate questions, and you can hear impressive academic answers in books and talks available on other websites. Most people don’t reconcile that tension from dissertations and defenses, though. They step past their doubts after personal encounters with the divine, with sovereignty, with an inescapable sense of affection—the type of kindness the Apostle Paul wrote is what brings souls to profound change.
All of us impacted by this pandemic are looking for hope right now. We crave good news. As children of the Father of light, believers should be shining his character into the darkness, glowing with his colorful creativity into the grayness, and echoing his truth into the chaos. In the red letters of the Bible, Jesus directly called us to be as shrewd as snakes but as harmless as doves. In other words, we need to be the kind of people who vet claims we read online or hear on TV networks that profit from outrage and anxiety. We need to verify as best we can the assertions made and trace the path of logic that led to them. We need to ask what, if anything, the sources have to gain. Then, we need to ask ourselves one of the most unasked questions of our age, “What am I trying to gain by posting this?”
We need to pause when that answer isn’t rooted in demonstrating love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, or self-control. If you’d prefer a shorter list, we can revert to the simple trifecta from our moms of true, kind, and necessary. Whether we post that link or not, there are bigger questions for our soul, though—introspections like: “Why do I want this to be true?” and “What does this say about my gospel?”
I can’t speak for you, but I hope people see optimism and acceptance from my Jesus. From your Jesus, too. I hope our social media posts help friends feel inspired and proud to be a human. Let’s showcase the serendipity and sovereignty that blow our minds—those personal moments that overcome doubt and fear. May we spread wonder and beauty, as those prove precursors to worship. Let’s tell the truths that hit people on the soul level instead of on their outrage buttons. Let’s deescalate situations instead of inflame them. Let’s point people toward both justice and the value of human life. Let’s talk people off the ledge and convince them they matter.
As a bonus—if we as followers of Jesus do this, we won’t have to worry about YouTube or Facebook taking down our videos.
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Stock images purchased from iStockPhoto.com
