Waking Up After QAnon: How Can the Church Respond?

Why are we so concerned about Q when there is also a conspiracy theory that a whole bunch of people conspired to bring forth made up evidence of voter fraud? The conspiracy theory suggests that Donald Trump is guiding a whole bunch of people to lie under oath about what they saw. This theory is having more of an effect on the church than Qanon. In fact, even moderators on a fundamental Christian forum have fallen for this conspiracy theory.

[Mark_Smith]

Are you telling me that accepting thousands (or maybe tens or hundreds of thousands) of improperly filled out absentee and mail-in ballots is not a concern?

Stop calling me crazy.

Fake news. No evidence. 60 court cases found no evidence. Secretary of States found no evidence. Homeland Security found no evidence. DOJ found no evidence….. But I understand, a tweet from the President or Rudy has definitely more weighting than any of these.

[dgszweda]

Mark_Smith wrote:

Are you telling me that accepting thousands (or maybe tens or hundreds of thousands) of improperly filled out absentee and mail-in ballots is not a concern?

Stop calling me crazy.

Fake news. No evidence. 60 court cases found no evidence. Secretary of States found no evidence. Homeland Security found no evidence. DOJ found no evidence….. But I understand, a tweet from the President or Rudy has definitely more weighting than any of these.

The rules of the election were changed in the months before the election to allow looser acceptance of ballots. Thus, when LEO and DOJ look, they find “nothing” because the rules were changed. We need to go back to the old rules.

All 9 Justices on the US Supreme Court twice and 60 Federal and State judges in unison essentially said Donald Trump’s claim of mass voter fraud due to Mail in Ballots was absolutely FALSE.

Actually the Supreme Court never took the case, so we cannot make that statement. Further, Justices Thomas and Alito wanted to take the case so it was not all 9 justices. Further on the state levels there were split decisions among the courts about hearing the cases. None of the cases were even heard and multiple justices were giving strong dissenting opinions saying the cases should have been heard.

There is a difference between the court acknowledging that someone wants a case to be heard and saying “no” and actually hearing the case. What happened with all the election cases was that the court said “no.” None of the cases were actually tried. That is why this issue is still not settled and how the word “FACT” used in relation to fraud charges being debunked is inaccurate.

[Mark_Smith]

The rules of the election were changed in the months before the election to allow looser acceptance of ballots. Thus, when LEO and DOJ look, they find “nothing” because the rules were changed. We need to go back to the old rules.

Rules changing is not illegal. Many states do it and have done it. There is a long line of precedence and the same activities were carried out in Republican winning states. The funny thing is that everyone claims voter inconsistency for President, but the same ballots that contained the winning Republican Senators and Congressman those votes were okay. This is why it was never challenged or thrown out in court, because it was legal and the legislature did not put up any red flags when they certified the election.

[JD Miller]

None of the cases were actually tried. That is why this issue is still not settled and how the word “FACT” used in relation to fraud charges being debunked is inaccurate.

Because there was no proof. Read the findings. Most of them lambasted the attorneys who brought these cases and some judges were getting close to holding them in contempt and fining them. Why do you think they fizzled out? First, none of the courts were having any of it and second, none of the attorneys wanted to be disbarred as these shenanigans continued.

[Joeb]

Mark you are a Trumper. So no matter what I say you will say it’s false. All 9 Justices on the US Supreme Court twice and 60 Federal and State judges in unison essentially said Donald Trump’s claim of mass voter fraud due to Mail in Ballots was absolutely FALSE. GA reconfirmed that in spades ♠️ in all their repeated counts and audits. Qnon and Trump are just plain lying machines. For you Mark to try to throw a hint of fraud by your claims and concoct some mass Democratic conspiracy is absolutely wrong.

Unfortunately scare tactics and misinformation are the big Evangelical Money Maker. Foolish Evangelicals give money to support these very foolish Christian Right initiatives instead of supporting the local church and changing hearts and minds through Christ. Very sad for the young Pastors underpaid unappreciated and in the trenches who are out their expanding the Lord’s Kingdom.

Your Trump buddies tried to overthrow our Government based totally on Qnon and Trump lies. Any Evangelical/Fundy Christian at that last rally are in sin period and in my opinion are COP KILLERS. Plus they killed their own people by being foolish. Stomped that young wife to death who ironically was carrying a DONT TREAD ON ME flag. The woman that got shot was a justifiable use of deadly force by the Police Officer given the circumstances.

When those people were trying to breach the doors yelling we are going to kill you all I would have emptied every clip I had except one backup into that crowd. The only reason the Police Officers did not use more deadly force is they knew the attackers IN VIOLATION OF DC CRIMIMAL LAW were well armed. So Mark they were Criminals before even entering the Capital. One Pastor in the crowd said the violence was BIBLICALLY justified.

If Trump ran again Mark I suspect you would support Trump again. Just be honest. Sadly like Hitler Trump will make a comeback and this time like Hitler he will make himself President for Life and the Congress and Senate will only serve to be advisors. Even if he loses the vote again this time Trump will seize power by overwhelming force of the barrel of a gun and will be absolutely brutal with his followers assassinating every Democrat they can get their hands on and any Republican proven to be disloyal. Trump will not make the same mistake twice. Over the next four years he will brood and want total revenge as civil and criminal courts will try to take him apart legally. On his rebound he will be deadlier than ever and again the Evangelicals will flock to his cause for 2024 with his promise of vanquishing the Demon Democrats and Outright outlawing abortion and gay marriage.

Maybe it’s God’s will for the sin of this Country equally shared by extremists on both sides. We are no where to be found in the last days Biblical Prophecies so Trump maybe our Leader that leads us to our demise into a Police State. It seems to many Fundy/Evangelicals desire this to overcome abortion and gay marriage and Trump will deliver as long as he can enrich himself and his corrupt family. Oh Trump will probably trade Melania in for a new 20 something beautiful model so will get a whole new First Lady.

Joeb, you are so full of it you don’t even know what you are talking about. I was put on a block to this blog for over a year where my posts had to be approved by Jim or Aaron for a TENTH of the bull, presumptions, and lies you wrote about me.

The only reason Senators won’t support the impeachment is because Trump’s thugs are making threats? How do you know that? How can you discern the motives of another’s heart? How do you know that these Senators do not have legal and constitutional reasons that cause them to believe that impeaching a man who is no longer in office is purposeless if not illegal?

What is the purpose of impeachment? Isn’t it to consider evidence that someone is not fit for office and to remove him from office if the evidence warrants it?

Some of the greatest constitutional minds (including Democrats) have declared this unconstitutional. But somehow you know the workings of these Senators minds to declare that their reasons have nothing to do with sincere objections to what they consider to be an illegal procedure? Amazing.

In an effort to help people calm down, I offer this picture of a kitten …

This is a kitten after the new executive order from President Biden. Just because it was born a dinosaur does not mean it cannot identify as a kitten.

Seriously, from what I’ve seen, there are two major reasons Republicans aren’t supporting conviction. First, many are convinced that you can’t do it to someone who’s left office. I disagree, but that’s part of the rationale. Others are not convinced that what Trump is accused of doing really isn’t any worse than what a lot of Democrats have done, including Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, and others who were encouraging riots that were far more destructive and lethal.

Could it be threats from Drumpf? Well, I’m going to need to see some evidence for that, including witnesses who are willing to be named.

you are so clueless. I will not vote for Trump again. I’ve said that before on this blog! I’ve repeatedly said Trump made all kinds of mistakes.

But I am deeply concerned at the injustice of the 2020 election. State legislatures have the sole authority to establish election procedures, not secretaries of state or local officials. Also, voter id is a must.

Joe, my thought is that by 2024, Trump is going to decline physically a bunch. He clearly put on 30-40 lbs in the White House and has lost a lot of vigor already. Four more years of brooding and putting down the Big Macs is not going to help him, and since his candidacy depends even more on image than the average politician, that’s going to kill his hopes, IMO.

Regarding the state legislatures, they really didn’t have a choice. They did not, for whatever reason, intervene when voting restrictions were (illegally and foolishly IMO) loosened for the epidemic, and then they had results that they could either approve, or throw out the election altogether—you can’t just remove ballots once they’re counted.

At this point, my take is that people who care about our republic have two years to start taking a very good look at who voted, how many people were at certain addresses, how often they voted, whether they are felons or dead, and other factors that would clearly indicate fraudulent voting. If you demonstrate that a lot of votes are likely not real, the liberal mantra “elections are fair” becomes much harder to sustain.

To draw a picture, we are the only nation with widespread mail voting that did things the way we did—in Europe, mail voting is far more regulated than here. So to argue that fraud is not a big issue is to deny the lessons those other countries have learned, some the hard way.

[Mark_Smith]

But I am deeply concerned at the injustice of the 2020 election. State legislatures have the sole authority to establish election procedures, not secretaries of state or local officials. Also, voter id is a must.

And this is the QAnon angle. Whether you believe it or not, is irrelevant. The language is there. With that said, you are entirely wrong. State Legislatures delegate significant authority to local election officials on all types of procedures. That is also legal. Many republican winning states made some of the exact same decisions around procuedures at the local election level as did the states that Trump and co. are complaining about. The issue was never about righting voter issues, but overturning the election. They didn’t contest all states where local officials changed procedures, even when they were identical. They didn’t contest republican senators and congressman who won in WI, PA, GA….. Only just the presidential vote and only on those swing states that could swing the vote to them. Pretty fishy to begin with.

I just don’t see why you are clinging to “injustice of the 2020 election”. Every “injustice” claim debunked with clear facts, despite the injustice claim never having real facts. State Legislatures who did not contest what local election officials did and certified results (many republican held). Recount after recount. Audit after audit, confirming all results. Even the signature audit in Georiga, went back and found the people who cast votes that appeared to have inconsistency and were interviewed by trained law enforcement people to confirm what they did, all coming back to confirm results. Every Dominion system audited to show that the votes matched. All court cases thrown out because of a lack of evidence (I have read many of them and Trump gave no evidence, just claims - which is not how the law works). So I scratch my head. While one side sees injustice. I look at the facts and conclude that this is probably one of the most secure and transparent elections this nation ever had.

Blaming Everything on QAnon, like several posters have here, is lazy and intellectually dishonest. And you know it.

This is my last post on Trump and the election.

A Virginia court just ruled that rules allowing mail in ballots to be submitted without postmarks (i.e. never having entered the mail and not being traceable) violates state law. Let’s not confuse “associated with QAnon” with “uniquely attributable to the same.” Again, correlation is not causation, and there’s some very real smoke there.