Waking Up After QAnon: How Can the Church Respond?
“As QAnon and other conspiracy theories begin to lose traction, pastors and church leaders face a decision. We can pretend that conspiracy theories were never really a threat to our congregation and simply move on unchanged…. Or, we can engage our people refocusing their attention back to the gospel and learn how we need to disciple better.” - Stetzer & McDonald
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…that we tend to talk past each other because we are talking about different issues. It is true that court challenges raised immediately after the election were rejected for lack of evidence, and it is also true that no state investigations uncovered discernable fraud. However, that doesn’t mean that there are no problems with the huge volume of mail in ballots, nor that none of the administrative decisions that created these “emergency” changes, ostensibly because of Covid-19, were an over-reach by government officials. There are many questions that have yet to be examined in a court of law. The courts usually move slowly. Snap decisions by judges without examining all the evidence may well be over-turned upon more careful examination.
If new mail-in ballot provisions created a situation where many ballots could not be verified nor traced once they were counted, how can anyone say that no fraud occurred? The best we can say is that no fraud has been proven. If the situation makes it impossible to verify these ballots, we can also say that a secure election has not been proven either. It’s time to examine all these ballot provisions to make sure that fraud is impossible, not simply that fraud, if committed, is untraceable. Only then will Americans become confident in the security of our elections.
G. N. Barkman
Is it really ok for Joeb to go around using the words he is using all the time here at SI? I guess Aaron and Jim don’t care?
Mark, seems to me that Scripture describes Eglon that way, no? I get purity, but if we try to be purer than Scripture indicates, we generally end up less pure.
Joe, I guess if you behave …..seriously, I do anticipate that we will have to have some serious cuts in various sacred cows in the next couple of decades.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
Please pray for me I’m having a hard time processing all this and I need to put the Lord first. Pray that our Country will get ahead of Covid 19.
I had already been praying for you. Thank you for sharing about your anxiety. Now I know how to pray for you more specifically.
There are, of course, some conflicting views on what makes for a conspiracy theory. The points of agreement on that are strong, though.
Here’s one helpful look at the topic: 7 Traits of Conspiratorial Thinking: https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-plandemic-and-the-seven-traits-…
As for “blaming everything on QAnon”… I’m not sure who’s doing that, but a couple thoughts on it:
- If we really did blame everything on QAnon, we’d be letting a whole lot of other conspiratorial thinking and irresponsible promotion of hoaxes off the hook
- QAnon is just one expression of the actual problems: grievance politics, xenophobia, pranoia, lack of disciplined thinking in general, gullibility, confirmation bias and poor use of sources. It’s a long list—and there are definitely theological elements in anthropology, hamartiology, eschatology, even soteriology. Probably anthropology more than anything else though.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
[Aaron Blumer]As for “blaming everything on QAnon”… I’m not sure who’s doing that
Do you read the posts Aaron? How about you regulate your blog from people personally attacking others (see Joeb).
And, “everything” is an expression, not a literal statement, and you know that.
[Joeb]I apologize if I offended you Mark.
Joeb, it isn’t about me being “offended.” It’s about you being rude and full of presumptuous lies about me.
Discussion