Conspiracy and the Christian
by Bob Stevenson
I was in college when I encountered my first real conspiracy theory from a real person who really believed it. It was during a street evangelism session at Moody Bible Institute. After the session, I approached a bystander and asked what he thought of the presentation. Ten minutes later my head was reeling. The fellow had lots of thoughts about the Bible that sounded like Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code, Bart Ehrman’s writings, and a few tabloids thrown in a blender. As a Bible student studying textual transmission, I knew this guy was off his rocker, and I tried to engage rationally. But he was a believer. He had it all worked out. Nothing I could say would change his mind.
What struck me about the exchange was the impenetrability of this man’s theories. No matter what I said, he always had a rebuttal. How did I know that my sources were stronger than his sources, that my evidence was more robust than his? Especially when his own theory felt so coherent to him.
Conspiracy theories have been around a long time. But they have surfaced with a vengeance in recent years, serving up a counter narrative to the official explanations for all sorts of things. Conspiracy theories are fringe beliefs but have become increasingly popularized and believed by average voters, citizens, and—important for our purposes—church members.