Conspiracy Theories

“I’m going to share with you the question I get more than virtually any other. It comes from sons and daughters, husbands and wives, uncles and aunts….’A person I love is deeply committed to conspiracies. What can I do?’” - David French

“The lawsuit… names as defendants the Donald J. Trump for President campaign, Trump lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, and conservative media outlets and personalities including One America News Network (OAN), Chanel Rion, Michelle Malkin, and Metaxas.” - C.Leaders

“I’ve found the most effect by engaging in a personal way. If we build up friendship capital, we can draw on that to ask questions of the conspiracy obsessed. We can pose questions like: Should we be focusing on this? Is this an important focus for a Christian? How does this impact our Christian witness? I’ve even shared with a few friends: I think you’ve gotten a little too deep here. I’m worried about you.

“There was also significant support among white evangelicals for the claim that members of antifa, or anti-fascist activists, were ‘mostly responsible’ for the attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to the survey conducted by the conservative American Enterprise Institute.” - RNS

“My Communist Party addiction lasted only 16 months, but even then I needed God’s merciful intervention to leave that drug behind. Others, though, may be able to regain a grip on reality by popping their right-wing-media-only or left-wing-media-only bubbles. One way to do this is by deliberately developing a Twitter stream that includes both liberals and conservatives.” - Olasky

“I’ve been asked this question more times and by more people than I can count over the past several weeks. …First of all, realize that the wisdom is true that one cannot reason someone out of something one was never reasoned into in the first place. …There is no easy step-by-step argument to pull someone out of a Facebook echo chamber.

“A new study from Nashville-based Lifeway Research finds 49 percent of U.S. Protestant pastors say they frequently hear members of their congregation repeating conspiracy theories they have heard about why something is happening in the country.” - BPNews

“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….

“…we have crossed a line from lone paranoid nuts to larger groups, who are starting to communicate with each other, all with an interconnected belief system.” - Geraghty

“ ‘Father, those that have lied, those that have stolen this election, those that have cheated, I place the curse of God upon them,’ Rev. Bob Rodgers of Evangel World Prayer Center in Louisville, which claims 9,000 members, said in a video clip from the service shared online.” - CPost