RELIGION AND CONSPIRACY THEORIES
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Religion has a long history of conspiracy theories. When trading in a subject matter that relies on blind faith the purveyors need only to sow fear based or ignorance fueled doubt along with a plausible solution and you have the makings of a conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theories resist falsification and are reinforced by circular reasoning: both evidence against the conspiracy and an absence of evidence for it are re-interpreted as evidence of its truth, whereby the conspiracy becomes a matter of faith rather than something that can be proved or disproved – a classic definition of religion.
The Christian Bible is riddled with conspiracy theories based on good vs. evil, primarily manifested as God vs. Satin from which all else flows. Even the entire Bible has its own conspiracy theories that posits that much of what is believed about the Bible is a deception created to suppress some secret, ancient truth. Some of these theories claim that Jesus really had a wife and children, or that a group such as the Priory of Sion has secret information about the true descendants of Jesus; some claim that there was a secret movement to censor books that truly belonged in the Bible, etc.
This subject should not be confused with deliberately fictional Bible conspiracy theories. A number of bestselling modern novels, the most popular of which was The da Vinci Code, have incorporated elements of Bible conspiracy theories to flesh out their storylines, rather than to push these theories as actual suggestions. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_conspiracy_theory)
Religion & QAnon
In a March 2021, a survey was designed and conducted by Public Religion Research Institute and Interfaith Youth Core (PRRI) and (IFYC). QAnon’s core theory revolves around Satan-worshipping pedophiles plotting against Trump and a coming “storm” that would clear out those evil forces. The movement has also been described as a “big tent conspiracy theory” that involves a constantly evolving web of schemes about politicians, celebrities, bankers, and the media, as well as echoes of older movements within Christianity, such as Gnosticism, which was a prominent heretical movement of the 2nd-century Christian Church, partly of pre-Christian origin. Gnostic doctrine taught that the world was created and ruled by a lesser divinity, the demiurge, and that Christ was an emissary of the remote supreme divine being, esoteric knowledge (gnosis) of whom enabled the redemption of the human spirit.
QAnon Beliefs and Partisanship
To understand how this loosely connected belief system is influencing American politics, religion, and media, the survey posed three questions, each containing a tenet of the QAnon conspiracy movement.
1. The government, media, and financial worlds in the U.S. are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex trafficking operation”
2. There is a storm coming soon that will sweep away the elites in power and restore the rightful leaders”
3. Because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country,”
Respectively, 15%, 20% and 15% of Americans agree with each statement. While most Americans 82%, 77% and 85% disagree; 23%, 28% and 28% of Republicans agree compared to independents at 14%, 18%, 13%; and democrats at 8%, 14%, 7%.
QAnon Beliefs and Religion
Across all three questions, white evangelical Protestants, Hispanic Protestants, and Mormons are more likely than other groups to agree with each of these tenets of the QAnon conspiracy movement.
White evangelical Protestants - 25%, 26%, 24%; Hispanic Protestants, 26%, 29%, 12%; Mormon - 18%, 22%, 24%;
Protestants of color - 24%, 24%, 17%; Hispanic Catholic - 16%, 27%, 17%; Black Protestant - 15%, 25%, 12%;
Other Christian - 14%, 24%, 15%; non-Christian religious - 13%, 17%, 11%; White Catholic - 11%, 19%, 16%
Religiously unaffiliated - 11%, 12%, 12%; White mainline Protestant - 10%, 18%, 18%; Jewish Americans - 8%, 6%, 6%
About one in five white evangelical Protestants (22%), Hispanic Protestants (21%), and Mormons (21%) are QAnon believers. Fewer Hispanic Catholics (17%), other Protestants of color (16%), other Christians (14%), Black protestants (13%), white Catholics (13%), and members of non-Christian religions (12%) are QAnon believers. Religiously unaffiliated Americans (9%) and Jewish Americans (2%) are least likely to hold these beliefs.
Conversely, Jewish Americans (60%) and religiously unaffiliated Americans (57%), are the most likely to be QAnon rejecters.
Pluralities of members of non-Christian religions (46%), white Catholics (45%), and other Christians (44%) are also QAnon rejecters. Four in ten white mainline Protestants (39%) are QAnon rejecters, as are about three in ten Black Protestants (32%), Hispanic Catholics (30%), Hispanic Protestants (30%), and other Protestants of color (29%). Fewer Mormons (24%) and white evangelical Protestants (21%) are QAnon rejecters. Majorities of white evangelical Protestants (58%), Mormons (55%), other Protestants of color (55%), Black Protestants (55%), and Hispanic Catholics (54%) are QAnon doubters.
QAnon conspiracy theories have burrowed so deeply into American churches that pastors are expressing alarm - and a new poll shows the bogus teachings have become as widespread as some denominations. The problem with misinformation and disinformation is that people - lots of people - believe it. And they do not believe reality coming from the media and even their ministers. That stunning window into the country's congregations came when Axios’ Mike Allen asked Dr. Russell Moore for his response to the poll.
Dr. Russell Moore, one of America's most respected evangelical Christian thinkers, told Allen that he's "talking literally every day to pastors, of virtually every denomination, who are exhausted by these theories blowing through their churches or communities. Several pastors told me that they once had to talk to parents dismayed about the un-Christian beliefs of their grown children." But now, the tables have turned.
"For those who hope that the events of January 6 are in our past, I think this data gives little in the way of assurance," said Kristin Du Mez, a Calvin University historian of gender, faith and politics, and author of “Jesus and John Wayne.”
QAnon is more a movement than an organization - there is no HQ or public leader. The conspiracies were spread by followers of President Trump, and "Q" signifiers were common at Trump rallies. As a New York Times headline put it: QAnon Now as Popular in U.S. as Some Major Religions, Poll Suggests.
"Thinking about QAnon, if it were a religion, it would be as big as all white evangelical Protestants, or all white mainline Protestants," PRRI's Robby Jones told The New York Times. "So, it lines up there with a major religious group." QAnon may be a cult, but it's as big as Methodist, Presbyterian, and Lutheran churches combined.
Jones said he was struck by the prevalence of QAnon's adherents. Overlaying the share of poll respondents who expressed belief in its core principles over the country's total population. That is more than 30 million people, the figure often cited as the size of Trump’s base.
Pew found that there were 36 million mainline Protestants in 2014, a drop of 5 million from seven years earlier, and both Pew and PRRI say fewer than 15 percent of Americans are mainline Protestants, a tradition that includes the United Methodist Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church USA, and the Episcopal Church. (Allen – 2021)