I had been thinking over the past months that I should write something about the conspiracy theory mindset that leads people to believe in specific conspiracies. There’s a difference here, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen this difference explained and explored. Now, with the newest wackadoodle thinga-ma-bob of “QAnon” that has exploded over the past few weeks, I’ve been given a renewed nudge.
First let me explain the difference mentioned above, although my wording is probably pretty clear already. If you tend to be credulous and uncritical, you’ll be a much easier mark for those pushing specific theories because you won’t question them. However, that fault in your thinking can be changed. You can be exposed to rigorous logic. You might become friends with someone who’s willing to patiently explain the facts in a non-threatening way. Over time, as you look at the evidence, you could come to see that you’ve been mistaken. It wouldn’t require a shift in your whole worldview for you to realize your mistake; you’d simply become willing to open your mind to reality. You could smile ruefully and say, “Yes, I used to believe that X did Y, but that was before I did some research for myself. Now I see that the theory doesn’t hold up.”
A conspiracy mindset is different, though, because it is based on a certain view of the world: dark forces are at work, and only I and a select group of my fellow believers know the truth. Everyone else is buying into a falsehood. There’s an elitism going on here, mixed in with the glee that comes from being a member of an exclusive club. Once you have this viewpoint firmly entrenched, you are an easy mark for every silly idea that comes along masquerading as truth, as long as that silly idea confirms what you already think. The person with the conspiracy mindset buys into “’motivated reasoning’–a psychological term for the way we bend facts, observations and reason itself to fit our emotions. Conspiracy theories are among the purest forms of motivated reasoning because they not only yoke disparate and often unconnected facts to an overarching theory, they even invoke the absence of facts as further evidence.” (“Farce as Tragedy” by Jonah Goldberg, National Review, Aug 9, 2018)
So far, so good. I’m kind of beating a dead horse here, aren’t I? It’s all been said before. What struck me, though (and I don’t claim this to be an original insight) is that modern-day conspiracy mindset is simply a variant of the old bugaboo that’s been haunting Western thought and the Christian Church for two millennia: Gnosticism. While the exact definition of that term is notoriously hard to pin down, one of its main aspects is the idea of “secret knowledge” that one must discover in order to receive salvation. There are mysteries that can only be understood by the enlightened. Everyone else is in the dark.
But wait a minute. This kind of secret society, I’m-in-the-know-but-you’re-not attitude can’t have started with a heresy that grew out of the early Church. Sinful human nature has been around since the Fall. Suddenly I heard the words that Satan said to Eve in the Garden of Eden:
The serpent told the Woman, “You won’t die. God knows that the moment you eat from that tree, you’ll see what’s really going on. You’ll be just like God, knowing everything, ranging all the way from good to evil.” (Genesis 3:4-5, The Message*)
There it is, the original temptation that led us into the mess we’s in: the desire to be like God by knowing everything that He knows. We’re often told that the original sin was that of pride, but I think it’s worth pointing out that it was a specific kind of pride: the smug satisfaction of being in on a secret.
So here we sit in the supposedly enlightened 21st century, buying into the most unbelievable ideas, because we’ve bought into Satan’s foundational deception of our being able to know what God knows by our own puny efforts, by trying to get behind the curtain for ourselves. And the ironic thing is that there are many Christians who are getting caught up in this net. Why ironic? Because Christianity has the very opposite attitude about the truth: If we are willing to listen to what God says in His Word, the truth is freely available to us. Two quotations from the Gospels make this concept abundantly clear:
Philip said, “Come, see for yourself.” (John 1:46b, The Message*)
“If you stick with this, living out what I tell you, you are my disciples for sure. Then you will experience for yourselves the truth, and the truth will free you.” (John 8:32, the Message*)
The light of the Gospel is, literally, the light of truth. No esoteric means are necessary to see it.And if Christians know the source of the light, we also know the source of the darkness: Satan himself.
He would very much like for Christians to believe in as many nutty theories as possible, because those beliefs are distractions from our focus on the real deal.
So do you believe that the “globalist elites” are trying to take over the world? Pure conspiracy theory thinking. (And anti-Semitic to boot. Any time you hear that phrase, think “Jews.” It never ceases to amaze me that Evangelical Christians who say they’re friends of the nation of Israel buy into this type of anti-Semitism.) Do you think that God has written the Gospel in the stars, and that those in the know can read the secret signs that tell the time of Christ’s return? (I kid you not.) Purest, purest Gnosticism. Or are you even now trying to form the breadcrumbs of QAnon into a loaf of truth? That’s just (to use the technical term) crazy talk.
What’s the cure for all this nonsense?
Our Message is not about ourselves; we’re proclaiming Jesus Christ, the Master. All we are is messengers, errand runners from Jesus for you. It started when God said, “Light up the darkness!” and our lives filled up with light as we saw and understood God in the face of Christ, all bright and beautiful. (II Cor. 4:5-6, The Message*)
*All Scripture quotations are taken from THE MESSAGE, copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.