Untangling the evangelical QAnon connection.
If the QAnon slogan “Where we go one, we go all” is to be believed, it appears that the “all” are fading into history.
You see, in a stunning turn of events, Joe Biden was sworn in as President of the United States.
Well, for most people this was not surprising but simply the natural result of the November election. However, for those who bought into the conspiracy theories surrounding QAnon, this was not supposed to happen.
As a result, multiple news platforms are reporting that QAnon is beginning to fracture as many former influential figures are voicing their doubt or outright rejection of the movement. Typical of this broader dissatisfaction, one leader quoted in the BBC noted, "Today's inauguration makes no sense to the Christian patriots and we thought 'the plan' was the way we would take this country back."
Indeed.
While the potential demise of QAnon and other conspiracy theories should be relief to many, considerable work remains in addressing the destruction they’ve caused. Countless numbers were fooled, resulting in untold damage to relationships, institutions, and families. What now remains is significant amounts of anger, distrust, and shame.
And, many of these were Christians—evangelical ones at that.
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 ridicule the foolishness of those in our congregations who were deceived by conspiracy, driving them out of the church and perhaps into the arms of whatever movement steps into the vacuum of QAnon.
Or, we can engage our people refocusing ...
from Christianity Today Magazine
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