Evangelicals Confronting QAnon

On today’s NYT opinion page, Sarah Posner brings attention to the growing presence of QAnon among evangelicals. Posner makes several important points in this piece. One is that the QAnon conspiracies are recycled stories floating around evangelical circles for many years.  As an old-timer, I recall one world government worries and the satanic cult fears going back to high school days. The Clintons have lived rent free in evangelical heads since they came on the scene out of Arkansas.

With the advent of Trump, the various stories have morphed to form Trump as the Savior archetype in the QAnon narratives. Only he can save us. Furthermore, Trump is the bridge between the delusional and the deceived. He is the gateway drug for many from irrational support of a man to a world of make believe.

As I say in the article, those not quite yet in the QAnon snare will latch on to QAnon messaging if it helps make Trump correspond to the archetype of savior president. It doesn’t matter where it comes from or who spreads it. Christians appear to be some terrible offenders since, for many of them, Trump is the one defending their faith. Since there is only one Defender of our faith, this is a significant problem for Christianity. The Christian nationalist heresy in combination with the QAnon delusion is a powerful drug.

Go read Sarah’s op-ed and engage in the discussion in the comments.

 

42 thoughts on “Evangelicals Confronting QAnon”

  1. Hypothetically……

    What if Trump is the antichrist? This means that 80% of white Evangelicals voted for him and he is worshiped by adherents of QAnon. Thus they are responsible for the very thing they are trying to prevent and believed to be evil.

    1. Can’t find the link, but someone did an illustrated article on how Trump matches more prophecy verses about Antichrist than most of the usual suspects. Very tongue-in-cheek, but still kinda disturbing.

      In the tabletop RPG Rapture: The Second Coming (either the first edition by Quinessal Mercy Productions or the later D20 revision by HolisticDesign.com), Christians help the Antichrist into power because he doesn’t fit their End Times Prophecy charts so he CAN’T be the one. (Including the fact that in R:TSC’s scenario, there is no Pre-Trib Rapture per se). Until one day, He Is.

  2. “With the advent of Trump, the various stories have morphed to form Trump
    as the Savior archetype in the QAnon narratives. Only he can save us.”
    They’ve conjured their Devil and his Witch minions everywhere, now they conjure their God to Save Them.

  3. The roots of QAnon go back to before The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. And they bubbled up to devastating effect in the 1980s and 1990s. Yet we never learn..

    When I was a newish prosecutor, I was assigned to juvenile court. One day an entire entourage entered our courtroom. One of my partners was accompanying them, and I asked her what was up. She told me that the respondent mother in a case was there to surrender her parental rights. My partner explained that this mother had learned in therapy, via hypnotism, that she had been raised by a satanic cult, had participated in satanic rituals as a child in Iowa, and witnessed many murders, including child murders.

    This woman eventually was committed to a facility in Texas. It wasn’t until she was about to be discharged that she had a therapist whose BS meter started clanging. He looked into records from the small town and county where she grew up, and discovered there had been no murders reported that weren’t normally explained, and nowhere near the number of murders and disappearances that would have been reported if the mother’s story was true.

    The roll call of such incidents includes the McMartin School case in LA County, the Kern County (CA) cases, the Wenatchee (WA) mass molestation cases, the Jordan (MN) mass molestation cases, and many, many others. Thousands of accusations of satanic ritual child sexual abuse were made all around the country during the ’80s and early ’90s . Many people were charged, convicted and imprisoned, and it was all a lie. Social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, cops, prosecutors, judges – all got caught up in mass hysteria, credulously fell for unproven and outlandish claims of “pedophile rings” and satanic possession. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives were destroyed. It made the Salem Witch Trials look quaint. And it was all a lie.

    QAnon is just the Satanic Panic updated and repurposed for partisan politics. And if we don’t learn from the earlier panics, lives, marriages and careers will again be destroyed. It isn’t just a cute story about wackos on the internet. It is an evil that returns, over and over.

    It has to stop.

    1. As George Santayana once said “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

      ….or was it George Costanza? 🙂

    2. As George Santayana once said “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

      ….or was it George Costanza? 🙂

    3. It goes further back than that. The John Birch Society, founded in 1958, was a prominent promulgator of the far right conspiracy theories that the US government leaders were in the thrall of the Satanic New World Order elites throughout the 1960s as they pursued their racist, anti-equal rights agenda. QAnon is just the latest, perhaps slightly dumber, manifestation of the same phenomenon.

      It was recently revealed that Phyllis Schlafly, a leader in the right-wing opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment was an enthusiastic support of the JBS, even though she lied about her membership her entire life. Schlafly was a conservative Catholic, not a conservative Evangelical, but she was a Trump true believer to the end, making the case for his presidency in her last book before she died.

      1. The Protocols existed many years before the John Birch Society. And the true roots go back much further than that, to the foundations of anti-Semitism.

        I’m well aware of the John Birch Society – it was founded a few miles from where I grew up.

      2. Yes, but the John Birch Society revealed the New World Order of Kenyan birth-certificates and Starbuck’s cups that canceled Christmas through Marxist Pizzagate open borders and disarming the U.S. Armed Forces though face masks and social distancing.
        Am I doing it right?

      3. The Protocols existed many years before the John Birch Society. And the true roots go back much further than that, to the foundations of anti-Semitism.

        I’m well aware of the John Birch Society – it was founded a few miles from where I grew up.

      4. The John Birch Society, founded in 1958, was a prominent promulgator of
        the far right conspiracy theories that the US government leaders were in
        the thrall of the Satanic New World Order elites throughout the 1960s
        as they pursued their racist, anti-equal rights agenda.

        Though then it wasn’t “the Satanic New World Order elites” but “The World COMMUNIST Conspiracy” — “THE COMMUNISTS! THE COMMUNISTS! THE COMMUNISTS!”

        The American Independent Party (formerly the George Wallace for President Party) even ran a Bircher (James Schmitz) for Prez in 1972. I remember his campaign tract was in the style of a Jack Chick tract with one of the “Actions” on the last page being “PRAY!” followed by a Bible verse.

    4. Social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, cops, prosecutors, judges –
      all got caught up in mass hysteria, credulously fell for unproven and
      outlandish claims of “pedophile rings” and satanic possession

      Including a Dem Machine Party Hack DA in Miami named Janet Reno, who started her rising career by prosecuting high-profile Satanic Panic Ritual Abuse cases.

  4. QAnon adherents often accuse whose who don’t buy their message as being sheep. Yet their own motto is

    “Where We Go One We Go All”

    Isn’t that what sheep do?

    1. somewhat, but when you get to the level of QAnon followers they are better described as lemmings than sheep.

    2. I believe you meant “sheeple”? One must be careful to use the correct vocabulary!

  5. Mmmm…John MacArthur tells his followers that they are not true believers unless they vote for Trump (because he is voting Trump’s worldview) and Trump is now holding hands with QAnon followers.

      1. I don’t think he will denounce Q and it’s conspiracy theories at least before the election. But maybe later if a Q study bible is published.

          1. Yes to be clear I meant a QAnon study Bible that might compete with the MacArthur study Bible. I think Q would probably self publish ?

  6. Great article/link, and I can’t wait for your next article on how the MSM has, in conjunction with many democrats and left leaning I individuals, has propagated unfounded, false, conspiracy theories and accusations that have been investigated at the highest possible levels and all found to fake. But they have convinced many that systematic racism is true, that certain races should be responsible for what their ancestors may or may not have done, that critical race theory is gospel, and that police are for the most part bad, and Trump is directly to blame for forest fires.
    I’ll be waiting patiently.

    1. here is an idea, why don’t you hold your breath waiting for it.

      this passive/aggressive nonsense isn’t going to fly here. Warren is a conservative/moderate evangelical. He believes in cleaning his own house before complaining about others. That is why his posts focus on the behaviour of evangelicals rather than the population in general.

    2. Systemic racism is true — there’s an abundance of academic studies to show that black people are routinely discriminated against in job recruitment, bank services and loans, property rentals, and even the simple act of walking and driving in a white neighborhood, even if you factor out any economic disparity.

      Your denial comes from either a misunderstanding of what is meant by systemic racism, or a highly convenient blind spot.

      As for the rest, sure you can always find individuals that believe in any conspiracy theory, but given many of those believed by QAnon adherents are actually believed by Trump and many of those he’s appointed to positions in his administration, there’s a huge dollop of false equivalence going on here.

    3. I worked enough years in law enforcement to know that systemic is real.

      Denial is a pretty poor substitute for thinking.

    4. So, you want us to seriously consider that Q-Anon is true. Alright, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Will *you* consider the possibility that the MSM and Warren are correct in everything you think they’re wrong about?

      1. don’t know where you get the idea that I think any of Q-Anon’s statements, articles, or theories are true.

        my comment is only alluding to the fact that conspiracy theories and fake news originates on both sides of the aisle.

        and to only call out one side because you disagree with that one side is disingenuous.

        prove me wrong.

        1. Ok, leave Q-Anon out of it. Will you consider that the MSM is actually reporting the truth? Or will you not?

          Yes or no, or goodbye.

  7. The Q nitwits are always the highest quality individuals.

    “New QAnon-Allied GOP Senate Candidate Also Pushed Anti-Semitism, Flat Earthism, and 9/11 Conspiracies”
    https://www.thedailybeast.com/new-qanon-allied-gop-candidate-lauren-witzke-also-pushed-anti-semitism-flat-earthism-and-911-conspiracies?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4

    Recent photos show her as a pretty, petite, young blonde. Here’s her mugshot from just 3 years ago. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/902d53010b94d11f34b858d7624c35fe85017117fb459d9e75d5208b5f258f23.jpg Just don’t meth around.

  8. Good to hear from you Warren, was getting a bit worried you might have been ill.

    Unrelated note, are you done with the interviews for your 15 year blogging anniversary?

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